Our Half-Assed 1950s Christmas & Why I'm Going to Ohio Next Year

Of all the places in the world that are on my travel wishlist, I can't pretend Columbus, Ohio was included - until now. Thanks to my Twitter friend Jodi, I've just learned that this fall the Ohio Historical Foundation plans to unveil a fully functional, totally authentic, super dreamy 1950s home as part of a project to educate people on how Ohioans lived in that decade. I have a feeling that if I walked into this, I'd go into full-blown 50s Housewife Experiment mode faster than you can say "sleeper cell":



Roadtrip?

But that's nearly a year away ... what am I up to now? Getting out the holiday decorations, of course! As you might recall, we did a 1950s Christmas last year, so I was all jazzed to break out the vintage and vintage-inspired holiday décor again this year.

Alas, a small and very gross-looking problem was revealed when I took out the paper garland:

When you're sliding into first and you feel something burst ...

Blarf. Perhaps someone out there who has more than a foggy Grade 11 understanding of chemistry can help explain this, but it seems like the glue holding the white pieces of crepe paper together oxidized (?) into a most unfortunate colour. And since the song does not say "deck the halls with boughs of shit stains", I decided not to use these. To quote The Great and Powerful Snooki: Waaah.

Thankfully, my darling aluminium (or aluminum - as spelled on the packaging) tree and mercury glass ornaments appeared free of anything that could be interpreted as a bodily secretion:

We rearranged the furniture so that I could put the vintage Christmas tree in the window as to ensure the neighbours knew that we were the weirdos on the block. Mission accomplished:

And with the colour wheel and rotating stand flipped on, it just gets better and better. Every time I turn those on, this song goes off in my head. Camp-a-rific!:

(You can see the tree in motion in this nerdtacular video I created last year.)

Our Putz village, compliments of the workers in "Occupied Japan", also made a reappearance. I should really get some white-wired lights instead of these green-wired ones; it sort of looks like my village is surrounded by festive barbed wire. Ah well, but I like it all the same:

And besides that stuff and a few vintage angels and a bottle-brush tree strewn about here and there, that's the extent of my holiday decorating.

Meh?

Well - I'll probably do a bit more for our big dinner on Saturday, but I can't say I'll bother with this interesting find from the December 1957 issue of Better Homes and Gardens:

Nothing says "happy birthday, Baby Jesus" like a pineapple made of newspaper. Or a flaming turkey ushered in with a song. Or a flaming cabbage at a cocktail party. Ah, the things you learn.

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A Holiday Suggestion for the Hysterical

If you're one of those people who believes there is a war on Christmas going on (to which my usual reply is either tackling a Christmas tree or waterboarding anyone with a manger on their yard), I found an ad in my December 1969 Woman's Day magazine that should help you out.

All you need to do is emerge from the kitchen with this flaming turkey in your hands on Christmas Day, and I assure you, you will hear shouts of "Jesus!" and "Oh, Christ!" and perhaps even "Call a priest!":

Brought to you by everyone's favourite gourmet, Wrigley's Spearment Gum.

Hallelujah!

I'll understand if you want to skip the suggestion of singing "Happy Turkey" to the tune of "Happy Birthday" as suggested in the ad; but I'll also respect your beliefs if The Flaming Turkey Song quickly becomes a cherished family tradition as well. The bird, after all, did die for us.

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My Somewhat-Sexist-1950s-Inspired-Home-Décor Theory

When we bought our home this summer, I was really excited to get to clean two bathrooms instead of just one decorate and buy some new furniture. I had the same IKEA couch for 11 years, and while it was fine and will continue to labour under our asses for years to come in the basement, I really, really wanted something new for our furniture-less front room. And so, like everyone in North America who has a vagina and way too much time on her hands, I got all obsessed with Pinterest and pawing the Internet for ideas.

But the things that really got me thinking were my 1950s materials. It wasn't the specific design suggestions that got my old noggin thumping, but the way everything in the magazines seemed to point out whether something was masculine or feminine. Boy things and girl things were clearly defined - even when it came to food (remember the post from the 50s Housewife Experiment that talked about making meals for husbands with "masculine tastes"?). As you can imagine, home décor choices were discussed in a similar way. In fact, one article I read in The Bride's Reference Book titled "The Masculine Bill of Rights" specifically lays out what men like in home furnishings and advises women not to get too carried away with "feminine" details. Like so:

A man needs furniture large enough to accommodate his binge drinking.

Clearly, this advice to respect the Masculine Bill of Rights fell onto deaf ears for some. Here's a 1955 ad from Armstrong that features pink linoleum floors, a pink rug, pink walls, pink curtains, pink canopy beds (two of 'em!), and pink furniture that might have you wonder if a giant Barbie was about to walk through the door:

The picture above is why articles like "The Masculine Bill of Rights" were written. And maybe those articles worked because we don't see ads or rooms that are that unabashedly girly anymore. That is, unless it belongs to a little girl with a princess-obsession. But an adult woman? Or a married couple? As if.

While we still identify some décor items as feminine or masculine, I think a lot of everyday people (or maybe just me?) try to appease everyone in their home by turning to items that feel gender neutral. We don't go for those "feminine" prints or pieces because we worry they'll look childish or silly - as if we haven't outgrown our little princess ways. Or we worry that by having something "girly", even something small, we will somehow upset our male partners - as if a simple floral bedspread could make a man uncomfortable.

But the problem with gender neutral décor is that it's often really, really boring. Unless it's a super fun and eccentric piece that defies gender, it can come across rather personality-less. This doesn't mean that it's not nice looking, it's just ... rather forgettable. You can see what I mean when you look at the pictures of our condo:

Yes, part of the blandness is the never-ending IKEA, but the neutrality of the place also lent to the whole 'meh' factor. In looking back at those pictures, I found that the ones I liked best were the ones that had rooms with flowers - a nice unmistakably feminine touch.

And so when we were creating the room in our new home, I specifically went for things that struck me as masculine or feminine. It needed a him or a her-ness to it. Eventually, we pulled the place together. Our couch reminded me of a nicely tailored men's suit. The curtains are bold yet undeniably feminine. The teak coffee table is simple, but definitely on the butch side. And our area rug is like a woman's colourful makeup palette. (I had a naughty 'rug' joke lined up there but decided to take that high road I keep hearing about. I just want you to know that.) I should probably change the lampshades to something with more colour and I realize I need to fill our bookcases in a more appealing way (it feels rather lacking) - but I love the direction it's going! It all looks way nicer when the sun is shining in, but here are some pics:

And you know who pointed out the rug to me in the store? Patrick. Because it turns out that if you have a nice balance of things (respecting that whole Masculine and Feminine Bill of Rights), dudes balls don't actually shrivel up around pretty stuff. In fact, they really quite admire it.

If I get my act in gear, next post will have some pics with our Christmas stuff up. You just know that aluminium tree is making a return appearance.

In the meantime, tell me about your home décor theories and practices!

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35 Facts About My Parents That I'm Going To Share With The Internet Whether They Like It Or Not (Because They're Not The Boss Of Me Anymore)

35. It's my parents' 35th wedding anniversary today!
34. My mom's name is Marie-Paule, but she just goes by Marie to appease the anglophones of Alberta.
33. My father's name is Joe, he has always gone by Joe, even though in his high school yearbook he's referred to as "Joey". He claims he has no idea why someone would have written that.
32. In my mom's high school yearbook, she was given the nickname "Lips". She claims it's because she has big lips, but we all know that isn't true.
31. I mean, this is what she looked like back then. You just know she was beating the boys off:

30. With a stick. WITH A STICK, you sickos.
29. But surely my dad was quite the catch, too:

28. Uh ... anyway ... they got married in a tiny ceremony at city hall. They had a party at their home afterwards.
27. The bride was 19. She wore a white dress and gigantic glasses.
26. The groom was 26. He wore a velvet clip-on bow tie.
25: See for yourself:

24. It was the 70s.
23. Evidence:

22. They lived in a town that looks like what every American thinks of when they think of Canada:

21. Back then, they did weird things for fun:

20. And wore a lot of short shorts with sandals with other people who wore short shorts and sandals:

19. But then after a couple of years, they ruined it all:

18. Parenting did not always come naturally:

17. But despite that, they decided to have another kid and this weirdo showed up:

16. And because no one used sunscreen back then, their older child turned into a little Mexican. The couch stayed the same:

15. See - no sunscreen!

14. It got to the point that the little Mexican eventually turned into a small Indian woman. And the couch still stayed the same:

13. They celebrated many Christmases together and styled their children's hair into festive mullets during the winter months to make up for their lack of ethnically-confusing suntans:

12. Now that the family had conquered style, Marie decided to finally get a new couch. Actually, she just reupholstered the old ugly one. This was right around the time the eldest child's looks peaked and she started to look Italian, while the younger one had turned into a boy:

11. But Marie and Joe kept up the glamour; Marie with a can of hairspray a day and Joe with his promise to not let his beard get all "I-am-the-leader-of-a-cult" again ...

10.  ... like it had been in the '80s:

9. And Joe and Marie kept on living it up with things like curling at MacDonald Island, hanging out with their friends, and working at companies that make Al Gore cry.
8. Eventually their children grew up and moved away and Marie and Joe had nothing left to live for celebrated this by moving into a whole bunch of houses - first to Edmonton, then to Saskatoon, and finally settling in Okotoks.
7. They've retired and now do lots of travelling, especially to areas of the world that allow them to let it all hang out:

6. But when they're home they like to do the very opposite of what I like to do, and that's go outside and not eat. They especially like it if this outdoorsy-ness involves hiking up the side of a mountain:

5. But they also do things that I can relate to:

4. And during all this time and despite all the challenges - like cancer, stresses of raising a family, 80s fashion experiments, and jerk children who spill family stories on the Internet like the time Marie went nuts and threw out ALL of the children's toys - they actually still seem to like each other.
3. You can even see it in other people's wedding pictures:

2. They are such a nice couple and such nice people that even when their silly children talk to each other on Skype they say things like, "how cute are Mom and Dad?" and "I love how they're still in love" and "they really showed us what good marriage was" and "I can't believe how lucky we were to have them as parents". It gets even more mushier and smooshier than that if one or both of the children has been drinking.
1. Everybody who knows them, and even some of the people who don't (right, Internet?), wish them a very happy 35 years of marriage and many, many more happy years together.

We love you.

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