Thrifty Acres: Vintage Christmas Lights Boxes

Hello! During garage sale season, I visited a neighbor's sale. I expressed interest in the two vintage Christmas lights boxes among her things, and she gave them to me free along with my purchase. The Christmas lights were missing, and the boxes themselves were a little beat up, but their graphics made up for these deficiencies.

The first box doesn't really have a lot of graphics on it, but I couldn't resist the Santa on the front:

Close-up of our Santa:

He looks so very delighted with his Amico brand Christmas tree lights! I couldn't find a date for this product, so I don't know how old the box is. 

The second of my two boxes is chock-full of charming graphics! 

Here, the box lid is opened to show what it looked like inside. 

A closer look of the Santa seen on the right hand corner of the box  in the previous photo. He looks quite somber, doesn't he? 

 

When the box lid is closed, this is what you see. Notice the price of $2.39 written on the box. I don't know if that's the original price; if so, according to the US Inflation Calculator, that sum would equal about $40.00 in today's money. 

Love this scene of Santa and his reindeer flying over some houses. I know you can't tell from this photo, but the Santa looks just as somber here as he did two photos ago. This same scene is repeated on the two end flaps.

To the left of the previous photo is this scene; the village that Santa had presumably just visited. 

These graphics have a horizontal orientation, but interestingly, the graphics on the opposite side of the box were arranged vertically, like this one:

Santa looks a bit happier here! He also looks skinnier than present-day Santas do. 

Below Santa is this scene:

Below the cozy fireside scene is the date of 1939. Well, maybe that explains the rather serious-looking Santa! The US had been struggling through the Depression for several years and Hitler had been gaining power. In September of that year, Britain and France declared war on Germany, thus beginning WWII. No wonder Santa looked none too jolly!

Nevertheless, the graphics on this box made me jolly! My neighbor's generousity was nice too.