Sincerely 'Fro Me to You #5: Christmas '65

This is a picture of my brother and me on Christmas morning 1965. Yes, I know the border of the photo says Mar '66 but trust me, it was 1965. [In my family, we let rolls of film age before developing. How wondrous it is that we now live in the age of digital cameras!]



Several things about this picture interest me. First and foremost, notice the sectional sofa encased in plastic slipcovers! I know, you've heard about it on Everybody Loves Raymond, and now you see that people actually did this. Note also, the pole lamp that looks like sideways track lighting.

I know you can't see it, but underneath that pile of gifts, we had a formica-topped boomerang shaped coffee table. Oh! We were cutting edge when it came to home decor!

We did have an eclectic side, though. You'll see that above the sofa, Mom had hung a brass plaque. (She still has it, by the way.) It was one of a pair, the other one reposed on the other side of the room. You'll never believe where she got the plaques. Yup, at the S & H Green Stamp Redemption Center! It was so cool, just for buying gas or groceries, they gave you stamps. You got to wet the backs of them and then stick them in books. Then you could peruse a catalog and dream of how many more books it would take for you to get that special item.

Nowadays at the gas pump or the checkout counter instead of them giving YOU stamps, you give THEM your life's blood, often in the form of plastic. It's the gift that keeps giving you pain month after month when the statements come in.

But I digress.

This picture shows some of the Christmas gifts we received. We were wearing our Christmas jammies. It was a tradition that we always got new jammies for Christmas in order to take better Christmas pictures.

I remember that this particular Christmas, our parents had went all out and bought a ton of gifts. [You can't see them all in this shot.] They both had really good jobs at the time, probably the only time in their married life that both of them were making good money at the same time.

Not pictured were our main gifts, a Huffy 3-speed bike for me, and a drum set for my brother. He also got a Fred Flintstone punching bag. But what you can see is that I got a Barbie, Tim is holding a transistor radio, and on the couch beside me was a Nancy Drew mystery and a Chatty Cathy doll. [I was practically sitting on Chatty Cathy.] It's too bad I didn't save some of this stuff. I could sell it on E-bay!

Thanks for stopping by and looking at my nostalgic photo. As you can see, even in the 60s parents sometimes went overboard!

If you'd like to see some other great photos, go visit Kristen's blog, We are THAT Family.