A Baby Boomer’s Christmas Memories

Disclosure: This post may have affiliate links and we may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.

For this blog post, I am traveling down a Memory Lane.  A Baby Boomer’s Christmas Memories are of simpler versions of how Christmas is celebrated today.  There were more homemade decorations and gifts, less lights, and lower priced and less gifts in the stockings and under the tree, but the underlying love and giving spirit are comparable to today.

Christmas Traditions of Baby Boomer Days

TV Specials are a big part of a Baby Boomer’s Christmas Memories

Some of today’s  traditions, such as A Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman TV Classics, first aired when Baby Boomers believed in Santa.  According to one source, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the longest continuously running  Christmas TV special. For me, it was great to be able to sit down and watch my childhood favorites with our kids.  “Holly Jolly Christmas” sung by Burl Ives became a favorite song for one of them.

The songs, “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman” were both big 1950’s song hits for Gene Autry, “The Singing Cowboy.” Yes, we Baby Boomers heard them first, as well as “‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and other Christmas pop/rock recordings still popular today. Debuting in 1949, Gene Autry’s version of “Rudolph” has sold over 25 million copies worldwide.

When I was sorting through my record stash, I actually found a 78 rpm record of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Gene Autry and The Pinafores with Orchestral Acc. I have no recollection about why or how I have it. I don’t think it was from my parents.  I do remember that they let me make crafts out of some of their 78’s.  Like making a rippled bowl out of them by placing them over a can and heating them in the oven.

Sometime in the 1960’s my Mother picked up some flannel elves and reindeer figures that I’m sure were inspired by the Rudolph film.  When we cleaned out her house, we divided up some of the Christmas decorations.  My sister provided these photos of the elves and reindeer.  The Santa is from a dollar store.

There are a lot of collectibles made over the years that are based on Christmas TV specials. I picked up a Rudolph ornament and one of the dog from the Grinch show.  They run the gamut and you can look for your favorite characters on websites such as eBay and Etsy.  I picked up a like-new “Yukon Cornelius” stocking with tags on it at a thrift store.

Original Rudolph figure makes history, again

I recently heard that the original Santa and Rudolph figures used in the Rudolph Rankin/Bass Productions TV special still exist. My Internet searches led me to learning the back story about the original story, the making of the TV classic, and what happened to the figures.

The original story was written in 1939 as a seasonal children’s book giveaway of the Montgomery Ward Department Store, a Sears rival. The brother-in-law of the author later wrote the song which became Gene Autry’s huge hit.

The TV Rudolph’s nose still glows and Santa’s beard, of Yak hair, is still a snowy white. The Japanese puppets made for Rankin/Bass Productions were given to Arthur Rankin Jr.’s secretary and kept in the family until about 15 years ago.  Then, after they were appraised on Antiques Roadshow for a pre-auction estimate of $8,000 – $10,000, they were sold on eBay. The buyer, the owner of the collectibles toy shop, Time and Space Toys, had them restored.  They had been played with and stored in a hot attic in between family Christmases and needed some TLC.  You can see some before and after images on Youtube.  Unfortunately, other figures from the film deteriorated and melted due to attic conditions.

After restoring the puppets and getting publicity for saving some of the World’s most famous Christmas icons,  Time and Space Toys sold them to a huge fan of the movie for over $30,000.  In November, 2020, “the most famous reindeer of all” made history again as the Rudolph and Santa puppets sold for a whopping $365,000, way over their $150,000 – $200,000 estimate.  That makes them amongst the most valuable items of TV memorabilia ever sold at auction. (What they mean to children of all ages is priceless.)

Profiles in History, a major auction house that specializes in Hollywood memorabilia, auctioned off Santa and Rudolph.  They created a catalog just for the Rudolf auction and you can see it here. You can read their press release for the auction here.

Decorating the Live Tree

One of my first Christmas memories is of my Mother making ornaments from walnut shells.  Now, you can find all kinds of ideas for crafting with walnut shells on Pinterest.  Tree ornaments  were made by carefully prying open the shell, gluing a toothpick inside to hold a string or ribbon, gluing the halves back together, and painting them.

Those ornaments my Mother made survived several moves, and were used for decades.  I wasn’t sure what happened to them. I thought that they had gone into the dumpster when my Mother went into Assisted Living a couple of years ago.  A few weeks ago I decided to pull out the one box of ornaments that I brought home from my Mother’s house.  It’s a small suitcase sized clothing or suit box from Sears, with a foldover cover, perfect for storage.  After poking around among the graying tissue paper wrapped ornaments, I found four of them in a small plastic bag tucked into one corner. The halves of one of them had separated. I noticed that my Mother had numbered the halves, “15” and “15.” This must have been so that she knew which ones went with which when regluing after placing the toothpick and string inside and painting them. So now I know that she made at least 15. Whatever glue, string, and paint she used has held up over 50 years.  There’s no paint on the string so it’s doubtful that she repainted them.

Armed with a thimble, needle and thread and bowls of popcorn, or cranberries, my Mother and I would work on stringing them while watching movies like White Christmas or holiday specials with singers like Bing Crosby and later Andy Williams.  My Mother was big on silver for the tree.  She worked at making everything balance with an equal portion of the tinsel.  She also carefully removed and re-packaged it for use year after year.  The newer plastic tinsel that became available had no appeal in our house.

As far as ornaments, we had a couple of precious boxes of fragile glass ornaments generally made in Europe.  There were a few plastic ones and a few felt ones like Rudolph and elves Made in Japan.  And there were some that we kids made in school or with craft kits. One year I made plaster ones that were from a kit. You mixed up the plaster and poured it into molds.  When the plaster was dry, you popped the ornaments out and painted them.

 

Christmas Treats

Stockings, Stocking Stuffers and Such

For many of us, there weren’t special stockings.  We just picked our largest sock.  Then in the 1960’s, we started to get store bought flannel stockings.  Sometimes someone at the store or we would use a special paint tube to write our name on it.

It never failed that there would be ribbon candy…and that it would break into splinter like pieces.  Good thing we four kids really didn’t like it.  Candy canes were welcome, but we really liked anything chocolate.  Mom/Santa would buy bags or boxes of M and M’s, gumdrops, foil wrapped bells, chocolate covered mints and maybe candy bars.  Then she would divide up the candy, repackage it, and fill our stockings with it and small gifts like transparent tape and scissors (as we kept borrowing hers), and small games like jacks or some marbles.  Sometimes there was a package of Lifesavers candy that came in a hinged type gift box  that opened up to reveal rolls of candy on either side.  Speaking of gifts, gift bags weren’t used.  Everything was wrapped, sometimes in the Sunday Funnies newspaper, if budgets were tight.  Also, my Mother cautioned us to open the presents carefully so as not to rip the paper.  We saved and used it from year to year.  Some patterns were very pretty and I enjoyed using them over and over again.

Fruitcake

I’ve never understood the jokes about fruitcake, because I always loved it.  Sometimes we would make one, and once in a while receive one as a gift.  My best “fruitcake memory” is of watching the TV special  Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” which first aired in 1966. The story is from Capote’s 1930’s childhood when his parents left him with relatives. It centers around a Christmas-time ritual of making fruitcakes from scratch with his elderly cousin who is also his best friend. They used pecans poached from a neighbor’s pecan grove and bootleg whiskey .  You can find the story on You Tube.

Gingerbread Houses

Now you can buy kits with premade gingerbread, frosting, and candy.  Boomers would make their own gingerbread, or use graham crackers.  Homemade frosting, peppermints, M and M’s, and gumdrops were mostly used for cementing the parts of the “house” and decorating.

Christmas Cookies

What’s Christmas without Christmas cookies?  Especially those decorated with frosting and sugar sprinkles.  Everything was made from scratch.  There weren’t any pre-made waiting in the refrigerated food section of the grocery store.  Dough was rolled out and aluminum cookie cutters used for stars, bells, trees, gingerbread men and Santa shaped cookies.  Frosting was also made from scratch and either applied with a knife or with an aluminum cake decorating tool. Nonpareils or colored sugar sprinkles were a final touch.  You can find such vintage cookie cutters and aluminum cake decoration tools on eBay and Etsy.

My first memory of Christmas cookies must have been a cookie swap.  In the mid-1950’s we lived in Alexandria, Virginia as my Father was stationed there while in the Navy.  We lived in an apartment complex with a large basement with laundry facilities.  I remember long benches set up full of cookies and being able to choose some cookies with sprinkles.  This was a huge deal for a not yet three year old.

 A Boston Area Baby Boomer’s Special Christmas Memories

There were some things for Boston area Baby Boomers that were just a must-do at some point, and some of them are still available today.

Even today, local kid’s parents, or grandparents make sure that they see a Boston performance of The Nutcracker ballet.

Another Boston must was to visit Santa and “The Enchanted Village” of mechanical figures in old-fashioned dress and scenes which took up an entire floor in Downtown Boston’s Jordan Marsh store. My recollection is of holding my Mother’s hand tightly as we walked along winding ramps and being a bit overwhelmed by all the figures and decorations. After Jordan Marsh was folded into Macy’s, the village was taken on and displayed by the City of Boston at City Hall Plaza and the Hynes Convention Center.  The “Village” was bought at auction by Jordan’s Furniture ( no connection to Jordan Marsh), refurbished, and since 2010 is on display at Jordan’s Avon, Mass. location during the holiday season.

If you lived in or near Framingham, Mass., the “old” Shoppers World was the place to visit at Christmas.  The original mall had a large open courtyard in the middle.  Twenty-four 12 foot tall wooden toy soldiers stood at attention around the courtyard, with a 24 foot tall “General” rotating on platform in the center promenade of the courtyard.  Santa’s live reindeer visiting from the North Pole stayed in a pen at one end. And there were bright colored lights and Christmas trees as well as Santa himself.

There’s a Facebook group, The Old Shoppers World was better, where you can see photos and learn more about it.

While the original Shoppers World was razed and there’s a modern replacement, the toy soldiers survived.  They are now placed around the city of Framingham during the Christmas season.  The DPW even made additional soldiers using an original one as a pattern.  The “new recruits” help spread holiday cheer even further.

---

Yesterday’s Christmases live on in Today’s

So, for this Baby Boomer, a trip down Christmas “Memory Lane” doesn’t have to travel far, as many things from my childhood are still part of today’s decorations and activities. You can find a lot of nostalgic and traditional holiday items on Etsy and eBay. Some things have new twists, or materials.  More things are store bought, rather than handmade, and now there are sequels to some of the original Christmas TV specials, but the basic characters and premises are the same.  So too is the spirit of giving.

---

Want to learn how to start a blog?

Here’s some courses to get you started:  Start A Travel Blog

or Start A Blogging Business.