Pre-holiday gift for you: tips on shopping for Christmas decor.

As a holiday gift and follow up to my previous post, I’ve made the Holiday Collectibles page of the Thrifter’s Field Guide temporarily public. This will give you an idea of what that part of the website looks like (and, as usual, your feedback is appreciated and questions welcome). Below is some additional information to help you in your treasure hunt based on my favorite finds and past research. Please share your find and tips!
 
COLLECTIBLE SANTAS
 
House of Hatten / Vaillancourt
 
Carved wooden figures, occasionally chalkware. Folk art appeal. Detailed and high quality. HoH = House of Hatten. Belsnickle style Santas usually. I have found these for $3-10.
 
Clothtique Possible Dreams
 
Mixed media, high-quality clothing and accessories, nicely carved. “PD” on bottom of foot (not sure if that is included on all; if anyone knows, please comment). I usually find these for $3-5
 
Heartwood Creek / Jim Shore
 
Santas, snowmen, angels.  Crafty/folk art appearance. The larger are more valuable and typically the only ones I look up. They have names on the bottom, and some are in higher demand.
 
MR. CHRISTMAS WORLD'S FAIR
 
There are Mr Christmas items that are not from the World’s Fair series. Some of these are good to resell, others not as much. The World’s Fair animated miniatures are great for resale. I usually get those for between $5-15. The boxes are recognizable by their color and appearance.
 
TREE ACCESSORIES
 
Vintage tree toppers that light up, and especially those that spin, can be quite valuable. On the Guide page, a color-changing star is shown – sold for $65 paid around $5. However, I recently sold a brand new in package, vintage light up spinning tree topper for over $210. I paid $2.50 for it (in my blog I said $5, but forgot I had gotten it half off).
 
Certain sets of vintage lights, rotating tree stands, and talking Christmas tree kits (e.g. Douglas Fir) can be good buys. Also vintage aluminum tinsel trees.
 
DISHWARE
 
Complete sets of Christmas themed dinnerware are popular, particular 12 days of Christmas. Certain other serving pieces based on brand.
 
NATIVITY SETS
 
These vary greatly both in resale value and thrift store pricing.  Look them up. Don’t pass up the Italian putz figures. These tend to get priced high at the thrift stores and are often broken, incomplete. Certain individual figures and partial sets are valuable.
 
GERMAN Christmas ornaments, postcards, figurines
 
Most of the stores I go into put ornaments in clear plastic bags, regardless if they are glass or not. There are mercury glass and other valuable glass ornaments, but I don’t look for them as I expect them to be broken in the bags.
 
Other ORNAMENTS
 
Certain Hallmark ornaments are good to resell. The stores near me sell individually boxed ornaments for $3-$10 apiece. There are limited ornaments valuable for resale on eBay. Click the link on the page to review the characters that bring in the most money. Since the stores tend to go over these looking for what they think is valuable and most are not, I only look at these occasionally. Also, large vintage jingle bells, which I have never found, bring in big bucks.