Christmas Decor

[sew.momma]

What are your favorite golden era christmas decorations? now or growing up.

 

[Shangas]

Do they still make those little glass Christmas-tree ornaments? I grew up decorating our tree with those. Nasty if you happen to drop them...but oh-so-pretty...

 

[St. Louis]

Shangas, I think you can buy good repros at the Vermont Country Store. I love glass ornaments too, and I particularly love real tinsel. I found some online last year, I think from a German site. When I was growing up, my grandmother had real candles lit on her Christmas tree. That was absolutely magical.

 

[Stanley Doble]

We had a candle stick made of a birch log when I was a kid . It was about 14" long with 2 holes drilled ix the top to take the candles. It had feet made of birch sticks a sprig of holly. It showed up around 1951. It was a fixture of the Christmas decorations for 15 years.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I have an Aluminum Christmas Tree that I rarely use.
It's a 50's Peco Pom Pom (with the original box and sleeves around each limb).
Well this year it's coming out in place of the regular one, because I have stuff on top of the regular one, and I don't care to move it.
The only ornaments I'm going to place on it are small blue ornaments.
No color wheel though, I just haven't had the time to purchase one.

 

[Warden]

Wow love this thread, we have to decorate a nightclub / stage for a themed vintage evening, & if I am honest bit stuck on the decor, do not want it to look to disney, but also want to get the impression of Christmas.

I like natural holly, but with fire regs thats a no no.

 

[Methuselah]

I live in a tiny 1 bed flat, so decorations are all recyclable (no storage room):

• Paper chains
• Holly wreaths
• Ivy over the tops of picture frames
• Advent ring using pine cones and a cake board (and candles obviously)

 

[Warden]

I do like that traditional home made approach. Just as I remember Christmas decorations from my youth

 

[1930artdeco]

It is probably a bit newer but I remeber my grandmother having one of those little wheels that alternated between red/blue and green I think. She always shined it at the back wall and so it would change colors. I just saw one and I probably should have gotten it.

Mike

 

[dhermann1]

There are SO many types of Xmas decorations that I love. But in the last couple of years I've developed a bubble light fetish. You can get new ones, that don't bubble quite as enthusiastically as the old ones. But you can also still find usable vintage bubble lights on Ebay.
Here's a really neat website dedicated to old Xmas tree lights:
http://www.oldchristmastreelights.com/faqs.htm
And here's another one with all sorts of retro decorations:
http://www.aretrochristmas.com/

 

[Gregg Axley]

I noticed that too. I had a string of bubble lights years ago, and only a few bubbled.
Just don't make things like they used to.

 

[rjb1]

Concerning decorating a tree for a vintage-Christmas look for a stage production, I suggest having a close look at the Christmas tree in "A Christmas Story". The set decorators for that movie did a perfect job of reproducing a 1950's-era Christmas tree. The one in the movie has a number things that are *exactly* what we had on our tree in that time period. That includes the red-outlined star at the top. (I had to check to see that the one I inherited from my parents was still in the box.)
Agree with the sentiments about bubble lights...

 

[St. Louis]

I got a lot of ideas for decorating my home for Christmas from my favorite Christmas movies. In Holiday Affair (1949) the heroine's in-laws have strung all their Christmas cards in a thick garland across their mantel. For me, 1949 is just about the tail end of my favorite period, but since the couple in question was in their 50s, I assumed they were carrying on a long-standing tradition. So I copied that in my home, though I have to say I don't get nearly enough cards these days to make the garland look quite as impressive.

In Remember the Night (1940), which probably my favorite Christmas movie in the world, there's a beautiful, simple, country Christmas tree with popcorn garlands and tinsel. This youtube clip shows a few glimpses of the tree. Caution: I can't watch this scene without welling up.

There's another Barbara Stanwyck movie, Christmas in Connecticut (1945) that shows what a really fashionable wartime Christmas would have looked like. Barbara plays a Martha-Stewart type of character, so you can get a sense of what was considered stylish and appropriate.

 

[Flicka]

When my grandparents passed away I got all of their Christmas things, partly because no one else wanted them (and I really did) and partly because I had always admired them and my grandparents wanted me to have them. I have all of their Christmas tree glass ornaments (sooo fragile) which are heirlooms or purchase in the second half of the 40s (when my grandparents were newly married), and their nativity set from the 50s and all the little houses they collected during their travels which they would display in a "snow" landscape at Christmas.

I love all of them so I can't really say I have a favourite, but they are so strongly linked to my grandparents in my mind that I always feel like they are present when I unpack them. I even (I admit it's probably weird) have a little chat with my grandparents about life and how much I treasure all this stuff...

 

[Shangas]

Aaah glass Christmas ornaments.

I remember as a child, hanging up those bright Christmas baubles. They were so light, I thought they were made of plastic. In the innocence of childhood, I decided to test this theory by seeing how well they bounced on the floor.

I tested it once, and never again.

 

[sheeplady]

I got a lot of ideas for decorating my home for Christmas from my favorite Christmas movies. In Holiday Affair (1949) the heroine's in-laws have strung all their Christmas cards in a thick garland across their mantel. For me, 1949 is just about the tail end of my favorite period, but since the couple in question was in their 50s, I assumed they were carrying on a long-standing tradition. So I copied that in my home, though I have to say I don't get nearly enough cards these days to make the garland look quite as impressive.

I was excited years ago to find a mantle garland that has little clothespins with mittens on them. Unfortunately, since I've gotten it the number of cards we get has decreased down to almost nothing- people who sent cards for years no longer send them.

 

[St. Louis]

I'll send you one! Seriously, I'm making 1930s and 1940s Christmas cards from vintage images I photocopied, and I am willing to send one to any F-Lounger who is willing to reciprocate.

 

[John in Covina]

Lead tinsel.

 

[sheeplady]

I'll send you one! Seriously, I'm making 1930s and 1940s Christmas cards from vintage images I photocopied, and I am willing to send one to any F-Lounger who is willing to reciprocate.

We send New Years cards, although they are not necessarily vintage... (I like sheep themed cards but also anything that catches my eye). Everybody celebrates New Years and we like to be weird.

If you're interested, PM me.

 

[MPicciotto]

We have a 4ft aluminum feather tree but no color wheel yet. I like to hang vintage glass balls on it (I have one that says "Happy Christmas"), the ones with cardboard around the top. We have one strand of newer bubble lights and we still hang the string across the opening between the kitchen and the living room to hang the cards from. I also have a cellophane Santa head to hang on the wall or window.

Outside I'm more modern, preferring a mix of icicle lights and blue strands. But I do have several hundred feet of the multi-color strands with the big bulbs along with a large star. The setup had belonged to a friend who's family used to decorate a large evergreen in their yard.

Matt

P.S. I'm in Afghanistan right now and somebody thought to put some of those glass ball ornaments into the fountain in the dining hall...