Nonna's Knickknacks

They're tchotchkes. They're sentimental. They're junk. They're home. They were Nonna's knickknacks, and I've decided to pull them out of obscurity and share them with the world.

Welcome to my tour.

Nonna, as I've shared in a previous post, is my paternal grandmother. She will turn 100 years old on November 27th. "Nonna" is Italian for Grandma. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, there is no Italian word for knickknacks. Or worse, there is no Italian word for "Italian-American knickknacks." Come se dice, "Somewhere Jonathan Adler's head is exploding?"


Exhibit A. That old familiar Italian-American standby, plastic fruit. What you can't see in this photograph is that there is a small plastic bug on one of those apples. 'Cuz that makes it look more real. Even more curiously, check out, if you haven't already, the Brady Bunch tiki idol pencil cup to the left. And for those of you kids under 10, that white thing coming out of the phone is a cord.






The perfect complement to plastic fruit: plastic flowers...

Continuing on the bad pencil cup theme, check out the plastic Labatt's guy. My grandfather was employed for years by Mr. Carbone, who owned a liquor store. My grandparents, for some strange reason (perhaps all too obvious) enjoyed keeping alcohol-related knickknacks around the house.

Three staples of any nonna's home: pictures of the family, palms from Palm Sunday (maybe Palm Sunday, 1973?) and the Infant of Prague. The Infant of Prague is an odd, usually plastic, icon of Jesus-as-King-of-the-World-but-Still-a-Baby. He has a ring on his right hand and the whole world in his other. From left: my father, me, my uncle Jimmy and my cousins, Jimmy and Joey (back when they were still called Jimmy and Joey). My siblings and two other cousins apparently did not warrant a place in this display, leading me to the obvious conclusion that Jim, Joe and I were the favorite grandchildren.   Footnote on this particular Infant of Prague: Alicia and I sold it at the Salem Common Association yard sale for $10. We sold it to a lovely young Latina woman whose eyes lit up when she saw it. "Oooh," she said, "the baby Lord Jesus. He's so beautiful." We knew that Nonna's Infant of Prague was going to a loving home. I still regret having taken that woman's money.

Not all of Nonna's stuff was crap (and who said it was, anyway?). This art deco aqua ceramic horse lamp/planter was a huge hit among visiting art lovers and homosexuals for years. At the height of its popularity, it had a large, pleated, rectangle shade, and on either side of the base, two small square bowls that served as planters. Outrageous, I know, but that's what made it sooooo freakin' fabulous.



Some of the glass on this hutch is beautiful, too. I'll admit it's a screaming sea of blue, but the dark blue pedestal candy dish in the front is lovely. The 'I Dream of Jeannie' vase in the back? Not so much. To the far left? Another alcohol bottle. You know, from Carbone's.



"L'Ultima Cena di Jesus."
This bas relief in pewter is absolutely stunning in person, if a little over-the-top. When we cleaned out Nonna's house, this was the first thing my sister and I tried to "call." Unfortunately, it was promised to Yvonne, my grandmother's incredibly devoted niece and our first cousin once-removed who took Nonna in when she was 95 and Yvonne was 70. How could we begrudge her this? Although if Yvonne leaves it to one of her kids and they try to sell it on ebay, heads will roll.





Viola! Nonna's girly bathroom. My grandparents didn't buy their first house until my father was 21 years old. After having lived in an apartment with her husband and two sons, Nonna was adamant she have some "girl space." Pink, pink, and more pink. She even had fluffy, hot pink throw rugs on the floor, around the toilet and of course, covering the toilet lid! One time, Alicia took those rugs home to launder, and upon returning to Nonna's and pulling them out of her car, held them out to us and said sadly, "How many Muppets had to die??"

"And a partridge (that used to be) in a pear tree."

Actually my grandmother didn't own a pear tree. She didn't even decorate a Christmas tree. She decorated a cactus. When I was little, in order that his grandchildren be able to reach the kitchen light, my grandfather hung this partridge from the cord. Both practical and attractive, this photo does not do justice to the amount of its glitter. We loved that partridge. Last year at Christmas, I sent this photo to my siblings and cousins with the caption, "A Very Ghetto Christmas." Still, however, we really find that partridge to be beautiful.

For all their eccentricities of interior design, my grandparents' home was one of the most loving spaces I've ever spent time in, and while I'd love to wax poetic about home being where the heart is and how they were poor but generous (all true), I won't get into it here. You can love people and still speak the truth about them, and the truth about my grandmother was that her knickknacks were horrifying.