Are You Hep To The Jive?

True, the holidays are officially so last week and over and all, but if you're a cheap penny-pinching Scrooge (read: cleverly frugal domestic goddess) such as myself, then you're aware of all the after-Xmas crap you can buy at dirt cheap prices. A box of cards that you swear you'll get around to sending out next year but probably won't because the idea of sitting down and actually hand-writing a cheerful and faux-loving note to your horrible craphead family makes your ass twitch for $2.00? Of course! A 24-pack of Xmas tree print toilet paper for $5.88? Do I even need to think about that? Bring on the bulk TP! I don't give a rat's ass if it IS July and I'm still using it, it's cheap dammit and so am I! Wait. Not like...well, who I am kidding. Nevermind.

So today I went in to one of my favorite antique malls--you know the kind. When you walk in, you get nasally-assaulted with eau de hot dogs and old people. Those kind of white trashy places are wonderful for finding awesome stuff for el cheapo prices. Not so many vintage clothing finds, but I cashed in on the vintage Xmas decor. One of my weirdly obsessive weird obsessions is vintage Xmas stuff from the 50's to 70's. The tackier, glitter-ier and plastic-ier, the better. So I was hollerin' hot damn and hallelujah when I peeped this:



Is it not ridiculous and god awful? It's tacky and gaudy and cheap-looking. Like me. Hey-yoooo! (Thank you, thank you, me and my old, unfunny jokes will be here all night.) You can't really tell, but it's huge and the bells have red light bulbs in them so when you plug it in, it has the warm glow of a skanky 1970's brothel in here. They were asking $5 for it, but instead of a fin I got to drop $3 on it instead. $3. I think the seller was just so happy to get this festive abomination out of her booth that she probably would have paid me to get rid of. But let's inspect the classiness even further:



That's right. The pseudo snow on the bells is actually smashed-up pieces of styrofoam, barely hanging on to the bells. Is there a way I can keep this up all year 'round? Maybe I can make it seasonal by swapping out that fugly/great poinsettia to go with every holiday. Ohhh, the ideas....And the Low Class Crafty Angels sing.