We'll start with Christmas of 1964. I was nearly three at the time, since my birthday is at the beginning of March.
I'm guessing this is Christmas eve. There are no opened presents under the tree, and our hair isn't curled. Mom used to curl our hair Christmas eve so we had curly hair on Christmas. She was always disappointed that she didn't have curly haired children.
 |
| Me on the left. There is one of our inflatable reindeer. It looks to be Rudolph. My sister and I both had a reindeer. Mom made us pretend to be looking up the cardboard fireplace for Santa Claus. As young as we were we protested because we thought it was stupid to look up a cardboard fireplace for Santa. It didn't even go anywhere! |
Christmas morning,1965. My sister got Barbie's New Dreamhouse,(on the left),and I got a set of metal kitchen appliances. I wore the washing machine out. It really agitated and had a hose to drain the water out. There was also a sink, stove, and a refrigerator, plus an extra piece that must be just a cupboard. I remember the fridge and the washing machine best.
 |
| Plus I think the thing laying on the shelf to the right of my butt is a little wooden rolling pin. I know I have one, but I don't remember if it came with this stuff or something else. |
I also got a set of pink plastic cups with a matching coffee pot, and white dishes, with white cutlery. The pink box in the foreground had my Tiny Thumbelina in it. I don't see her anywhere. She was my second Thumbelina. I had had a white haired one before, one of the larger ones I think. Mom threw her away. I don't remember why. I do remember her laying on top of the trash pile in the woods, where we had to put things that didn't burn because there was no trash pick up in the country in those days. I do remember begging Mom to get her down. Gee, this is getting sad! Moving on! I did get another Thumbelina, my Newborn Thumbelina, which I did a post on HERE. I still have both of the last two. Thumb's pink box was used to keep those dishes in way into the 70's.
Ok. Wait a minute. Our hair is curled here! These pictures are print dated March and May of 1965,meaning they were all taken the Christmas before. Maybe some are from a different Christmas and it took Mom a whole year to get them developed? We look the same size though.
 |
| This is obviously after the present opening because of the loose paper under the tree. My sister and I had matching sweaters in green and blue. Mom only wore that sweater on Christmas, and still had it when she passed away in 1986. |
Here are my sister, and me, with our hair still curled. I'm holding the Christmas elf, or pixie as we called them then, which my sister got me for Christmas that year. He was one of my favourite toys and I played with him a lot. I still have him, and he got his own post HERE.
Here we are in my sister's room.
If you look closely, you'll see that I have Pixie tucked down beside me in the chair. That's my sister's Miss Revlon or maybe a clone doll. She does still have her. The chicken in the basket was actually a pot holder, made by our Grama I think. I have a green one. I didn't realize they were potholders until my sister told me recently! My mom had the red chair reupholstered one year and gave it to my sister's daughter for Christmas. I don't think they still have it though. I do still have the toy phone on my sister's dressser.
Ok,I think I solved this mystery. Here's another picture of us in my sister's room. I know we got the giant dogs for Easter. (Mine is blue.) Maybe this one is Easter? That would account for the date on the pictures. But I still have Pixie with me. The weird thing is, if this is the same day as the picture above, why did my sister bother to move the phone from the dresser to the bedside table. Wow! Were there originally two of those? I only remember there being one, and there's only one now. It does have the remain of a battery compartment and some wiring though, so maybe there were two and you could talk to each other?
 |
I remember this picture being taken. It's Christmas evening. Dad had just arrived. There's Pixie on my lap again. I seem to have been playing with my Tonka camper and the plastic farm animals when Dad got there. Still have both of those too. I always loved that camper because the windows slid open and the door really opened and you could put toys in it.
Here we are the next year in our next house. I loved this place. It's my favourite place I have ever lived. Our hair is in curlers in preparation for Christmas morning. That's why we have things on our heads. Mine is a hand me down nightcap. It is white, with small red stars. I still have it, and my kids occasionally wore it too.
My mom wanted a fireplace so badly, that one year she left this cardboard one up all year! It had an electric light behind the cardboard fire, with a metal wheel that sat on top of the bulb. The warmth from the light made the wheel spin, which was supposed to give the effect of flickering fire light. The light and wheel are the only parts of the fireplace left, and are in my attic somewhere, as is the spinning wheel planter on the mantel. My kids sang Christmas carols from that carol book my sister is holding. That's my bald baby picture on the wall behind the tree.
Ok! Christmas morning. I'm working on getting into my new doctor's kit, probably to eat the candy pills! Those were a really bad idea and aren't made these days. I got a metal ironing board, a metal wash tub, a metal and wooden wash board, (because I am THAT OLD!),wooden clothes pins, and an umbrella style clothes line. I have said this before, but my sister took it apart and stole the bits that held the line up to turn into finger cymbals. Say, why did I need the washboard and stuff when I got a washing machine the year before?
You will have recently seen this picture in my post on the Barbie Suzy Goose Regal Bed. (If not, you can see it HERE.) That's it there in the middle of the floor. That's Tearie Dearie by Ideal laying on the bed. Her pink cradle/bath tub is in the left foreground. And that's my great Remco Tiger Cat jeep. I played that to death. I still have the doctor kit and the contents,(except for the candy pills!),the Regal bed, Tearie Dearie and her cradle.my clothes pins and washboard, and the radiator from my jeep! You can't see them here, but I got clothes for Tearie Dearie too, as well as a little white haired doll and some clothes for her.
I'm holding the white haired doll. I think she was a cheap generic doll. Notice all the shipping boxes. I think Mom did most of her shopping by catalog. I know that's how we picked out what we wanted. In fact, before I could write I used to just cut out the pictures of what I wanted from the catalog and glue them to a piece of paper. As you can see, my sister got a red doctor kit just like mine. Later I used it as a case for my Sesame Street finger puppets. I don't think they're still in there though, because Emma used to play with them when she was little. The guitar next to my sister was something I think Mom really wanted for herself. She's the one who played it most. She always wanted to play guitar, so she bought one for my sister! She taught herself to play "Uncloudy Day", which she would play standing on the register,(heating vent), for the acoustics! When I was about 9 she kept asking me, "Wouldn't you like to have one of those little organs?" This was when the small electric 'chord organs' were popular. I kept hemming and hawing, until I realized she wanted it. Mom and Dad never got presents from anybody except me and my sister, and we bought those at the Five and Ten or made them. So I told her yes. We both played it until it wore out.
White haired girl can be seen in Tearie Dearie's bed with her in the picture below.
 |
Emma played with the white haired doll for a while when she was little, but the doll had gotten brittle with age and her legs fell off! Side note: See that multiple corner on the wall by the telephone niche? One day I woke up from my nap to find that my sister was already home from school and was in the kitchen,(The room beyond the corners). I was so excited that I jumped off the couch, which was sort of the direction this photo was taken from, and went running for the kitchen, calling her name. Well you might notice that the rug stops just at the corner of this chair. After that there was wood floor, and then a section of linoleum that was printed with small bricks. The linoleum continued on into the kitchen. I did not take naps in my shoes, therefore I was only wearing socks. I think you can see where this is going. Once I ran out of carpet and hit the linoleum, my butt hit the floor and I slid on it straight into that multiple corner, which I hit with my head. The walls were plaster, but I swear those edges were steel enforced. I have an invisible dent in my forehead I can feel to this day, that I'm sure is because of that corner. Second side note: That's the recliner I hid behind when Chris Jennings turned into a werewolf on "Dark Shadows".
Here's a rarity. It's a picture of my mom and dad on Christmas.
That flowered couch actually has a cover on it. When a spot would wear out, my mom, grew up during the depression, would snip a piece of fabric from the back of the cover, neatly patch that hole with a piece of plain green fabric, and use the piece she had cut out to patch the front!
Below is another picture of my sister with me. It's another of Mom's posing ideas. We're supposed to be reading a Christmas book or singing carols or something. This may actually be after Christmas, when mom left the fireplace up all year. Notice my clown slippers. I think I only had one pair like that, but I had two or three pairs with duck heads on them, and one pair with white kitten heads. I don't know for sure about the duck heads, but I know for certain I still have the kitten heads off of those! I was always a sentimental pack rat, even as a kid. As proof of that fact, I'll tell you this story. During first grade I used an old lunch box of my sister's. On the last day of school, instead of me riding the bus home, Dad picked me up, which became a tradition. Part of the way home I realized I had left my lunch box behind. I insisted we go back to get it. Dad said not to worry about it, that he'd just buy me a new one for the next year. But, at seven years old, I was thinking, "But that was my first lunch box! I want to keep it!" When I just kept on Dad went back and we got it. These days I use that metal 'states of the U.S.A.' lunchbox to store family mementos, like my grandfather's pocket watch, one of my dad's dog tags, and my grandmother's locket.
 |
| My mom made the magazine rack to my right. She kept looking at the 'baby cradle book rack' in the catalog and wanted one really badly. Finally she decided to make herself one. She drew a template and cut out the pieces, sanded them, and put it together. This is before she stained it. It's dark brown now, and at the moment has records in it. |
And that's the last of my childhood Christmas photographs. Everybody have a good Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate. See you soon.
