Bradford Santa and His Reindeer Set

In keeping with the season, I thought I would post photos of this vintage 1950s Christmas tabletop (or under-the-tree) decoration:  

A set of Bradford Santa Claus and His Reindeer, in their original box.  I found them at the estate sale of a 101-year-old man.

A quick online search showed me that Bradford made several different versions of Jolly Old St. Nick and his business associates.  

The reindeer came in a variety of styles, numbers and colors including white, silver, brown and metallic green.   

My set includes white (albino?) reindeer, a metallic red Santa and a metallic green sleigh, still in their original box and with their original red ribbon reins.

Santa was supposed to have a Christmas tree, but it's missing from the set.  The previous owner lost the original tree and substituted a green plastic frond of some kind -- perhaps a decoration from an aquarium?  From a distance it's close enough to a tree, so I kept it.

You can see that the set is a decent size, next to a 12" ruler.

Bradford Novelty Company was a family-owned business that operated in Pennsylvania for about 50 years, then closed in 2006.  They made decorations for other holidays, but were best-known for their Christmas items.

Like so many other mid-century companies, they are no more, but many of their lovely old Christmas ornaments are still available, at online auction sites and of course, if you're lucky, at estate and yard sales.  

You can see an assortment of photos of their work by looking at Google Images for "Bradford Vintage Christmas" or a similar search.

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This blog has some photos and information about Bradford: 

 http://mactavers.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Collect-Cute-Plastic-Vintage-Christmas-Collectibles-from-the-1950s-and-1960s