Deck the Halls with Aluminum and Plastic!

 

An obsession with plastics and the newest gadgets, a longing for yesterdays’ traditions and earthy materials: such is the amusing design bi-polarism of the 1950s! It’s like watching Norman Rockwell duke it out with Willem de Kooning . Who wins this battle of the sensibilities? YOU decide, as you leaf through the pages of…

House Beautiful, December 1959!

READ how to create family traditions year round… how to serve the food that nobody else will serve (quiche!)… how to avoid the holiday maelstrom… about the gifts which didn’t exist last year (a can opener with a clock attached! a portable grill combined with a toaster and toaster oven! An electric ice crusher!) . (I think the grill/toaster/toaster oven is the ‘50s equivalent of a fax/copier/scanner, don’t you?)

How many times has this happened to you: your hair is soaking wet yet you need to arrange those flowers before Biff comes home! A million times or more, if you’re like me. Here’s the solution, Girls!

CREATEa Christmas tree from fake fruit, aluminum, or scap wood! Or, make your own decorations from aluminum strips and cellophane! (Complete instructions are included.) Or update your old, tired wassail bowl and use caviar as a seasoning! (Not in the wassail bowl, silly… serve caviar with cunning buckwheat blinis or sandwiches!) Install mood lighting, build an A-frame house, or learn to incorporate that shiny new TV into your living room decor!

ENJOY ads for Cadillac, Schumacher fabric (including a fetching design featuring antique pistols and guns), GE’s Christmas Wonderland, Franciscan dinnerware, Dansk, Steiff, Howard Miller, and a ton of booze ads… after all, ‘tis the season!
 

DECORATE the manse with glittering aluminum trees… gold foil ornaments… and mood lighting! And don’t forget that guest parking area! Did you know that hospitality STARTS with good parking space? Let Thomas Church help you with this crucial yet neglected space. (What? Your guests park on the street? Please!)

Special appearance by Virginia Stanton, party editor