On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
For the next couple of weeks, we are having Ghosts of Holidays Past instead of the usual On the Road After Dark.
So send in your pictures! Either as a full set for a post, or just send one or two that will go into a group post. Be sure to include some text so we know what we’re looking at. If you want to send photos but not have them identified as yours, let me know that, too.
We haven’t declared war on Christmas, but we did switch to Holidays so all celebrations are welcome!
My father was a professional photographer, so there are lots of pictures of the family Christmases, as well as home movies etc. It’s hard to pick just a few, and I also don’t want to embarrass myself or my siblings, so here some that I chose with that parameter in mind. Be forewarned, I’m officially old, and grew up in the middle of the country, so some of these items and customs might be novel for some of you youngsters! But I’m still impressed by Kodachrome; some of these slides are over 60 years old, and they look great, color and tone-wise!
One of the family traditions when I was young was a Christmas Day trip to my aunts house in the tiny town of Montezuma KS, about a half hour away. Here we would gather with my dad’s parents and some of his siblings (most of whom were still in that part of KS), have Christmas dinner, wash a lot of dishes, and open presents. We took turns opening one present at a time, starting with the youngest and proceeding to the oldest, so my grandfather was always the last to get to open his first present. But he always had more than anybody, so he could keep opening presents long after the kids had completed theirs. Here’s a pic of my sister “helping” my grandmother open a present; other relatives can be seen in the background.
Another tradition at these family Christmases was a table for the adults and a table for the kids (my siblings and cousins). Here’s one of the kid’s tables, probably in 1953 or 1954.
And here’s one of the reasons there was a separate table for the adults. My grandmother with one of her presents.
Because we spent most of Christmas Day with the relatives, my sibs and I would have only early Christmas morning to play with our gifts from Santa. Some of them could travel to Montezuma, but the car was pretty full and so most of them stayed home. Here’s a look at some gifts from Santa, waiting to be opened on Christmas morning, about 1953.
My sister and myself, in pajamas, figuring out how to use the new record player shown in the previous pic.
One of my gifts, a year or so later, was this wooden workbench, which I probably didn’t get to take to the big family Christmas in Montezuma!
My father would also make us all pose for a Christmas card image, which he would send to friends and relatives, but would also use them as an example when he advertised this opportunity for others in the community. So the next three images are some of those. This one is 1952.
1955. Five kids in 6 years… Sheesh. But we were still cute! This was posed on a fake staircase in Dad’s studio; it led nowhere, but made a great posing spot for pics like this.
1964. Color Christmas card this year! Same staircase, one more kid, and some of us were decidedly into the “not-so-cute” phase of adolescence.
Note from WG: I had to add this one to what Albatrossity put together. In case you missed it last week, this is an adorable 4-year-old Albatrossity.
Starry Night Open Thread
zhena gogolia
OMG, I have pictures like this. I have many (black-and-white) shots of my brother rocking that same striped-shirt-and-overalls look the kid is wearing in the top picture. KCMO, not all that far from you. These pictures are so familiar to me
ETA: Well, I guess it’s far in Kansas terms, but not in USA terms.
JanieM
These are wonderful, and incredibly evocative of an era, since I’m roughly the same age as you apparently. Quick comments on specific photos:
— The first pic — of kids and adults at a gathering — is like so very many gatherings of my extended family that it could be us! It’s something my own kids didn’t have, because we lived far away from everyone else. That was good in some ways and not so good in others.
— The intent look on your face in the one where your sister is working the record player work is priceless. You were obviously a very patient little brother!
— The way you’re sitting in #6, with the workbench — one of my sisters can sit like that. Just looking at the picture makes my knees feel like they’re breaking.
— The horn-rimmed glasses…..oh, the memories.
Wonderful, thanks for posting them
ETA: The “Helen” in the labeled pic could be me…I had an almost identical plaid dress that my seamstress mother made, with a collar something like that. And the bangs. Did your sister ever wonder why you got the curls?
zhena gogolia
@JanieM:
I had those bangs too!
JanieM
@zhena gogolia: You wouldn’t think there’d be such a thing as the fashionable five-year-old in 1955, but you would be wrong, apparently. ;-)
eclare
Absolutely charming photos. I’m a little younger than you, but boy that kids’ table takes me back. The adults were in the dining room, and we were in the den with the toasty gas logs.
stinger
These could be pics of my family, roughly the same era. Three boys and three girls, not in that order. The clothes, the glasses, the hair, the gifts… all so familiar. Thanks for sharing these!
debbie
I have the same kind of Christmas photos, too. We celebrated any holiday that involved gifts.
Joy in FL
These are great photos!
Jim Appleton
Great stuff.
Thank you!
John Revolta
Old Quaker! Hot dawg!
I was the oldest of a bunch of cousins so I always had to sit at the kids’ table regardless. Gets to be a drag when you’re getting up into your teens!
I remember that lead tinsel on the tree. It was really shiny, and heavy! The thing to do was to collect it all when you took the tree down and then mash it down into a heavy little ball, a little bigger than a golf ball maybe. Then you’d take it it your fist and punch your brother in the arm! (Not too hard. Just, you know……….annoying!)
Grover Gardner
This is glorious, thank you! Old Quaker! My god…
JanieM
@John Revolta:
No way! We saved it for next year. Frugality ruled.
Redshift
My family has photos like this, though I’m about ten years younger, I think. My parents still have them, maybe I’ll get hold of some for next year.
My family celebrated the Great American Secular Holidays – Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. (Not quite quarter days, but close.)
Dan B
Perfessional photograffer you bet! They look spontaneous or at least very comfortable.
There are some good relaxed photos of my relatives from the 50’s and 60’s but too many looked like firing squad lineups. And inside those outfits were hips that never moved and spines that strained to maintain posture. sSnce my grandmother was a Charter Member of the Arkansas WCTU and my other grandmother certifiably Victorian not one drop of evil spirits would ever pass the threshold of the domicile of any kinfolk.
When, years later, all us expelled or politely tolerated queerlings created our chosen, and found, families far from our tiny hometowns we had the warmest holidays. Hips shook, spirits poured and glowed, and most photos would have been blackmail fodder back in the heartland. I just found one X-mas card labeled, “Bad Girls get Spanked!” (Nun and flouncing tight red ruffles… We were expunging our constrained pasts with supersonic speed. (How did we survive? – with much good fortune borne of a core of innocence.)
Kristine
Sweet photos. I can smell the food and hear the kids chatter.
Yarrow
LOVE that picture of your Grandma. She’s very pleased with her present!
What are the things on the kids table around Santa? Elves? They have wheels!
@John Revolta: A friend of mine’s grandmother always sat at the kids’ table. It made them feel so special. My friend still has such fond memories of that.
Mary G
These are classics. Now we know how you got to be so good at photography.
Debbie(Aussie)
Amazing isn’t it. Half a world away, but oh so similar. Looks more like my husbands family rather than my small (and decade later) one. Hubby was no 7, born over 11 years with an ‘extra’ added six years later. Have wonderful memories of childhood Christmases. Traditions that we have continued to this day. When hubby’s parents were still alive Christmas was held on Boxing Day. Nana introduced this so she could have everyone there together. The cousins, 12 of them, grew up knowing and caring about each other. Harder now with even more generations. We try to have our ‘boxing day’ get together in October/November so love, memories and joy can be shared.
thanks so much for sharing.
cain
Watergirl is definitely older than me – I’m as hold as John – and I dont think I have memories of anything in the 50s or 60s :D I of course laughs when you refer to the ‘younger folks’ since that would probably be us 50s and 40s people :D
OzarkHillbilly
Ahem… As one who built a few, just got to say that it might not be the stairway to heaven or anywhere else, but it’s still a very real staircase. ;-)
There go two miscreants
I am so envious…a couple of years younger than you, but there are very few surviving pictures from my childhood, not excluding Christmases. We used to go to my grandparents house also, a huge 3-story pile that still exists. Many cousins! These pictures all look so familiar…how long ago all this was.
Now of course practically every second of my grandkids’ lives is photographed. I’m sure they can’t imagine not being able to just snap a picture or video whenever you like (let alone having to pay money to get then developed!)
Albatrossity
@zhena gogolia: Thanks! The kid in the top picture is me; I guess those were my dress overalls!
@JanieM: I was the only one with those curls, but as you can see they went away by the time I was 5 or so. All of my kids got them too. I recall my sisters wearing curlers and such, but they also did strange things like ironing their hair, so I’m not sure that they were that jealous, depending on what was in fashion at the time.
@John Revolta: Yes, that tinsel was a trip, and we also saved it year after year after year. My father was a real stickler about how to hang it on the tree just one strand at a time, and as the stuff aged over the years, that got progressively more difficult for those with less patience than him.
@Dan B: Yes, we had so many pictures taken of us that we basically ignored cameras and flashes. There is one hilarious scene in the home movies where on Christmas morning my brother emerges from a dark bedroom into a dark hallway into a living room to face the thermonuclear lights that were needed for home movie-making in the 1950s. He couldn’t see a thing, and made a wrong turn to run smack into the refrigerator. Immortalized on film for us all to giggle at decades later!
@Yarrow: I honestly have no recollection of those things with wheels at the kids table; that was a year when I was pretty young. There was usually some small and identical gift for every kid at the table, and that seems to be the case here; even though someone had already taken their plate to get food, there are 7 place settings. They look like some military figures, with wheels, probably to help us fight the Commies, which was a big deal in those days.
@OzarkHillbilly: yes, it is a real staircase. But it didn’t go anywhere, and as we grew it became much more difficult to stand up straight at the top of the stairs, since the ceiling of the room was right there! I wonder if that thing is still there; the building still stands and has hosted had a progression of other businesses over the years. Can’t imagine that a prop staircase was very useful to anyone else!
Thanks, all, for your comments and recollections. I am looking forward to seeing the pics that others have sent it! And thanks to Watergirl for this idea; it was a real trip down memory lane for me.
J R in WV
Sure brings back the memories. I was born in the tail end of 1950, along with several (4) cousins so we shared Christmas at the various grandparents’ homes.
Thanks for sharing those now old memories~!~
way2blue
Thanks for sharing. I love the one of you with your sister & the new phonograph. Adorable.