Vintage Santas In The Kitchen

Is there anything more jolly than an old Santa face this time of year? I think not! I love them so much and after reading this post I hope you will too! Come see my kitchen cabinet that I filled with vintage Santas!

I am so excited to be sharing this space with you all here on the blog. I have forever loved vintage Santa faces and I am always happy to share them with you here when I can – and filling them in this cabinet is so much fun for me! This cabinet is in the little eating nook and it is a piece that I look at often as I am working in the kitchen. In years past, I have filled it with some of the vintage Santa mugs from my massive collection (you can read all about them here), but this year I wanted to try a new spin on the same idea. So, with that in mind, over the past year I have been picking up various vintage Santa ‘faces’ here and there. They are such happy little guys and I just love that no two are alike.

I decided to use a combo of vintage Santa mugs (which were not new for me), vintage Santa plates, and vintage Santa Salt & Pepper shakers. Let’s take a moment to touch on each of these.

Vintage Santa Mugs

As you all know by now, vintage Santa mugs are so much fun to collect and there are a lot of fun tips and tricks to building your collection. As I mentioned above, I have written a blog post all about them – so you can read up on all things “santa mugs” there. But, just know that Santa mugs (old ones and even new ones) are currently very collectable. So, if you see them -and if you like them- scoop them up!

I knew that I did not want to put too many mugs in this space – but I did add a few. While I did mainly choose to use the mini (or expresso) Santa mugs, I did sprinkle in a few typical sized ones. If you zoom in, you can see that I used some of my really old ones that have lost their paint. I love the look of the creamy colors and the texture from the crackled and crazed glaze! I chose those because I really wanted to showcase the “newer to me” plates and shakers!

Vintage Santa Plates

So, in full disclosure, I have never owned a vintage Santa plate until this most recent Vintage Pickin’ show this fall. (For those of you who do not know, Vintage Pickin is an antique show that really is very good and full of quality vintage and antique items. I highly recommend the show if you can make it). I was visiting my pal Brandy’s booth and I spotted not one, but two, vintage Holt Howard Santa Plates – in their original boxes! As you can imagine, I scooped them up so fast! It was then and there that I decided that I was going to add these plates into my cabinet. Over the next several months I was lucky to find various other vintage Santa plates to add to my collection. Most of them are stamped on the back with the word Japan. That is important because, as you may know, Japan produced a lot of vintage goods for American long ago!

I do have one new Santa plate … this guy with the rosy cheeks! I loved him because of his vintage look and those bright red cheeks. I am sharing this with you all as a reminder that you should buy and display what you love, even if it isn’t necessarily an antique!

Vintage Santa Salt and Peppers

This too was a fun new collection for me to build upon this year. I did have a few already that I have used in the past, but I recently found a ‘jackpot’ of old Santa salt and peppers several weeks ago at an antique store. There were so many Santa sets to choose from at that store, but I decided to bring home the pairs of Santa’s that I was drawn to … based on the sweet faces – ha! I was lucky enough to find several more over this past year too – all marked Japan on the bottom! The great thing about buying these Salt and Peppers is that you get essentially get “two for the price of one.” If you noticed, I did not display them with their mates! This way, I have two items to add to the collection each time I buy a pair of them!

How I Styled The Cabinet

This is always my favorite part. I decided to just nestle in these vintage Santas right along side the existing pieces that I had in this cabinet already! This is always the easiest way to decorate seasonally because you don’t have to go through the trouble of packing up all the things that are in that space already! I love to approach styling a space this way – as if it is kind of like a puzzle, trying to carefully add in all the pieces!

Because I wasn’t taking anything out, all I did was just snuggle these vintage Santas throughout the cabinet. I popped them into bowls and stacked them on top of bottles and my main goal was to make it look inviting and not cluttered. I also was sure to nuzzle in a few of them deep into the shelves to add a touch of depth. There was little rhyme or reason as I worked. I just tried to disperse them evenly throughout the cabinet.

Quick Tip

I am going to share a little tip with ya here. It took me a moment to figure out how to get the plates to stand upright so that I could see their cute faces. I finally decided that using dried beans/rice was the best way for me to do this. I just poured my beans into the vessel (in this case it is a yellow ware mold). To ensure that it wasn’t going to fall backwards, I placed a pillar candle right behind it. I did similar steps to help each of the plates within the cabinet to stand tall.

A Quick Confession

As I mentioned above, I have been buying these old Santa plates and salt/peppers all year long. And, in all honesty, as I was building this cabinet out I quickly saw that I had a lot more to work with than I realized – shhhh, don’t tell Mark. I didn’t want to cram in all the Santas in there because I felt it would make the space seem too cluttered. So, I now have several more vintage Santa S/P shakers and an extra plate that didn’t make the “cabinet” cut!

Are there any collectors out there that do that too?

Are there any friends out there that bring home more vintage Santas (or anything else for that matter) than they realize?

Well, do not fear because I have plans for those little Santa faces – so stay tuned!

Want To Recreate The Look

Below I am sharing a few links for similar items from around the web. I only am sharing options that I would gladly add to my personal collection! If you want to check out an item, simply click on each individual image below.

Wrap Up

This is such a jolly little space in my home and I hope that it puts a smile on your face too. Thanks for swinging by and for taking a moment to read all about these Vintage Santas. I share a lot of my vignettes and such on my IG page so click here if you would like to follow me there for more Vintage Christmas inspo! Cheers – and Happy Holidays!

*this post contains affiliate links