Butler Township man has vintage, antique Christmas items in every room
BUTLER TWP — To look at the nearly uncountable number of Christmas ornaments, decorations and other holiday items displayed throughout Wayne Wall’s home, it would appear he has been piling up the charming tchotchkes for decades.
But it only took six years of methodical, deliberate collecting for Wall to amass his impressive antique and vintage Christmas compilation.
At that time, a friend talked him into accompanying him to a convention in Cincinnati where vendors of antique and vintage Christmas decorations and ornaments would be selling their wares.
“I saw things I never saw before, and I was hooked,” said the affable Wall.
He said the vendors at the convention also talked about the history of each piece for sale.
“I’ve always liked antiques and old things,” Wall said.
He also attends the annual Golden Glow of Christmas Past convention, which is held in a different U.S. city each year, and the Mideastern Holiday Show in Canfield, Ohio.
Wall also frequents flea markets, antique shows and shops, and visits eBay.com in search of old-time Christmas items to add to his collection.
He begins setting up the trees and decorations on every surface in mid-October.
“I do a little bit at a time and finish in early December,” said Wall, who regularly gives his friends and neighbors tours of his home at Christmastime.
He begins taking the displays and trees down after the New Year.
“It goes down much quicker than it goes up,” Wall said. “It’s usually down in four days.”
The thousands of items are kept in large storage containers in his garage, under his beds, in one bedroom closet and in a cubby in the basement.
“I’m going to slow down (on collecting) tremendously now because I’ve about maxed out on storage,” Wall said. “I’ll pick up unique things I see here and there.”
No less than 25 expertly decorated, themed artificial trees, from small tabletop versions to 7-footers that almost brush the ceiling, grace every room except the bathroom on the main floor in Wall’s ranch-style home.
Many of the trees offer the viewer a glance back in time, like the mid-size World War II-era tabletop tree just inside the front door.
The tree has an 1890s German musical base made of metal with a key that winds the tree up to play three Christmas songs while slowly spinning.
The matching glass ornaments are from that era, and many do not include a metal cap at the top or a decorative dusting of silver due to rationing of metal at that time.
The desk on which the tree sits also displays an antique photo album with a music box on the bottom with a shiny celluloid top.
“That’s one of the first plastics,” Wall said.
His bay window is festooned with Mira Star lights, and the tree between the window and hearth is a 7-foot aluminum Pom Pom Tree decorated with vintage Shiny Brite ornaments.
“It has period toys underneath it that I remember as a kid,” said Wall, who is 66.
Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots, Spirograph, Mr. Potato Head and a Frosty Sno-Man Sno-Cone Maker are some of the vintage toys under the tree.
Another mid-size tree in Wall’s living room holds 85 samples of the first vintage Christmas item he bought six years ago.
All sizes and shapes of cardboard candy boxes are hung on the tree by their strings. Wall explained that in years past, churches filled the boxes with candies for children in their Sunday school classes.
Each box has a wintertime or Christmas scene. Wall owns about 300 Christmas candy boxes.
Trees in Wall’s guest room have Old German animals and fish ornaments from the early 1900s and vintage Premier ornaments, respectively.
Wall’s bedroom boasts a small tree with Ombre ornaments plus a Victorian tree in the corner decorated with antique zeppelins, Santa in an airplane and other ornaments from his childhood home.
“It’s from my grandparents, so probably from the 1890s,” Wall said of the tree.
A bedroom used as an office in Wall’s home holds three small trees decorated in musical instruments, teapots and mica ornaments, respectively.
While the main house contains hundreds of fascinating and beautiful Christmas decorations, stepping into the dining room/library addition on the back of Wall’s home is like visiting Santa’s workshop.
His long dining room table is formally set for his family Christmas dinner with his great-grandmother’s Johnson Brothers china, and the wall shelves in the library are covered in various historic Christmas collections.
A traditional 7-foot fir tree, as opposed to the sparse feathered trees meant to display ornaments, adds to the coziness of the room.
Nine total trees adorn the dining room/library combination, including those with patriotic ornaments, old German ornaments, ornaments from Wall’s travels around the world, glow-in-the-dark ornaments, 1900s Brownie stuffed doll ornaments, and old and new bird ornaments.
One tree in the addition has a square, wooden, multitiered tree stand with a picket fence around one level.
“They were big with the Germans,” Wall said of the unusual stand. “They would put little houses around (the levels) or a manger scene or animals. They were known as Putz displays.”
In addition to the Christmas trees throughout Wall’s home, every surface is covered with well-thought-out vintage and antique holiday collections.
Placed on hutches, windowsills, tables, dressers and shelves are collections including Santa and Mrs. Claus made from spray-painted Readers Digests, midcentury Santas, Christmas Ideal magazines, chalkware Santa and Mrs. Claus, a celluloid men’s collar box from the early 1900s, 1950s hard plastic Santas, a cigar gift box that looks like a Christmas book, Gurley Christmas candles, Pickwick carolers, tin houses that were candy containers made in York, Pa., in 1914, crocheted snowmen and women, and a display of Santa boots made of papier-mâché, hard plastic and wax.
But don’t ask Wall how much he has invested in his Christmas collection, because he won’t say.
“It’s a lot,” Wall said.
