Well, it's Black Friday. And once again, I will observe a tradition of long-standing and NOT go shopping. I won't be standing in line at a big-box store to save thirty bucks on a flat screen TV. I will not be rummaging around the Internet looking for things to buy. I don't do a ton of Christmas shopping to begin with and what I do is pretty much done. (By the numbers, I buy gifts for eighteen people, which looks like a lot until I break it down: four are folks I send a wreath or holiday centerpiece to; five are kids who get cash; two are charity Secret Santa gifts from a wish list. This leaves a grand total of seven people I buy gifts for that I actually have to think about it. Sort of. Because two of them are cousins I get the same thing for every year.) Anyway, I have one more Secret Santa thing to take care of, and that is it.
But I do want to find something to buy from the Vermont Country Store, because I would be devastated if I didn't get this catalogue.
If you're not familiar with VCS, it specializes frumpy clothing - think muumuus (I have none); practical items - think wooden clothes-drying racks (I have two); and Ghosts of Christmas and Childhood Past.
(The Vermont Country Store also sells some "intimate solutions", but these don't show up in the catalogue. Someone told me about them and, yep, there are a few there. I'll have a muummuu, the classic Lanz nightgown, and say, maybe I'll throw in an intimate solution. I think of the classic scene in "Bananas" where Woody Allen is at the drugstore, buying The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and, oh, let me just tuck in a copy of Hustler while I'm here.)
One Christmas, when we were kids, my sister Kath and I chipped in to buy our mother some Evening in Paris Dusting Powder. This wasn't her scent. She wore Emeraude. But Evening in Paris Dusting Powder was what they sold at Sol's Maincrest Pharmacy, so that's what we went with. It couldn't have cost more than a couple of bucks. A 1.6 ounce spray bottle of the perfume goes for $59.95 from the Vermont Country Store. You can get a 2.5 ounce bottle for $19.95. I recall the smell of Evening in Paris as being harsh and unpleasant; the smell of Emeraude quite nice. I'm not willing to test that memory on Evening in Paris, but maybe I'll buy me some Emeraude.
Did I mention that I completely adore the Vermont Country Store catalogue? Even though I have instructed my sisters to get out the butterfly net if I order a muumuu or some other dowdy article of clothing from it, I completely adore this catalogue. I'd even pay to subscribe to it.
Who wouldn't want to read the mash notes strewn throughout it?
This from Polly in California:
"I have always made my own flannel nightgowns, but have been unable to find good-quality flannel. I even searched in Europe. I don't know where Lanz found the fabric, but I doubt that I will be making my own nightgowns in the future - I'll just buy more of these."
Whoa! There's someone who actually made her own flannel nightgowns? Who wasn't Ma Ingalls? Yowza!
My mother sewed a lot of our clothing growing up, but even she didn't make our nightgowns. (She did, however, attempt to make bathing suits for my sister Kath and me one summer. Epic. Fail. Among other things, the fabric was so heavy, and got so waterlogged, you were dragged down into the deep when attempting to swim in it. Hmmmm. Not that I could blame her, but was my mother trying to kill us???)
Sure, Sandy in Massachusetts is grooving on the king-sized Queen Victoria Metallassee bedspread, but it's mostly the flannel nightgowns that have Vermont Country Store fans in a swoon.
Thus, Merle in New Jersey gushes about the Eileen West nightgown, which actually costs even more than a Lanz ($89.95 vs. $79.95):
"I have it in every color you carry. It's beautiful, sturdy and roomy."
Looks like that one just comes in Peony and Purple, but there are plenty of other Eileen West nighties for Merle to choose from.
Mostly it's women who write in, but Ned in Illinois admires the "unmatched" quality and craftsmanship of his Irish knit sweater. Maybe he's married to Liz in Illinois, who had high praise for the shimmering, stretchy bathrobe.
The tiny working accordion. The Kit-Kat Clock with the moving eyes. The pot holder kit.
So many wonderful, mostly kitschy, things to choose from.
I may not want it all. I may not really want any of it.
But I sure do want to keep getting the Vermont Country Store catalogue.
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And happy 65th to my brother Rick! Sadly, nothing from the Vermont Country Store. As always, I got you a book.
That picture of the caroler candles threw me back to my childhood like a little time machine. So often your writing gives me memories I didn't know I had. Yay you as usual.
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