This article is about how to get estate sale finds for your Christmas decor.

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Estate sales can be an absolute gold mine. Unlike garage sales or moving sales, estate sales are run by professionals who are motivated to sell everything, so you can negotiate and bundle items. They want a good price, but they will also negotiate. If you flip furniture and vintage decor for profit, you can score estate sale finds for Christmas decor ideas with a good return. Even if you just are looking for youself, you can pick up both traditional seasonal items and vintage decor that goes with modern room decor or complements farmhouse or traditional styles.

Estate sales are a great source of high-value vintage decor

Estate sales are almost always due to the passing of someone and so there can be a somber aspect to walking around someone’s home. It’s relatively rare for anyone personally connected to the house to be at the sale, but be aware of that and treat everything with care and generally respect the house. Because of the circumstances, estate sales usually are massive compared to garage sales. Even if family has taken some of the valuable items, there is usually a lot of really high quality furniture and home decor (and sometimes clothes and tools too). And to be frank, estate sales appear to be much more common in nicer neighborhoods, so usually the general quality and quantity is higher. We recently attended an estate sale with 26 sets of dishes!

Anyway, the point is that estate sales are beyond great for finding really quality items. And when it comes to vintage Christmas decor, whether you are buying for yourself or someone else, it’s an amazing opportunity. You can score great estate sale finds for Christmas decor, especially vintage Christmas dishes and retro room decor for Christmas.

When to Grab Estate Sale Finds for Vintage Christmas Decorations

Shop year round for Christmas. Estate sales obviously happen year-round. Because the sale is often selling an entire household of contents, you’ll see a lot of holiday-specific décor. We went to an estate sale that had four rooms of holiday décor! There were two for Christmas, one for St. Patrick’s Day (that was a LOT of leprechauns) and one for Halloween.

You don’t need to wait until fall to start looking for Christmas décor. In fact, you will probably get even better deals if you buy off-season. Most people will be thinking in the short term: if it’s March, they will gravitate toward Easter or Spring décor. The estate sale organizers will probably be happy to have an off season buyer, get ready to negotiate, which bring us to…

Pro tip: Bundle, bundle, bundle! Christmas décor is often a lot of small pieces: ornaments, table décor, stocking stuffers, garland, lights. Often they are not individually priced because it’s just too many pieces in a large estate sale. And, the organizers are often not as focused on small ticket items as they are on furniture and expensive art. To get estate sale finds on your Christmas decor ideas negotiate a bundled price during off season. Do this on day three, unless you see something fantastic on day one. (Read here why you should skip day two at estate sales!) The closer you get to the holidays, the harder to get bargains. Christmas is on everyone’s minds by November.

Where to Find Vintage Christmas Decorations at Estate Sales

Go outside to find estate sale deals on Christmas outdoor décor.

Don’t ever overlook the backyard!  Or the driveway and garage. Oversized Christmas décor for outside is often , uh… outside. So you’ll miss it if you only visit the holiday rooms inside. And those outdoor décor pieces often sell for hundreds of dollars new, but you can get them at a fraction of the price at an estate sale. We have gotten lighted reindeer for $5 each. If you are buying to resell, oversized snowmen, and Christmas ornaments are extremely popular in neighborhoods that have big front yards. For smaller spaces, Christmas garden décor is another big hit.

While some estate sales will have rooms of Christmas decor, if there is a small amount, you may have to hunt for it.

If you really strike gold, you will hit estate sale finds for Christmas decor ideas right in the big rooms full of decor. But some homes may have only small amounts. You may have to be patient and perservere through layers of other items. Check and see if they are spread out by room: look in the kitchen for Christmas table decor and Christmas dishes. Look in the living room for garland, mantle decorations and accent pieces like nut bowls or holiday throw pillows.

How to Incorporate Retro Christmas Decorations into Modern Spaces

When you’re looking for estate sale finds for Christmas decor, remember you don’t have to get Christmas-themed things. Estate sales are fantastic places to pick up vintage dishes. And a mix and match style of traditional over-the-top dishes can look super classy or super fun or both! Whether you’re selling vintage decor for profit or keeping it for yourself, stage them with modern table decor or farmhouse table decor. Those vintage dishes will change the look and feel Christmas table decor.

Use vintage décor to give your Christmas table a retro vibe.

Vintage décor is often a great opportunity to create a vintage Christmas look. Think about your holiday color scheme. Are you classic red and green? Do you like gold accents? Or silver? Think about your general style: vintage modern (1960s to 1990s) will complement differently than traditional vintage (1920s to 1950s).

Dress up vintage white dishes in gold, or accent with red and green for a festive Christmas decor.

Classic cream plates, white milk glass vases or simple white mixing bowls can easily be part of your Christmas style. Don’t look at those dishes on that estate sale table as is. Imagine them in the holiday setting.

You can fill those vases with Christmas bouquets and put holiday cookies on those plates.  Use simple white mixing bowls as decorative storage filled with brightly colored ornaments or gold Christmas décor.

It’s a great excuse to use traditional dishes in new ways. Vintage bone dishes are small, often curved plates that hold the bones after eating chicken or fish, for example. Those small pretty plates now work equally well to hold jewelry in a bedroom year round. But you can also use them as decorative storage during the holidays. Fill them with red and green candy, wrapped peppermints or chocolates.

Vintage glassware can transform your holiday table décor.

Ruby red glassware, from the 1940s to 1970s all offer a distinctive retro look without being for the holidays specifically (you could bring them out again for Valentine’s Day, or pair with blue accents for 4^th of July.

Similarly, you can fill emerald green glass bowls with gold or silver balls for a festive feel, but with a retro vibe. Older pieces, like depression glass, will give you a truly vintage look that complements a modern farmhouse décor style. Retro Christmas home décor from the 1960s and 70s will create a modern vintage holiday table décor accent. Again, you can use these pieces year-round. The other décor around these dishes will make them feel like Christmas, or spring, or fall. A great way to get year-round use out of vintage home décor without it feeling the same.

Go glam: gold and silver pieces truly shine (literally) at Christmas.

Christmas is a vibrant, hopeful, joyous season. Don’t overlook gold cutlery, or a copper teapot. Ornate pieces from the past rise to the occasion on a festive table. Remember that you won’t be setting the traditional glass serving bowl on a country pattern tablecloth with 80s juice glasses (unless you want to—hey, you do you). That one large bowl on a minimalist table décor style could be the centerpiece, filled with white and silver balls, for a sparkly but sophisticated lift.

Use vintage dishes to complement other Christmas table decor and go farmhouse or formal.

Pro tip: If you are shopping for estate sale finds for your Christmas decor ideas because you are looking to resell for a profit, whole sets of dishes for Christmas decor can be a great resale option, even more so if you break them up. And if there isn’t a whole set, you might really get a deal. You can sometimes get a great discount when there are only a few pieces available. Choose what makes sense for resale: a cup and saucer can be a cute room accent, a whole place setting would help as a replacement for someone, whereas serving bowls can stand alone as functional decor.

If you are picking up a set for yourself, you might hold out for a complete set. Check carefully to make sure all pieces are there and in good condition. And do your research. Not all brands are created equal, but also not all patterns within a brand are equal. If you choose something formal with gold accents, you can always balance with cool winter blues. If you want to go classic, choose reds with touches of green to complement the metallic accents. But as you can see, there are a lot of options to choose from. You just to have to see the potential!

This article is about how to get estate sale finds for your Christmas decor.

To read more:

While you’re hunting for vintage Christmas estate sale decor, don’t forget to pick up gift. Read here how to find vintage Christmas gifts for him that he’ll love.

And if you want to cheat, grab one of our vintage mystery gift boxes for a friend. Yes, you can tell us how to make it feel just right for them!

Check out this article on how to find estate sale bargains the rest of the year. (And find out why you should skip day two!)

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