The Santa mug cabinet

Years ago, I bought an old white kitchen cabinet from a friend for $25. It was "distressed" before we even started using that word, but I liked it, and I still do. It definitely needs painting and freshening and some new hardware, but it's been home to many of my tea wares for years, and I'm rather attached to it now. I recently decided to take everything out of it to inventory my teacups and saucers, and since I did, I decided it would be fun to decorate it for Christmas just this once. So for the rest of this month, at least, it's the Santa mug cabinet!

In between the mugs, I scattered a few of my vintage finds from the past year. One I'm most enjoying is my first putz house. I'd read about these for years but never actually owned a vintage one. When I found this one for $6 at a local antique shop, and it had roses on it, I decided it was perfect.

Another antique mall find (and maybe it was two years ago? can't remember) was a vintage *plastic* tree! I'd forgotten about the plastic decor of my childhood until I started seeing things like this tree and faux doilies made of plastic. 

And I wish I knew more about Lefton figurines. All I knew about this one was that a) it was so homely it was cute and b) it was 49 cents at the thrift store and had the original Lefton sticker on it.

This little honeycomb guy is actually an ornament. I was surprised to find him for $2 at an antique mall. Would love to find a stash of old honeycomb tissue ornaments some day!

Every year, different Santa mugs appeal to me. Perhaps because I spent much of the year working on a Christmas book featuring red and white, I'm now drawn to pastels once again, and this Santa's pink cheeks have caught my attention.

One good thing about all of the old red and white stuff, though, is that it all blends well!

And yes, I do close the doors so we can walk around the cabinet! I'm thinking one of my 2021 projects may be to paint it (and the kitchen!) turquoise and add new hardware to give it a newer "distressed" look. I think my tea wares would appreciate more modern accommodations, don't you?

So how do we cap off an afternoon of playing with the Santa mugs? With a Santa mug full of tea, of course! And I still haven't decorated the tea trolley yet (I had too many tea wares sitting out and had to figure out how and where to pack them), so I hope to get that done by Christmas!