Vintage 1950's Christmas Festivities

[Bluebird Marsha]

Or ya drink too much

Moderation is not exactly one of my virtues! Although... picture waking up with a hangover, and then seeing a metal tree with the color wheel going round and round and round. THAT could be a problem.

Note to self. Do not leave color wheel going on New Year's Eve. The morning after could be unfortunate.

 

[rue]

It's got to be a flocked tree! Everyone had one in blue, pink or white

 

[Gregg Axley]

I've seen those too Rue.
Marsha, the color wheels now come in LED's, at least I've seen an LED wheel.

 

[C-dot]

Yeah, you've got it! lol

Here's a pink one, small picture though...sorry.
It's 7.5ft with 450 lights, called Pink Cashmere.
It's only $350!

[/IMG]

That is so cool Gregg! Imagine it with silver and chocolate coloured ornaments?
(I'm a terrible influence, I know...)

 

[sheeplady]

I always overdo the winter holidays. I typically have 5 full size trees- one tinsel with color wheel, one white, one with electric candles (with a village and train underneath), one with bubble lights, and a palm tree. I also typically have about 15 table top trees. Our electric bill goes up *big time.* I hang small wreaths and put electric candles in each window and every door has a wreath. I also hang stockings.

I think the important thing is to have a tradition- be a gift, something you always eat, or always do.

For the feast, I make 4 desserts (pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate cake, and a jelly roll), 4-5 side dishes (olive brocolli, glazed carrots, sweet potatoes, and zuchinni cassarole), scones with spread, and a stuffed turkey with home made cranberry sauce. I serve wine and sherry with the meal, port afterwards, and cocktails before. Around the tree I serve hot chocolate.

Vermont Country Store sells a color wheel and a tinsel tree. I own the color wheel- it is quite nice but bigger than it looks.

 

[fortworthgal]

Oooh, I love the holiday season!

Vintage decor is nice - we have an artificial tree that was given to me when I was single by a lady who bought it new in the late 1940s. It is green, but the needles are some type of super stiff material (not metal) and after you're done setting it up, you look like you've tried to give a bath to a feral cat. lol Still, we use it every year, and I've built up a good collection of vintage tree ornaments. I have vintage stockings that my grandmother made when we were kids, and we do the plastic candleabras in the windows and the big C9 lights on the house. I do have an aluminum tree, but we haven't used it yet. Vermont Country Store has quite a few nice 50s-style holiday items, and I also see the colored & aluminum tinsel trees at Garden Ridge every year.

You could try to put together a menu out of some vintage cookbooks. You also need lots of vintage holiday music (Dean Martin, Andrews Sisters, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, etc) and of course, some good holiday cocktails.

I agree with starting a tradition of some sort. Every year on Christmas Eve, my husband and I go to church, and then we hit the nearby gas station (only place open by that point) for breakfast sandwiches and hot chocolate, and we drive around the neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights and listening to carols. It might sound a bit silly, but we started doing it when we were dating, and it stuck as something just for us.

 

[dhermann1]

Hmmmm . . . I would like to see an artificial tree from the 1940's. My understanding is that they weren't developed till the 60's. Anyhow, be that as it may . . .
Keep in mind that if you go with an aluminum tree you can't oput any lights on it. Another really classic 50's thing is bubble lights!

Here's probably more about bubble lights than you ever wanted to know:
http://www.oldchristmastreelights.com/bubble_lights1.htm
http://www.jimonlight.com/2009/11/3...as-lights-part-1-history-of-christmas-lights/
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/christmas/lights


I've picked up a couple of strings of them the last couple of years, with mixed success. The newer ones are not exactly the same as older ones, and I find those with the darker colored liquid inside, the greens and blues, never heat up quite enough to get a good bubbly thing going. But a tree with a lot of bubble lights is a sight to behold.

Here's another link to a web page that talks about some Christmas traditions that might be better appreciated by NOT trying: http://www.familychristmasonline.com/trees/ornaments/dangerous/dangerous_decorations.htm

 

[fortworthgal]

Artificial trees came out in the early 1930s, but I don't think they were widespread or popular until at least 1950. The early ones were bottle or toilet brush material, which is what ours is made of. The limbs are twisted metal (almost like rebar, seriously) and the needles are a dark green stiff plastic-ish material. It certainly isn't the most realistic looking tree, and it isn't exactly easy to deal with or set up, so I can totally understand why they were not widely popular at the time. I can imagine they were probably also more expensive than real trees. I'll see if I have a photo of ours to post. It is also shaped differently than the artificial trees today, which are typically more full. Ours is very tall and skinny.

Artificial feather Christmas trees were popular in the late 1800s.

 

[rue]

Here's another link to a web page that talks about some Christmas traditions that might be better appreciated by NOT trying: http://www.familychristmasonline.com/trees/ornaments/dangerous/dangerous_decorations.htm

Someone here used real candles on their tree last year.... I wonder if it turned out okay.....

 

[fortworthgal]

^ That scares me. lol

 

[rue]

It kind of scared me too! lol

I think it was Warbaby that did it.

 

[C-dot]

Most houses had 10- or 15-amp service and "knob and tube" wiring, with insulation that heat could cause to break down quickAnd up until about 1940, most rooms had only one electrical outlet (or at the most, two). So the tree's lighting usually went into the same outlet as a radio, a floor lamp, and any other electrically-powered device in the room. By 1940, most living rooms were a maze of extension chords and worse year-round. At Christmas the problem doubled.

http://www.familychristmasonline.com/trees/ornaments/dangerous/dangerous_decorations.htm

This reminds me of the scene in A Christmas Story when Mr. Parker plugs his lamp into a mess of about eight different surge protectors in one outlet:

"The snap of a few sparks, a quick whiff of ozone, and the lamp blazed forth in unparalleled glory."

 

[rue]

^ That's actually a good movie to watch for ideas too

 

[Gregg Axley]

Real candles on the tree?
Reminds me of a story a coworker told, where he had a party and the Christmas tree was set on fire.
All he said was "well, I was sitting talking to some of the guests, when one came over and said Mike, the tree is on fire..." He told me that he calmly grabbed a fire extinguisher and put the tree out. LOL
Honestly, I assured him that nobody else (that we knew) had ever been to a party where the tree was set on fire, so he was a trend setter.

 

[flat-top]

Homegoods is always loaded with vintage style Christmas stuff. I've found some neat goodies the past 2 years.

 

[Wally_Hood]

Hmmmm . . . I would like to see an artificial tree from the 1940's. My understanding is that they weren't developed till the 60's. Anyhow, be that as it may . . .





Here's another link to a web page that talks about some Christmas traditions that might be better appreciated by NOT trying: http://www.familychristmasonline.com/trees/ornaments/dangerous/dangerous_decorations.htm

cf. the tree buying scene in A Christmas Story.

 

[Wally_Hood]

I always overdo the winter holidays. I typically have 5 full size trees- one tinsel with color wheel, one white, one with electric candles (with a village and train underneath), one with bubble lights, and a palm tree. I also typically have about 15 table top trees. Our electric bill goes up *big time.* I hang small wreaths and put electric candles in each window and every door has a wreath. I also hang stockings.

I think the important thing is to have a tradition- be a gift, something you always eat, or always do.

For the feast, I make 4 desserts (pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate cake, and a jelly roll), 4-5 side dishes (olive brocolli, glazed carrots, sweet potatoes, and zuchinni cassarole), scones with spread, and a stuffed turkey with home made cranberry sauce. I serve wine and sherry with the meal, port afterwards, and cocktails before. Around the tree I serve hot chocolate.

Vermont Country Store sells a color wheel and a tinsel tree. I own the color wheel- it is quite nice but bigger than it looks.

It's only September and just reading your post is driving me crazy. Your description of all the traditions, decorations, and cooking is making it difficult to focus just on Thanksgiving.

 

[C-dot]

It's only September and just reading your post is driving me crazy. Your description of all the traditions, decorations, and cooking is making it difficult to focus just on Thanksgiving.

Oh yeah... We have to get that out of the way first... lol

OT: I do feel a twinge of pity for Americans who make the turkeys for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Our Thanksgiving is in mid-October, so it gives us nearly a two month break, whereas y'all have only a few weeks before you're doing it all over again!

 

[dhermann1]

C-dot, those wouldn't have been surge protectors. They didn't have them in those days. They would have been just plain extension cords, each one a conflagration looking for a place to happen.

 

[Gregg Axley]

C-dot, you get to work it off the day after Christmas though, boxing.
We don't have that down here.
Boxing to get the last item on the shelf before the other shoppers, from what I've read.
Back then (when A Christmas Story was set) the dangers of such weren't known.
Ahh a simpler time.