Christmas and My Board Game Collection

The 2013 holiday season is almost gone and for me it was a highly successful celebration.

I define a successful holiday season as one in which my family is together and has time to enjoy our favorite pursuits including plenty of good food, a couple of great movies and LOTS of board games from our game collection.

This year was wonderful!

Our youngest son, now 20, returned home from university for a couple of weeks. Having him around the house is always fun.

We were thrilled to squeeze in a number of visits with our oldest son, who lives nearby in Ottawa, when he was between shifts.

We took a 24-hour trip to Amherst Island to visit my brother-in-law, his wife and their four children.

We had my sister-in-law visit for a number of days.

And yes, we have had plenty of delicious meals, including family favorites like the sloppy joes and the cranberry coffee cake and we even tried a few new recipes from Pinterest, too.

We finally saw Catching Fire at the movie theatre.

But most importantly, we played a number of both new and favorite board games. This year that list included Smallworld, Outburst, Trivial Pursuit Young Players' Edition, Settlers of Catan and even Yahtzee.

Because games play an important part in our family's tradition, I often look for new, used and vintage board games to sell in my eBay store. You can see all of the new, used and vintage board and card games available in my eBay store by clicking right here. Wherever we have played the game, I have added a personal note to the description of the game. 

How about you? How were your holidays? Did you play any board games?

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda
You never know what I
might have in store for you!

INTERESTING AUCTIONS: Emily Carr's The Crazy Stair

I am always intrigued by unique, one-of-a-kind auctions like those that include works by famous artists. In this instance it is a painting by Canada's Emily Carr that is known as The Crazy Stair and The Crooked Staircase, which is coming up for auction on November 28, 2013.

The painting, which hung previously at the historic Vancouver Club in British Columbia, Canada, was called The Crooked Staircase but recently, during conservation, it was discovered that this painting is really named The Crazy Stair by Carr herself. 

This work, which comes from Emily Carr's West Coast aboriginal artwork of the 1920s, features a looming totem figure, a crooked staircase and bright Pacific greenery.

The auction house, Heffel Fine Art, says this painting represents Emily Carr at "full maturity."   It is expected to fetch up to $1.6 million dollars with that figure being called conservative. 

Emily Carr is one of Canada's most known artists and this piece of art considered amongst the rarest of Canadian pieces. I would love to see it find a new home in a museum so that all of us can enjoy it but I have no idea if that is likely to happen.

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda
You never know what I
might have in store for you!

Quick Links:

Read Heffel Fine Art's description of this auction.

Visit my Native American themed listings by clicking right here.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Silver Coin

My son has watched every episode ever of Doctor Who, which is considered the most successful science fiction series ever.  For the uninitiated, the series started in 1963 and was produced by the BBC. It features a time traveller known as the Doctor who has been played over time by a total of 11 actors.  Obviously, it is an extremely popular and enduring television program with people other than my son. 

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, the New Zealand Mint created a Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Silver Coin and released it in a limited run of 10,000 pieces.

On July 14, 2013, the first Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Silver Coin sold on eBay for $2,026.  Others will be available but this one was a special one because it was number 00001 in the numbered series. Since then a number of other sets have been sold, with prices ranging from $123 to $910 depending, of course, on the number each piece was in the series. 

The coin is sold in an attractive Tardis box.

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda
You never know what I might 
have in store for you!

Quick Links:

Find the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Silver Coin on eBay.

The Ottawa Senators Gift Ideas

For those of you who might not know, the Ottawa Senators is a hockey team that plays in Ottawa, Ontario and in the National Hockey League.

Woo Hoo! Wikipedia says that the Sens made it to the Stanley Cup playoffs twelve times in the last fourteen seasons, that they've won four division titles and a President's Trophy and that they appeared in the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals.

I'll never forget when the Sens made it to the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals.  The town was alive with Sens color then as it is right now.

I'll admit that I am NOT a big hockey fan. However, when your home town team makes it to the playoffs, you cannot help but be enthusiastic! 

Because I am not a big hockey fan, it never occurred to me that I should have an Ottawa Senators shirt but I think I should, in part for the fun of it and, of course, to show support for our team. If I had one in my t-shirt collection, I could wear it every year whenever the Sens were playing and be part of the Red Army.  I do love the slogans that appear on the older Ottawa Senators t-shirts like Red Army, Bring Home Stanley and This Is My Team.

I have a wonderful selection of Ottawa Senators themed hockey items in my eBay store.  I have a number of out-of-print, nostalgic Sens shirts that might generate some good memories of hockey seasons gone by as well as some other interesting items including a plush version of the Mascot, Sparty; a gorgeous plush Christmas stocking; and, two highly unusual Ottawa Senators themed Hawaiian shirts. (Yes, that's right, Hawaiian hockey shirts!)

I think that any of these items would make fabulous gift ideas for an Ottawa Senators fan. I've even thought of keeping the Hawaiian Senators shirts and both my husband and I could wear them to the annual tacky Christmas party we attend.  If we both had one of those shirts on, I know it would be tough NOT to give us the prize especially since we'd be in the company of some very serious Sens fans!

How about you? Are you a hockey fan? An Ottawa Senators fan? Do you have a shirt to show support for your favorite team?

Go Sens Go!
Brenda

See all of the Ottawa Senators gift ideas in my eBay store.

Ottawa Board Game Summit

Safe to say, I think, that all of the members of my family including my unofficial third son enjoy playing board games though, of course, we don't have as much time to pursue this activity as we would like and we no longer live under the same roof.

I read with interest therefore a story in this week's Ottawa Citizen called Fun For All At Board-Game Summit and thought wouldn't that have been fun.  

The summit was started in 2008 when it drew 100 visitors. This year, by Sunday, 1,500 people had come to play games.

My entire family would have loved to have spent any number of hours there accessing the 600 board game library. For an entrance fee of $40, one had access to the collection for the weekend. 

The newspaper says that the game selection included board games way beyond the typical games you find at the department store, card games of the collectible sort, war-type games and giant games of chess, Jenga, etc.

Of course, my family owns a library of board games but they still eye with interest the new, used and vintage, hard-to-find board games that come into my house for my eBay store.  If you are a board gamer, you know that there is nothing like a new to you board game!

Settlers of Catan, anyone?

Brenda

Quick Links:

Read more about Jenga.
Check out the JENGA games on eBay.