Yeah, I thought that too, about the rumaki. I also thought that the food in the different courses didn't seem to go well together. But what do I know? My idea of a dinner party is two McD's Angus burgers by candlelight. Entertaining terrifies me!

My daughter is American Indian on her father's side and one summer she spent a lot of time outside at day camp and got a very red-bronze tan. Well, people went nuts asking her "what" she was and also "Is that her natural color?" I said no, she's really GREEN.

Oops, posted this on the completely wrong thread! Too many martinis!

But about Sally's little dance show - Don would be showcasing his wife and kids as a business asset, so maybe that was not so out of place.

Actually, I liked that out-of-context post, flowerpower! LOL

Hi flowerpower!
Love your posts!!
I am sooo with you on the entertaining stuff!! I DON'T! Everyone else makes it look so easy.

Martinis...recently, my kid sister (9 years younger than me) made me what she called a "dirty martini".
I had never had one before...after the first few sips, I couldn't feel my lips. After the first one was finished, my feet were numb!! Then I didn't give a s--t!!
Wow! How could I have gone so long without this treat!?
I was a beer drinker, once in a while mixed drink person before this.
I can never look at an olive the same way again!!

Back to Sally's dance...was that normal for a dinner party back then? I watched that scene and said: "what the hell was that?"
Poor Sally, she has to be a bartender, AND ballet dancer!!

I remember cocktail parties my parents hosted at our house, but only from the vantage of peering down through the stair railings, smelling cigarette and cigar smoke, the sound of music on the hifi, clink of glasses, laughter. We were not of the same social class as the Drapers but my parents were definitely of the "grown up parties are for grownups" and children were neither seen nor heard. We certainly did not entertain - given my lack of talent it would have been the social kiss of death anyway.

Betty is not a very good cook. Spaghetti, casseroles, meatloaf, yuck

Don't forget les grilled cheese sandwches!

I often have the conversation w/ my own daughter stemming from Auburn Annie's observation that grownups of this era do not spend their grownup time with children. We will have to wait for the Drapers to fast forward to the 70's before children of the family get much more than lip service...
I am hugely critical of Betty and her lack of connectedness to Sally & Bobby.. Don, other than a pat on the head as he leaves in the morning or returns, however seldom, when the kids are still awake in the evening has virtually no interaction with them either... It's not hard to see how a family can function on paralel lines w/ so few intersections..The real miracle is that they hold together at all and yet a family split was unusual. I guess there's something to be said about that Puritanical social thread.

Are you saying he MM writers didn't do their research on dinner parties in the early 60's? I don't know about the rumaki, but I wasn't at all surprised at the ballet performance by Sally. Everyone at the party were good friends of Don and Betty from work or from the country club. They knew them well and even Duck remembered Sally from apparently meeting her before. I remember being around when my parents entertained and, although I never performed for their friends even though I also took ballet like Sally, I didn't think it was odd or unacceptable. Of course, we always had to go to bed very early like Sally and Bobby.

In the 60's parents were PARENTS and kids were KIDS. Not like today, where it seems to me that the "grups" (this generation of 30-something parents) think they're just "friends" with their kids, and not parents. They wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, and God forbid they should discipline or reprimand their precious little darlings! And God forbid anyone else, including teachers, should dare to suggest that their precious little offspring are less than perfect. At what point in time did this shift take place?

I think that Betty seems just as "connected" to her kids as any typical 60's mom. She took Sally into her confidence and explained to her that she and Don were having a "disagreement." She let the kids visit Don at his hotel room; she didn't try to deny him access to his children. Nor did she bad-mouth him to the kids, as other women might have done. I mean, the man abandoned his family for 3 weeks!

As for Betty's cooking skills, I only wish I had her capability to host a dinner party like that! True, she had a lot of help from Carla, but she pulled it all together. My mother made meatloaf, pot roast, steaks, chicken, and spaghetti. Our vegetables came out of a can or were frozen, white bread, American cheese (individually wrapped slices), your typical 60's food. And I thought my mother was a great cook!

Do you really think the mothers of today are any better?

I still remember the basic rotation of meals in our house:

Wednesday, spaghetti - not angel hair, not bowties, just plain #8 P&R brand spaghetti with sauce from a jar, maybe white bread, no salad. Salads are what restaurants served before the main event, so to speak. With 9 kids we ate out en masse maybe twice a year.

Thursday, meatloaf and baked potatoes with real butter, canned corn or peas.

Friday, fish - Lent or not. It was breaded fish sticks or creamed tuna with peas on toast (yech) or tuna patties. No salmon, no scrod (again, only restaurant fare.)

Saturday, soup and sandwiches along with Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and whatever else was on early on Saturday evening. We'd usually have Lipton's chicken noodle soup with Peter Pan peanut butter and Welch's grape jelly or Campbell's tomato soup with grilled cheese.

Sunday - a roast: usually pork or beef, maybe a picnic ham (yummm.) Turkey was reserved for the holidays. With mounds of whipped potatoes. Steak on the grill in the summer.

Monday - leftovers, or maybe roast chicken breasts, slow-cooked and golden brown. If we were lucky, homemade biscuits and corn on the cob in season.

Tuesday - hamburgers and hot dogs.

Occasional substitutes: swiss steak, thin pan-fied pork chops, pot roast. I always knew when we were having either pot roast or swiss steak because my mother would brown the meat in a big Dutch oven - and I'd get a migraine. To this day there are two instant triggers for migraine for me: beef browning in a cast iron pan, and cigar smoke. Don't even have to be in the same room.

We always had a "relish" tray on the table with celery, carrots and radishes, sometimes olives and pickles (for company.)

@AuburnAnnie: Wow, I remember all those meals too! As for the swiss steak, my mom made it in a pressure cooker (remember those?) and no matter how long it cooked, it was tough as shoe leather. We never had a relish try, but had a plate of white bread slices. Also, a salad was iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and MIRACLE WHIP for dressing. As for dining out, there were 7 of us. We went out to a nice restaurant once after my dad got his income tax check - my mother wanted to take us out in public to find out if her etiquette and manners training had had any affect.

My mother made meat loaf with Lipton's Onion Soup mix; it was the BEST meatloaf I've ever had -- to this day!

We used Skippy Peanut Butter (Chunky), Kraft American and Swiss Cheese slices, Wonder Bread and Welch's Grape Jelly.

My mother didn't drink coffee, so my father only had instant coffee at home. When Taster's Choice came out, it was a big step forward (actually it's pretty good). Sometimes my mother would drink Lipton's Tea. We used saccharin tablets.

My Jewish mother made spaghetti (Ronzoni) and meatballs (but no garlic or anything resembling fresh herbs and spices) with Spatini sauce mix. We also had "salad" which consisted of Iceberg lettuce, tomato slices, and bottled dressing (usually French). She made great chopped liver, stuffed cabbage (using Ginger Snap cookies in the sauce), something called a "California" roast which I've never seen since, and delicious roast chicken. My father didn't like fish, so we never had it at home. I never had lobster until I was about 21. My father loved red meat, so I remember eating "Porterhouse" steak quite a bit. In those days we thought it was good for you!

We did go out to eat a fair amount; as my mother got older, she got tired of cooking. I remember Thanksgivings at The Red Coach Grill (which was owned by Howard Johnson's) when my grandmother was alive. Ah, what sweet memories. . . all my dear, deceased relatives. How I miss them!

Oh, and my mother's classic "English muffin pizzas." She'd take Thomas' English muffins, spread them with ketchup, put a slice of American cheese over them, top them with hotdog bits or hamburger meat, shove them under the broiler until done.

45 years later, my friends are still talkiing about them!

60's Child, you are too funny! ;o) I can just see you sipping that martini thinking, "how can something that sounds so bad, be so good?" Those martinis can hit you like a load of bricks. I agree with you Nana that Betty stumbles through the entertaining bit. I think she got thrown into marriage and motherhood at a young age. She never had time to perfect the client entertaining side of her role as a wife. I will admit, she does have the art of conversation down pat. She seems to say the right thing at the right time when they are out with friends or clients. Cheers! ;o)

We didn't have spaghetti at our house - I only ate it when I was at school friends. As a matter of fact, the first time I ate it was when I was 7 and our Brownie leader had the troop over for dinner. We had macaroni - probably because it cooked faster and my Mom worked, so time was of the essence in getting the evening meal on the table.

As far as Betty's menu, I think she cooked what her kids liked. Kids love carbohydrates and they're good for them - they burn those calories up, at least they did back in the 1960s. I think the Draper kids spend a little too much time in front of the TV, but that's just my opinion. We were always shooed out of the house on a nice day. Grilled cheese sandwiches are filet mignon to most kids. They are very filling and we ate them 2 or 3 times a week.

As far as Sally dancing for the entertainment, that didn't surprise me at all. Lots of adult parties started with a show of talent by the kids in the house. Performing was a way to build their interest in their talent - today we would call it building self-esteem.

My family was not touchy feely - but we knew we were loved, just like we knew the sun was coming up the next morning. No one talked about it and you only got hugs and kisses at graduations and weddings, but we thought only Italian families hugged and kissed all the time.

60's Child, can you give us the recipe for that martini?

I thought Betty's dinner party was a huge success. She had a theme - around the world - and that explains the different dishes that didn't seem to be related. Everyone seemed to be enjoying it and Duck thought she was a "peach of a girl."

Wow, talk about routine meals. Every Wednesday for supper we had Bisquick biscuits - flaky and so darn good - with chipped beef gravy over them. Lord, that was good stuff. We had that meal for years because we collected the labels on the Chipped Beef packages; a certain number of labels could you get on a local kids' TV show.

My mom didn't cook supper on Sunday night, just made a big meal at noon time. So, it was every person for himself on Sunday night. My oldest brother would make us hot dogs - slit in middle, Cheez Whiz (along with Velveet, the staff of life in those days) stuffed in the slit, and then broiled. VanCamp's pork and beans filled out the menu.

My parents were not of the Drapers social status but they did have their parties. Especially in the summer. My Dad would bar-b-que his famous ribs. And all they adults drank and drank and smoked and smoked. My sister and I had these plastic wigs and we modeled them for the adults one time. I guess that could count as entertaining right? My parents and their friends liked music and they liked to dance. My Dad always played his Boots Randolph records and that really got their party going. In the morning I remember seeing the rugs all pushed into the corner and the ashtrays all filled up. One of their neighbors had one of these neat brass ashtrays with cover on it or maybe that was to hold the cigs in. Anyway I think my parents & their friends parties were more fun that the Drapers....

My Aunt, whom I called "Nannie" and stayed home to mind me as my Mother worked, was a wonderful cook, although she thought she wasn't.

Favorites: Corn fritters; chicken and biscuits or dumplings; creamed celery or asparagus on toast; scalloped potatoes, roast beef hash, and meatloaf. We had the main meal on Sunday after church and a lighter meal that night.

When I was lucky enough to go on a long trip, I would let her know before I left what it was that I wanted upon return!!!
Birthdays were awarded special treats, too!

my mother was italian (1st generation american) and her mother was italian-born (we called our grandmother "nana"). nana was an excellent cook, making everything from scratch (escept she switched to dry pasta instead of making her own). she could cook italian style as well as american style. my mother was a very good cook, mostly american style, and she also cooked from scratch. we had a tossed green salad every night at dinner, with homemade italian dressing. we had vegetables at every meal. except for garlic bread served with spaghetti (homemade meatballs and sauce), we never had bread or rolls on the dinner table. we were middle-middle class, but we had expensive cuts of meat several times a week: roast beef, delmonico (ribeye) steaks, beef tenderloin, etc. other dinners were roast pork loin, pork chops, lamb chops, roast chicken, pot roast, corned beef and cabbage, meatloaf, mixed grill, liver and onions, hamburgers, salisbury steak, "cube steak", chili con carne, chop suey, beef stew, macaroni and cheese, baked ham.

i also remember the "relish tray" with celery, radishes, and green and black olives.

we never used american cheese, velveeta, miracle whip, spam, or many other such products.

Creamed chipped beef on toast or shepards pie anyone??? Perhaps these foods kept us from the obesity epidemic of our present time.

You've all made me hungry for those days again!
I'm surprized that several of you had mom's who worked away from home... I had the kind of mom who was a full time homemaker and she took it vrry seriously. Both parents came from a farm background so food and a heavy laden table was important.. No cold cuts or sandwiches ever.. Dinner prep started w/ the ritual of peeling of potatoes and something with a bone in it.a green and yellow veg was de rigur . Her spagethi was heavy on the meatballs and until she was introduced to garlic salt, the sauce was red and that's the strongest description I can give it. Whatever we had was followed by a fresh desert.. Pie or cake or cookies 'n ice cream if nothing more. Meatless Fridays were unknown to me until college.. At the end of the 1st week I got a call from my mom, she wanted to know about the food in the dining room.. We had just been served mac 'n cheese for dinner ... No pork chop, no baked chicken... Mom was horrified and was nearly ready to jerk me out of that place immediately before I faded away...She bumped up my stipend so that on Fridays I could go to Waffle House for a decent dinner.....
A cousin was married to an Italian and her spagetti was served w/ a thin tomato based sauce that had some texture to it , poured over the pasta and served on a platter.... I thot it was quite glamorous but it never made it into our family menu.Auburn Annie's menu sounds pretty progressive with some convience items sprinkled in... Not at our house, start from scratch alla way......
The iceberg salads were a staple as well, I used the color of Kraft Fench's Dressing as a theme color in a room design later but it just never had the same vibrancy .... Was there another brand?
Julia Child had not yet come along so "good", read that creative cooks, were hardly the norm...No one has mentioned Jello....
The absence of "touchy feely" as Chopin47 mentions was wholly a foreign concept in my family too..Anything that could be construed by a kid as too much attention paid would be to spoil a child.In their thinking, a spoiled child was about the worst thing that could happenThere was a kid who in fun, pulled the fire bell at school. He was expelled and sent to reform school...No messing around w/ bad behavior in those days...
I believe that food was the way mom showed us that we were cared for... I knew that I was safe and protected and great attention was paid to my welfare but in a remote kind of way.My brother and I were investments and property, just like the Buick,( 60 Le Sabre just like Don's before he stepped up to a Caddie), washed, waxed, whitewalls scrubbed w/ brillo pads to a gleaming shine, chrome polished w/ Bon Ami and oill changes as reccomended by the manufacturer..It was a top down relationship and management did not feel the need for much more than direction to underlings w/ strict attention to smartly executed instructions.
All this rigidity was bound to lead us into conflicts. Poor Don 'n Betty. The next 10 years will be a hard row to hoe. Perhaps they will begin to gather around the dinner table and begin to assimilate before the family disentigrates....Maybe Betty will begin to look at the recipies in Ladies Home Journal and incorporate them into her menu if she knows that the dinner hour has a higher purpose .

We never had liver or lamb (Dad hated them) or shellfish as Mom was allergic (as am I - found out the hard way). Yes, Jello! and was my mom thrilled when "instant" pudding was created, instead of the kind you cooked on top of the stove. Though on a cold weekend mornings she would make real hot chocolate - not instant - and cooked oatmeal for us.

Boots Randolph! Yes! My Dad had the most eclectic music collection: Yackety Sax by Boots, Strauss waltzes, Big Band music (Dorsey in particular), Jackie Gleason records, original cast Broadway albums (Fiorello!, New Girl in Town with Gwen Verdon, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma) and, of course, Christmas albums. We had Andy Williams, Mel Torme, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Jack Jones and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Our all-time holiday favorite: "Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians. We wore that album out, completely. About 10 years ago one of my sisters found a cassette tape of it in a discount bin. She scoured that bin until she found 9 copies and gave us each one for Christmas that year. If you've never heard it, track down a copy. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer alone is worth it (think Spike Jones.)

Auburn Annie, my mom cooked in rotation, too. We always knew what day it was by what was on the stove. She also baked continuously.

Did anybody else have the celery and carrot sticks served in a big glass or vase of water? And yes, I forget who said it but always a small plate with a stack of white bread on it. And we were more than encouraged to eat, eat, eat. Never leave stuff on your plate, how many ears of corn can you eat?

Oh, the memories Auburn Annie! ;o) Jello was made everyday and eaten at every meal. For a really fancy meal, fruit cocktail floated on top. On a special occassion you got Jello with sliced bananas or pineapple chunks. My Mom actually thought Jello was it's own food group and served it as a side dish. She just thought since it was cherry flavored that made it a fruit serving - so full of nutrition. In those days, no one ever thought to read the label of ingredients. You could buy 20 Jello packages for $1 back then, so it was cost effective. I still feel Jello running through my veins. Cheers! ;o)

Jello as desert or side dish???
Now we've really got somethin goin...
Orange or Lime flavored w/ sliced celery/ shredded carrots and pecans and later as I was allowe to assist, I boldly dropped a dollp of Miracle Whip, known at our house as Mayonaise, was artfully dropped as a bit of garniture.It was definately a holiday side dish at our house.... Strawberry w/ bananas or fruit cocktail as a quick desert offerd w/ fresh cookies (oatmeal or Toll House Choc chip only, no exceptons/substituttions) was all she could fashion .
I was recently married and a frequent member at my new familiy's dinner table when I discovered that desert was a "Sunday" offering... I was appalled... Young brides apparantly shock ez...
A neighbor who was a seamstress always made matching aprons like Betty 's for my mom and me as our christmas gift... Mom saved those aprons for holidays/ special occasions as well.. Her regular was a more cover-all affair...Betty was wearing what Mother would have described as a 'duster' when she was defrosting the Kelvinator and re-lining the drawers..this duster would be accecptable but certainly one would never answer the door in this ensemble...

Yeah we had the relish tray too! Always for the holidays. I hated peeling the carrots though. We had a garden so in the summer we had lots of tomatoes, corn, beans, green onions that were huge and we would dip them in salt. We also kept them in a water glass.

On Sundays Mom made a roast with mashed potatoes and gravy. I think those foods were cheap for them. Most Moms didn't work and the families were large. Some of the things I didn't like; like my Mom's salmon loaf. Oooh it was so dry.

New Year's Eve Dad made Grasshoppers with ice cream. I even got a small one, yummy. Did anyone else's parents give you kids a little booze? Gosh I remember one family who had one extremely hyper active child and I guess there was no Ritalyn back them. So at bedtime she was given Strawberry Boones Farm. Not good because she developed a problem in her adult life.

On another note, remember no seatbelts? My Dad was a little crazy driver. I remember him turning a corner and I fell onto the floor. Mom always put her arm out in front of whoever was in the front seat.
Gosh how did we survive? :-)

What was the book in 62 or near there Fasination With Womanhood or something close to that ...it was a handbook on how to be the perfect wife. Maybe betty needs a copy.

pi168, I recall Marabelle Morgan's "The Total Woman" ("....meet your husband at the front door after a hard day's work---wrapped in clear plastic wrap---and let him 'unwrap' you!"----yes, it actually said that!).... but that was in the '70s, I believe and not the '60s.
You were also supposed to "take a bubble bath" and "get ready for his arrival" every night and a bunch of other crap. yeah...right

Now, Drink&Smoke, don't get us all started on the Grape Kool-Aid routine again. LOL

Hey, Drink, are you the one who told the story a while back about the Christmas tree that committed suicide??! LOL

I bet all our new Maddicts would love to hear that one! The way you told it was sooooo hilarious!Tell Tell!!

SCFAN- that book,The Total Woman- was actually recommended to me by my marriage counselor in the 70's. I think that was what finally turned me off from marriage counseling! We next tried a "feminist" counselor but she was so merciless to my husband that we dropped her, too.

Now back to the Jell-o, did anybody ever eat it whipped with vanilla ice cream in it? My mom called it "fluff" and it was pretty good. She also saved all leftovers and threw them into a soup - Nothing was wasted, it was a huge sin to waste food and we had to eat, even if we were no longer hungry. I remember having to sit at the table a
lo-o-ong time after dinner was over because "You're not leaving this table until you finish those cooked carotts." Thank God for the dog, who would scarf anything!

Oh yes, flowerpower, that book stunk deluxe. What a crock!

And as to moms saving "all leftovers"---my mom did that, too---had a big square Tupperware container she kept in the freezer and when it was full of leftovers (even just a tablespoon of stuff would go in it!) she would make veggie soup...and it was delicious.

She was the kind of cook that everything was scrumptious (sp?) freshly made and nothing ever tasted like leftovers, although we had those plenty of nights. She was a southern cook and there was nothing she made that didn't taste perfect. Oh to be able to cook like she did (some of it had to do with back then cooks only had to worry about taste--and not if it was "healthy" ! 'Nuf said.

The posts on this thread make me think of that commercial that runs currently where the mom has a plate full of baked potatos to serve her family--- with an entire stick of butter stuck in each one! That's about right!

We all ate real butter, Velveeta, sugar (an entire cup in a batch of Kook-Aid!) and somehow we didn't die! lol

Kook-Aid??? help me, Lord!.....

I like "kook-aid" better.

Another thing I remember, we had no air conditioning but on Sundays we HAD to eat a big roast that was baked in the oven. It would be so hot you coud die, but the roast and hot bisquits were like a ritual.

My mom made Thanksgiving and Christnas dinners a huge production. She would bake and stuff and simmer and cook and clean and starch and iron linen tablecloths and napkins and what-all until she about dropped. One time we sat down to this unbelievable feast, the result of many days and nights of hard work on her part. She asked my father to say grace and he lowered his head and said, " Good bread, good meat, good God, Let's eat!" And she about threw him out.

Hey SCfan..you had me at "Kool-Aid"!! ;o) Yes, it was me who had the silver Christmas tree that committed suicide. All of you that are newbies to the blog, here is my Christmas tree story per SCfan's request...
My mother decided to buy an all silver Christmas tree (early 70's, but actually they were in style in the late 60's) . The tree only stood 4 ft. tall and it came with a rotating tree stand. My mother decided to put it on top of a two foot block to make it look taller. You plugged it in and not only did it light up, it spun around. We called it the "Disco Tree". It was so embarassing that we did not invite friends over due to the repercussions we would suffer the next day at school. On Christmas eve the tree just had one to many spins, and it fell over - the tree committed suicide and took out all the ornaments with it!! All of us kids jumped up and cheered. My Mom was furious and we all ended up getting in big trouble for cheering. We didn't care, the tree was finally gone!

I remember my mom hosting a "fondue" party and an "all the rage" Taco night. but I think that was early 70s.

Called my Mom she said the book was Fascinating Womanhood and it was the book that "helped millons of women reproritize and get their heads on right after WWll confused gender roles" note my mom said this latter with huge eyerolling sarcasm in her voice.

Funneeeeee, Drink&Smoke! Don't you guys think so??

Oh, and Drink, you wouldn't believe what $$$$ those "vintage" aluminum trees go for now on Ebay, etc...thousands! Who knew?!

Yes, GREAT story! Samurai Christmas Tree commits hari-kari. Didn't they have kind of a rotating little machine with Malibu colored lights that reflected on the tree because you couldn't put regular tree lights on the aluminum? I once saw one decorated with these awful pink feathers!

Hey Drink and Smoke! My family had a large aluminum christmas tree. And yes Flowerpower it had a color wheel that shined red, yellow, orange, green lite on the tree. It really was pretty. But me and my sisters longed for a real green tree. You also had these little silver and gold tabs to put on the ends of the tree limbs and that was my job. Unfortunately one night the color wheel caught on fire and melted. I'm sad just thinking out that.

Anyone remember those dreadful stringy shiny silver plastic "icicles" that had to be put on one at a time?

I would try to hurry and throw on a bunch all at one time and my mom would see and say "Take those off and put them on right" What a pain those things were! I don't miss those one bit.

Oh, WOW! That was my parents' traditional Christmas fight- she wanted to drape each and every silver icicle and he wanted to throw them by the handfuls.

And you couldn't get rid of those things. You were still finding them on the floor until the cellophane Easter basket grass came out and then you picked up that stuff until it was time for the icicles again.

SCfan and flowerpower, you bring back memories over those icicles! ;o) I remember the old icicles (prior to the shiny, static ridden icicles) they were made of aluminum,dull, heavy and you HAD to hang them on the tree one by one. I think if you take a piece of aluminum foil and send it through the shredder you have an idea of what they were like. (enter disclaimer here) They were expensive and after Christmas we had to take EVERY icicle off the tree and place it back in the box. We loved it when the new icicles came out. They were light and you could wad them up and pitch them at the tree from a good 10 feet away, but only when Mom wasn't looking! Right, flowerpower? Not only that, they were cheap and got hauled away to the trash still on the old Christmas tree. Cheers! ;o)

D&S, I think I recall those type of icicles...didn't they tend to turn dark grey as they got older?

Hell, my mom made us take all the icicles back off the tree before we took it to the curb! We had to place them on the cardboard card they'd come on and put it back inside the plastic sleeve...why we didn't protest and refuse to do it I do not know. Time consuming doesn't begin to describe it!

Looking back on it now, I bet that the reason my mom made us do that icicle removal bit was probably to keep us busy during the last days of Christmas vacation from school! LOL

You may be right, SCfan!! That's too funny. ;o) I think my Mom didn't have us save the cheap icicles because there would be more on the floor than on the card. Those icicles wrapped themselves around the vacuum cleaner brush and would cause the brush to stop. The belt would blow and stink up the whole house. I guess she thought that old Kirby vacuum cleaner was worth more than the used icicles!! Cheers ;o)

Drink and Smoke, Chelsea and SCFan, I had forgotten that stuff!

What I most remember about Christmas was just the magical-ness of it. (Is that a word?) It wasn't so commercialized then. I remember the TV shorts, Suzy Snowflake and Frosty the Snowman that would just whip us into a frenzy of anticipation.

My parents were not very rich, but once a year they pulled out all the stops and did the huge Christmas: giant natural tree, lots of presents, home baked cookies, decorated the house, inside and out, etc. You really need a fulltime housewife to do it big like that. My kids never had such all-out Christmases because I always worked. Actually, I think it turned out better.

I'm not a full time anything anymore but I still do an overthetop Christmas because it gives me sumthin to do, starting the day after thanksgiving... and it helps me from goin crazy til it's time to head to the airport to pickup the kids and grandchildren.. One set lives in Ca and they expect to recapture memories and have them to pass on to their own children.... I like for them to have an idealic vision of their nana in what is an otherwise mildly unglamourous midwest... Several trees thruout the house, lots of wreaths and candles... The scent of French Onion soup hitting them in the face as they enter the kitchen, gifts under each tree, depending on where the activity of the day is focused.. 9 footer live tree in family room for Christmas morning, all gifts left by Santa for the toddler set, smaller tree maybe 7 ft in dining room for brunch, those gifts for other relatives who stop in.... another 7 footer but artificial in the living room w/ gifts for neighbors, usually baked goods....And a much smaller tree in the kitchen, decorated w/ soft sculptures of snowmen and other unbreakables that the toddlers can undecorate w/o fear of harm....
Shur it's a lot of work, but worth every minute I spend on it....I wouldn't share that task w/ Carla if she paid ME... O, maybe some of the baking, or silver polishing or napkin ironing ,perhaps some dusting but that's all.... anybody have Carla's #?

I see someone wasn't raised in the 60's. That's what people did they had social gatherings with their business asociates and use their children for entertainment. It was a chance for you and your business associates to become more personal and added a human element to life. Children in the 60's took dance, piano, horseback riding, archery and some more things. If your people had enough money you went to school abroad. You'd be lucky to come home for the holidays and you better have some kind of talent.

Wow Nana Benz I got tired just thinking about all you do. Sounds really great though. Can I come over for dinner?

Yes, Pinkpen, kids were supposed to have some accomplishments then. Now they just drudge to pass all the tests the "No Child Left Behind" demands. Where I work we call it "No Child Left a Dime".

Also, girls were taught to sew, cook, and other domestic arts that have about disappered because all the moms work now. Boys learned mechanical skills by working on the family car, which was mechanically more simple then, no computers.

That the truth Flowerpower. My sisters and I had lots of lessons. Some were after school and didn't cost very much. I remember swimming lessons, golf, acrobat, baton lessons.

We walked to and from school. In the summer we played outside all day. We had woods nearby where we built forts. Now that is all developed. I think we were in better shape then most of today's kids.

Flowerpower, you know it's sad. That's what we've come too "No Child Left Behind". Now how in the hell did that happen? When I grew up you better not get left behind, because that is where you were going to stay, BEHIND. It's even worse today. Johnny can't read, Sallie can't cook and now she's pregnant. Children need some accomplishments today, but they don't have the guidance and supervision we had. Didn't someone say it takes a whole village to raise a child. Mad Men has a some great historical social lessons. Excellent!

Right on, pinkpen! ;o) Let's not forget getting Left Behind if you were not good enough to make the baseball team. Not everyone made the baseball team, like today. There were try-outs and if you were not good enough, you didn't get to play...PERIOD! Your parents didn't go running to the coach yelling, "you are being unfair to my child!" instead your parents told you, "you need to keep practicing if you want to make the team, they are not going to give it to you!". You practiced every chance you got and when you finally made the team, it made all the hard work worth it! Cheers ;o)

You all have had me in stitches remembering the Christmas decorations. Yup, we always had the cheap-o icicles on our trees but fortunately my parents didn't fight about them... Mom was pretty cool that way, she let us three kids and Dad decorate the tree to our heart's content. I'm sure they were not up to Martha Stewart's standards but to our eyes they were perfect. I am so very glad I now have all my homemade decorations. Christmas would not the same without the little felt-and-sequin thread spool or Shrinky-Dink reindeer.

As an aside, I have been wanting some of those big-bulb lights like we used to have on our tree, with a real slow blink... can't find any. :-(

We always had a real tree, and lots of times it was the kind we could plant in the yard after Christmas. That was fun, because I lived in that house my entire childhood and we got a kick out how tall the "our first Christmas" tree got.

Re: childhood food, that too brings back many memories. We did not have a rotation; no, my mother was extremely creative - to a fault. We had some seriously weird stuff, let me tell you, at least compared to what the neighbors were eating! Leg of lamb, lamb patties (bleck), pierogies, lobster bisque (wasted on the young but now I'd kill for it), beef bourginon (same), curries, spaghetti with pesto sauce instead of red, yogurt for lunch, pita bread sandwiches, etc. All of these and more ethnic items were on the menu and caused a lot of comments of the "why can't we just have normal food" variety.... My dad was pretty stalwart about it, but when Mom wasn't home, we'd get hot dogs and baked beans and everyone was happy! Oh, by the way, we lived in New Jersey and were good 'ole American mutts - no relative contributed to the French/Italian/Indian/Lebanese thing going on...

Actually my favorite Dad-and-dinner memory was one time when we were served a soup. I'm sure it was a good, thick nourishing one, but he must have been in the mood for meat and potatoes, because this is what came out when he said grace: "Bless us o Lord, and these thy crumbs..." I think he must have slept on the couch that night. :-)

We also had some of the 60's/70's staples mentioned above, such as Jello with miscellaneous floaters (but thankfully with no mayo, that creeps me out beyond belief), Velveeta-broiled hotdogs (which I loathed) and lots and lots of roasts and hams. The leftovers of the latter were engineered into a variety of things - "turketti" comes to mind - which would not have been too bad if my mom had taken the time to cleanly pick the roast. To this day I have a serious "gristle and fat" phobia, thanks to her always being in a tearing hurry.

This has been a great thread, thanks!

I wrote all that, and I should have mentioned that my parents entertained CONSTANTLY - usually with dinner parties. When we kids were little we'd have a sitter, and when we were older we were expected to greet the guests and then vamoose upstairs. I don't remember entertaining them (I played piano) but we were always trotted out for inspection.

Why is it, that I am the only person I know of my generation who's EVER hosted a child-free dinner party? Is it where I live (the Midwest), or did that just go out of style while I was busy getting older? I've only done it once, years ago. I think if I told our current friends they were invited to dinner sans kids, they'd think I was nuts.

Hey tnoel, had a good laugh over your "Jello Floaters". Good one! As for the kid-free parties, we must have had the same generation parents. We grew up with the "kids were not to be seen OR heard". We only heard about the parties, but never really saw the parties. Cheers! ;o)

Sorry about your Christmas tree Drink&Smoke, I would have loved to see that, I can't stop laughing.
My aunt had a tree like that and she thought she had arrived! We always would get real trees beacause of the pine smell. Wow, that was so funny Drink&Smoke!

That's so true about seen
and not heard. My grandfather, especially, would just tell us to "pipe down" and that was that.You didn't utter a peep. And I remember classrooms being really quiet when the teacher was teaching. We never talked back to teachers.

Quick note to those who may wish to find one of those shiny aluminum Christmas trees on Ebay -- I got mine last year for a mere $30! And it isn't falling apart (too badly)! One must treat the fragile branches gingerly...