How to celebrate Christmas like the grandparents did over 50 years ago

[ZLoth]

From SF Gate:

How to celebrate Christmas like the grandparents did over 50 years ago

Many times the distractions of the world can easily pull us all away from Christmas time from the family, but this year as we look forward to the holiday season we must look back to our grandparents' era.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

[Max Rockatansky]

Might be just my family but it always seemed like the more interaction we all had the more "bickering" and alcohol fueled "fueds" would emerge.  My parents used to hold big huge parties in the 1970s and early 1980s, it always seemed like someone went home angry.  Once things got scaled back and there was some more interactive gifts to calm the children it seemed to mellow things out a lot. 

I find that ironic that I say that because I'm definitely not a technology buff or huge or gift buying.  But there was always a level of "too much" and "too many" people during the holidays.  Personally I always enjoyed things more when we just had a set of Grand Parents visit or a single group of Cousins rather than everyone all at once.

I guess it's nice to look back on holidays past with rose tinted glasses.  The nostalgia bug sometimes blinds you though maybe some not so great aspects of how things used to be.  And I guess that's really not something that just applies to the holidays, I hear similar sentiments about pretty much everything used to be better in the old days.

But then again I say all of the above as someone with severe ADHD.  Large crowds of people and trying to sit still "quality time" is often incredibly difficult tolerate for large periods of time.

[kurumi]

Radio stations do the grandparent thing every year. 17 of the top 20 most-played Christmas songs are from 1959 or earlier: https://www.xkcd.com/988/

Good times at our multi-family Christmas dinners when I was a kid: my job was to play Christmas carols at the piano after dinner. More fun than clearing the table and doing dishes :-)

[nexus73]

Actually Thanksgiving was the Really Big Holiday Gathering back in the day.  Our home hosted up to 30 people one year.  Poor Max, I feel sorry for your past.  We did not have alcohol, feuds or anything else.  Our extended family got together in various group sizes for many years.  People got along and actually loved each other.  One grandma did have a bit of resentment for one aunt since she thought that lady did not fete enough festivities but that was it for hard feelings so color that bit from the past as mild.

Today everyone is scattered to the winds, those who are alive from then that is.  There is no place suitable for a great gorgeous affair either.  I still enjoy my time with the few remaining but the glory days are long gone.  They were the best of times though!

Hope those of you who can still celebrate as family and friends find lots of good times this Christmas season!

Rick

P.S.  One of the greatest games in NFL history was played on December 25th, 1971.  It was a playoff game between KC and Miami and went into 2OT before Miami won 27-24, which makes it the longest game in NFL history.  The game also represented a changing of the guard as Hank Stram's Offense Of The Seventies would never again be a factor and the Chiefs would not return to the postseason until the Nineties, when Joe Montana played his final season in KC. 

As for Miami, they lost the Super Bowl to Dallas 24-3 that season but would come back for two straight titles with one season being The Perfect Season (17-0). 

[Max Rockatansky]

Well the alcohol thing was more my Dad's side of the family than my Mom's, they hate if it ever gets brought up.    But you hit on something that was always a huge tradition with Thanksgiving.  Being from Detroit it was always a huge deal to have a family meal and watch football all day.  Me, my brother, Dad, and Grandpa would just sit in front of the TV all day watching the Lions game then...just because it was on the Cowboys game.  There was actually a pretty decent Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit in the early morning that we would go to when we were younger, now those were good holidays.

Another thing that is massively different these days is that people in families tend to live over more spread out geographic areas.  The holidays I'm describing is when everyone in the immediate family was in Michigan, Ohio, and what was for the time far flung Minnesota.  As the late 80s hit there was people that moved to Georgia and New Jersey.  Eventually there was more people that moved to Arizona, Florida, and California as the 1990s hit.  Really I think a lot of it had to do with really no opportunities left for younger members of the family in the mid-west coupled with the mass of new business ventures happening in the Sun Belt or West Coast.  I think blaming holiday commercialism is just a soft target when you people want the good old days back.  Really for me it was more a cause and effect of the Midwest caving in on itself economically that pushed everyone apart more than anything else.  I was actually amazed that my Dad's side of the family managed to pull off a reunion in New Jersey a couple years back with all the bickering that took place about where to have it with ease of access for everyone.

[english si]

Radio stations do the grandparent thing every year. 17 of the top 20 most-played Christmas songs are from 1959 or earlier: https://www.xkcd.com/988/

In your country. In the UK it's mostly the 70s where our Christmas 'classics' originate. Though we still have time for some newer stuff too, and the odd 50s Crooner.

We, over this side of the pond, know it's Christmas, when Glam Rock has suddenly made a come back!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A8KT365wlA

"Does your granny always tell you that the old songs are the best, but she's up and rock and rolling with the rest?"

The 70s are such a part of UK Christmas music that this typically gets some airing (not heard it yet this year, despite the Wombles returning to TV). OK, the Wombles are a serious band dressed in silly costumes, but still - we definitely don't see novelty Christmas records from the 90s (including Christmas Number 1s by Mr Blobby and Bob the Builder) anymore as they long outstayed their welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzAL9ELsFRw

[GaryV]

Someone needs to remind the editors that 50 years ago was 1966, not 1946.  We actually had color film by then.

And whad'dya mean 50 years ago like your grandparents did?  You mean 50 years ago like I did?  There's a heck of a lot of people in this country that were alive 50 years ago.

[english si]

^^ Is the article not aimed at children, whose grandparents are mostly over 50?

[GCrites]

The more I learn about the UK, the more I get bored with the US's 1950s and '60s obsessed culture. Those are the only decades that are important here, whereas in the UK there's lots out there for people who like other decades. It's been said by U.S. writers that the British relationship with the past is something we can't fully appreciate.

[Scott5114]

It's probably mostly because the Baby Boomers dominate the mainstream pop culture in the US. If you look at online sources run by millennials, you see more nostalgic references to the late 80s and 90s.

[GCrites]

But everything is still around on the internet.

[Tschiezberger123]

My parents are baby boomers (my dad was born in 1958 and my mom in 1959), so whatever 7-8-year-olds did in the 1960s

[english si]

If you look at online sources run by millennials, you see more nostalgic references to the late 80s and 90s.

Memberries on South Park (so Gen X aimed at millennials) were pushing things between 40 years old and 25 years old. But the age there was somewhat riffing on Star Wars VII, Stranger Things, etc's nostalgia love ins coming this year.



One of the most watch TV programmes in the UK this autumn was a '15 years later' series of Cold Feet (and having binge re-watched the late-90s/early-00s seasons, it lost a lot of its shine, though the new season was excellent though likely to age as poorly). We also have the nostalgia bug, but we do different decades, that they are 70s and 90s, rather than 50s and 80s doesn't make America worse, or Britain better, they are just different.

Demographically America is a little less slanted towards boomers than the UK - US boomers had more kids, as did Gen X, whereas UK birthrates dropped quicker.



Bringing this back to Christmas songs that are popular in the respective countries, the US's 50s-heavy mix is dominated by American artists, whereas the UK's 70s-heavy mix is dominated by Brits.

I'm pretty sure Slade were talking about songs sung by crooners like Cole, Crosby and Como when he talks about grannies (who'd be birthing the early boomers at that time, their childhood having been pre-war or cut short by the WW2) who "always tell you that the old songs are the best, but they are up and rock 'n rolling with the rest". The US problem isn't boomers seeking the songs of their youth, but that there wasn't a period where there was a glut of decent Christmas songs by American artists that could replace them fully and so the crooners remained a key part of Christmas music not only early boomers started having kids of their own, but late boomers and gen x and older millennials too. Whereas in the UK, we had the crooners (not caring as much about home grown talent), but in the 70s there was a plethora of modern festive music, so boomers were able to enter adulthood and have a different canon of seasonal songs to their parents and so gen x onwards had more Slade than Sinatra, in childhood Christmasses.

[GCrites]

I imagine that the '50s and '60s aren't a very nostalgic decade for the UK as the country was still messy from WWII. While Americans think everything was cool because of the Beatles and Stones gaining popularity here, things were not rosy in the UK at those times. One band I hear from the '60s brought up by Brits often is the Dave Clark Five. Americans don't know that band for the most part.

[Max Rockatansky]

The more I learn about the UK, the more I get bored with the US's 1950s and '60s obsessed culture. Those are the only decades that are important here, whereas in the UK there's lots out there for people who like other decades. It's been said by U.S. writers that the British relationship with the past is something we can't fully appreciate.

You know...I just watched Forest Gump again last night.  That movie was REALLY meant for my parents and not me.  Basically that whole movie is almost all 60s and even some early 70s stuff. 

It's probably mostly because the Baby Boomers dominate the mainstream pop culture in the US. If you look at online sources run by millennials, you see more nostalgic references to the late 80s and 90s.

Amazing how that has become in the current decade.  I tried to sell my old NES, SNES, Gameboy, Sega, N64, Game Cube, PS2, Game Gear, Sega CD, and 2600 with the accompanying games back in 2008 for a $500 dollar lot on Craigslist.  I didn't have any takers back then because it was just worthless junk, funny how that seems to come full circle given enough time.  I bet a lot of vintage toy collectors would lose their minds to find out how many original Star Wars and Transformers toys met their ends with my childhood bottle rockets.

[english si]

I imagine that the '50s and '60s aren't a very nostalgic decade for the UK as the country was still messy from WWII.

50s, sure. 60s, no (we were riding high in the 60s). But it was the 70s when the country was a total mess - terror from the IRA (but unlike the 10s and 40s, no 'Blitz spirit'), massive economic problems, deindustrialisation, 3-day weeks, strike after strike, IMF bailout, violent gangs fighting in mass brawls across the country each Saturday. One can very much argue that the 70s were Britain's lowest point morale-wise, and yet we get nostalgic about them at Christmas.

Or, perhaps we get nostalgic for 70s Christmases as people put in massive efforts to cheer people up in that decade as we needed it.

[GCrites]

I bet a lot of vintage toy collectors would lose their minds to find out how many original Star Wars and Transformers toys met their ends with my childhood bottle rockets.

That's WHY they're worth something. If toys don't get destroyed, the surviving ones don't become worth anything since they all survived. That's why mainstream toys from the mid-'90s and up can't gain value -- too many got saved. 1/3 of post-early-childhood toys made today never even get opened. When unopened '70s Kenner Star wars toys skyrocketed in the mid-'90s immediately everyone started saving their toys. That episode of the Simpsons where Lisa put all that effort into the dioramas for school only to lose to Ralph Wiggum's bin of unopened Star Wars toys was telling. It's Principal Skinner's fault!

[Max Rockatansky]

I bet a lot of vintage toy collectors would lose their minds to find out how many original Star Wars and Transformers toys met their ends with my childhood bottle rockets.

That's WHY they're worth something. If toys don't get destroyed, the surviving ones don't become worth anything since they all survived. That's why mainstream toys from the mid-'90s and up can't gain value -- too many got saved. 1/3 of post-early-childhood toys made today never even get opened. When unopened '70s Kenner Star wars toys skyrocketed in the mid-'90s immediately everyone started saving their toys. That episode of the Simpsons where Lisa put all that effort into the dioramas for school only to lose to Ralph Wiggum's bin of unopened Star Wars toys was telling. It's Principal Skinner's fault!

I always thought it was weird how Chewie was Principal Skinner's favorite....I don't remember anyone ever saying that.  All I wanted was Boba Fett figure but I could never find one at the store. 

[spooky]

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[Pete from Boston]

I bet a lot of vintage toy collectors would lose their minds to find out how many original Star Wars and Transformers toys met their ends with my childhood bottle rockets.

That's WHY they're worth something. If toys don't get destroyed, the surviving ones don't become worth anything since they all survived. That's why mainstream toys from the mid-'90s and up can't gain value -- too many got saved. 1/3 of post-early-childhood toys made today never even get opened. When unopened '70s Kenner Star wars toys skyrocketed in the mid-'90s immediately everyone started saving their toys. That episode of the Simpsons where Lisa put all that effort into the dioramas for school only to lose to Ralph Wiggum's bin of unopened Star Wars toys was telling. It's Principal Skinner's fault!

I always thought it was weird how Chewie was Principal Skinner's favorite....I don't remember anyone ever saying that.  All I wanted was Boba Fett figure but I could never find one at the store.

Boba Fett was a brilliant scam. Nobody even knew what the hell a Boba Fett was when he became available but everybody wanted one because they told us to.  And you could only get him by buying a bunch of other Star Wars crap and then mailing the proofs of purchase and some more money to Kenner. 

Once all that was done, you got a Boba Fett in the mail and had absolutely zero idea of how he would interact with other characters because you had never seen him in a movie.  Good? Bad? Human? Robot? Chatty?  Nothing.

During one of the many releases of Star Wars, they finally showed a preview that included a brief glimpse of him.  But all you got from it is that he shot a gun, which we had already figured out because he came with a gun.

In that scene in the new Star Wars where Han Solo is telling the kids that it all happened and was real, I felt like he should break into telling them about the level of real-life craze and hysteria over Star Wars, the likes of which has not ever been repeated.

[GCrites]

I was on a complete Star Wars blackout when I was a kid. My folks never took me to see the movies. Kids at school talked about it and had the toys. All I could say is "I don't know anything about this." I'd go over to their houses and we'd eat off of Ewok plates and shit. There was nothing like that at my house... Hot Wheels everywhere. Then the Transformers and G.I. Joe got big and by '86 all the Star Wars stuff died off for about 10 years. Didn't see A New Hope until 2012.

[Max Rockatansky]

I bet a lot of vintage toy collectors would lose their minds to find out how many original Star Wars and Transformers toys met their ends with my childhood bottle rockets.

That's WHY they're worth something. If toys don't get destroyed, the surviving ones don't become worth anything since they all survived. That's why mainstream toys from the mid-'90s and up can't gain value -- too many got saved. 1/3 of post-early-childhood toys made today never even get opened. When unopened '70s Kenner Star wars toys skyrocketed in the mid-'90s immediately everyone started saving their toys. That episode of the Simpsons where Lisa put all that effort into the dioramas for school only to lose to Ralph Wiggum's bin of unopened Star Wars toys was telling. It's Principal Skinner's fault!

I always thought it was weird how Chewie was Principal Skinner's favorite....I don't remember anyone ever saying that.  All I wanted was Boba Fett figure but I could never find one at the store.

Boba Fett was a brilliant scam. Nobody even knew what the hell a Boba Fett was when he became available but everybody wanted one because they told us to.  And you could only get him by buying a bunch of other Star Wars crap and then mailing the proofs of purchase and some more money to Kenner. 

Once all that was done, you got a Boba Fett in the mail and had absolutely zero idea of how he would interact with other characters because you had never seen him in a movie.  Good? Bad? Human? Robot? Chatty?  Nothing.

During one of the many releases of Star Wars, they finally showed a preview that included a brief glimpse of him.  But all you got from it is that he shot a gun, which we had already figured out because he came with a gun.

In that scene in the new Star Wars where Han Solo is telling the kids that it all happened and was real, I felt like he should break into telling them about the level of real-life craze and hysteria over Star Wars, the likes of which has not ever been repeated.

Funny, I remember watching the Christmas Special when it was on TV.  Almost nobody remembers this but Boba Fett was one of the characters.  If I remember correctly he was looking for Han but was really coy about it and pretended to be a guide or something.  That was literally probably the most the character ever talked in any medium until Episode II when turned out to be a clone of Jango Fett.  Weird how that became one of the most popular characters in the entire series, I guess the lone bounty hunter thing had something to do with that.

I was on a complete Star Wars blackout when I was a kid. My folks never took me to see the movies. Kids at school talked about it and had the toys. All I could say is "I don't know anything about this." I'd go over to their houses and we'd eat off of Ewok plates and shit. There was nothing like that at my house... Hot Wheels everywhere. Then the Transformers and G.I. Joe got big and by '86 all the Star Wars stuff died off for about 10 years. Didn't see A New Hope until 2012.

My Dad took my brother to all three movies and me to Empire Strikes Back in addition to Return of the Jedi.  We had all the toys and junk that usually came out with the movies...hell I even had some of the video games for the 2600 and NES.  I remember seeing those movies so many times on VHS that despite not seeing them for almost a decade when they came back out in theaters the differences to the cuts were obvious.  I guess that's where all that "Han shot first" stuff started....and he did in the original, I don't even think Greedo got a shot off himself. 

The prequel movies were kind of meh for me.  I don't think episode I and II were as terrible as everyone says.  The biggest issue was it was totally centered around the Jedi without any background characters to bring some levity to the movies.  I thought that Disney did a lot better job at emulating the style of the original movies in Episode VII.  Granted I'm nowhere near as big as fan as I was when I was a kid.  I still watch the movies now and then but I'm not getting the new age adult geekdom that is obsessed with every little thing Star Wars related.

[Duke87]

Radio stations do the grandparent thing every year. 17 of the top 20 most-played Christmas songs are from 1959 or earlier: https://www.xkcd.com/988/

The trend seen in this graph is a result of the tendency of radio stations to play songs that are generally secular (overwhelmingly written in the 20th century) while avoiding carols with more overtly religious themes (overwhelmingly written in the 19th century or earlier).

[english si]

^^ They'd still be majority 1959 or earlier if they played religious carols though...

While our music tastes in Blightly are a bit more recent when it comes to secular Christmas songs, most of our religious ones are Victorian ones that talk about the little ice age (almost emphasising snow more than Jesus). Love Actually has snow in it because (especially when it came out) it is so rare to see snow in London outside of the Dickensian period, so it's the magic of Christmas that there's a few flakes, but that harks back to the Victorian themes that were boosted in the 50s by American secular songs that it must snow at Christmas.

And, while we ditched the goose for turkey, our food is mostly Georgian-Victorian (part of this is 50s rationing though) - citrus, spices, etc were expensive then so satsumas and foreign nuts was Christmassy/exotic enough for my parents to get some as a present when they were growing up in the 60s. A orange with cloves in was a rich person's air freshener 200 years ago and is now a Christmas decoration/Mulled wine flavour-er that is basically the smell of Christmas (needs a bit of cinnamon though). Panettone and Stollen (both last 15-20 years imports) are about the only thing on our Christmas tables that wouldn't have been there 100 years ago (OK, our wine might be new world, our cheese selection a bit more continental, and our tables more lavishly stocked) - Stollen is easily explainable as Christmas is German (thanks to Albert Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) in the UK, though Panettone is an Italian interloper that we accept mostly as it's got the citrus peel, raisins, and richness that is UK (Victorian) Christmas-ness.

[Duke87]

They'd still be majority 1959 or earlier if they played religious carols though...

The comic in the link is more specific in pointing out that almost all of the the most commonly played Christmas songs are from the childhoods of the baby boomer generation. This would not be the case if religious carols got more airtime.