The Yule Log Tradition and Lore

The Yule Log

The Yule Log has been associated with Christmas for decades. In a rural America it was a tradition. It has enough importance that in the 1960’s WPIX Channel 11 in New York began to

televise a Yule Log for New Yorkers. The idea was people in apartments and homes without fireplaces could share in this Holiday tradition. You should go to http://tvparty.com/xmaslog.html to read more about this amazing story.

How significant is the Yule Log. I found a town in North Carolina that started a Yule Log Parade, an event that began in 1950. Each year, town’s people and visitors follow the Yule Log which is pulled by children on a sled through town to Legacy Park. Once the log is positioned in the open fireplace it is ignited. Everyone in the audience joins together and sings Christmas carols. To learn more go to: http://www.mcadenville-christmastown.com/ctyule.htm

I really like this tradition of the Yule Log. I did not have that tradition when I grew up. For
those of you, like me, that are unfamiliar with the Yule Log tradition this is your Classic-Guy Cliff Note version.

First, the Yule log is a large log and burning the log is a tradition that goes back before Christmas started. It really started as a Pagan holiday called Yule. It was a celebration that marked the Winter Solstice the longest night of the year and it marks the rebirth of the sun. Fundamentally it was a family day and a community day. And its purpose, as any good tradition should be is to bring hope for the future. For more information you may want to visit: http://www.wicca.com/celtic/akasha/yule.htm

The Yule celebration was adopted by Christianity and the log was then burned on the hearth as a way of celebrating Christmas in Europe. The lore was burning the log would bring prosperity in the coming year.

The tradition carried over from Europe to America and we have adapted it to our Christmas tradition.

For us who don’t have fireplaces you can use a log and use candles as symbolism for the fire of the Yule log. It is easy to do and a fun project for yourself or your children.

And with no disrespect to any religious traditions the Yule log transcends any one tradition. It is about community involvement and tradition. It is about family and bringing your own meaning to it.

It is as American as it is European and it is as contemporary as it is ancient. Yes this isn’t quite the post that directly relates to 40’s and 50’s. But it does bring some style and grace to a Holiday that has become, oh so, commercial.

Happy Yule Day!

Cookies for the Holidays

RED AND GREEN CHRISTMAS COOKIES RECIPE


3/4 cup soft unsalted butter
1 cup flour
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup corn starch
1/2 teaspoon almond flavoring
red and green food coloring

Beat the butter until it is nice and smooth

Add the almond flavoring and beat it in.

Stir in the flour, cornstarch and confectioner's sugar, then beat until nice and smooth.

Divide the dough into two balls. Work the red food coloring into one ball, just a few drops, then work a few drops of the green food coloring into the other ball.

Now pinch off some dough from one ball, about the size of a walnut, and roll it into a ball in your hands. Work with one color, placing each ball on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Wash your hands and do the same with the other color. These cookies are not going to spread much, so you can fit a lot on a cookie sheet.

When all of your balls are formed, flatten them slightly with the back of a of a fork.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until the bottoms are golden.

There is nothing nicer than coming home to the smell of cookies baking in the oven. Holidays and food, especially treats like cookies, or cakes make for a festive feel. Cookies and cold milk is my favorite taste treat. Baking and giving cookies as gifts is not as popular today especially with two people working and work schedules being what they are. In fact receiving store bought cookies and treats seems to be more normal.

It might be a treat to go retro this year and make some cookies, dress yourself up and serve them to your family. Wouldn't Hubby be surprised and your children be delighted for homemade treats.

Or add some retro flair to having your single friends come over for cookie treats and put on some Bing Crosby Holiday songs, or watch White Christmas and have a retro Holiday party.

Holiday Time

The Holidays have changed since the 40's and 50's. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years were special days that were part of the seasons of autumn and winter. They marked times of transition in the year. They became part of our national psyche and folklore. Each in their own way centered around children and family, hope and renewal.

Today’s Mega-Retailers have bypassed Halloween completely. They have made Thanksgiving just a pregame show to the start of a frenzied buying spree till Christmas. Christmas Day is almost anti-climatic now. New Years is one last chance to buy discounted items. It is about money for them and spending for us. This is a loss to our culture and our values and to our Nation.

Imagine your world without e-mail, text message, PDF files, ‘iTunes, ‘i-pods, Android’s, internet and even without Google. Imagine a world of type-writers, letters, telephones, radios and the newest technology - television in black and white.

Christmas is a few days away as I write this. Looking back this is how it might have looked in the late forties and early fifties.

Christmas in America would have crossed a rural America, a growing suburban America and an Urban America bustling with immigrants from Europe adapting their traditions to their new homeland.

For families it might be much the same as it is today expect family and friends traveled to visit by train rather than crowded airplanes.

Christmas cards were mailed and arrived by a postman. They were sent as a way to say you remembered someone and it was for many the only form of communication to stay connected. It might come with an attached note telling the latest news from those who lived afar sharing stories about relatives, new loves and lost loves, work, the baby or the troubles with Cousin Bob. It was personal because it was hand written. Even the penmanship or the misspellings brought the human touch and made the letter come to life.

Christmas started only a few days before which made the day itself special. The only thing to start early would have been baking the cakes or pies.

Christmas Eve Day you might venture out with your parents and siblings to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. When you arrived you would smell the burning of the Yule Log and the smell of Grandpa’s pipe. The walls would be decorated with Holly and there would be a natural evergreen Christmas tree. Christmas trees would have big light bulbs of red, green, blue, orange and white.

You might sit around the radio listening to music or more likely you would lay on the floor and listen to your mom play the piano while your Grandma sang a Christmas carol. Father and Grandpa might sit in their chairs talking.

After a delicious meal and opening a few gifts, a kiss from Grandma and hug from Grandpa would send you and everyone back home for the night.

You may sit at a window looking into the sky imagining where Santa was at that moment. Maybe with trepidation you worry if He might miss your house or worse that He never received the letter you mailed to Him weeks earlier.

Finally chased off to bed by your parents you try to stay up and awake to listen for Sleigh Bells.

It wouldn’t even be day break when you would wake up and race down the stairs to see if Santa had come and with happiness He had. Mom and Dad would come down and turn on the Christmas Tree lights. In my house a pot of coffee was immediately started for my parents. The smell of coffee became part of the Christmas aroma.

If you were lucky you might get six presents or so. You never understood why Santa thought you needed a new pair of pants or new coat but that question quickly past. Girls would get their dolls and other girlie things like Hair grooming sets and pretend cosmetics or a Brownie camera. Boys might get western guns and holsters, Lincoln Logs or the dream of dreams a new train set.

Later in the morning presents would be strewn across the floor – paper everywhere. A call from mother or dad to clean up marked the end of the presents and time to eat breakfast or for many to get dressed to go to church services.

By late morning Mom was preparing Christmas supper or dinner and Dad was snoozing on the couch.

If it was in the later 50’s you might watch one of the TV Christmas specials with Perry Como or Andy Williams.

For weeks after you would go to bed and neatly stack your new things next to your bed. Maybe it was just because you feared that your sibling may just use your new toys without your knowledge.

Christmas is a family day. It is a family day not just for individuals but for a culture and a whole Nation. It is losing its meaning which saddens me.

We can learn from our past from the traditions then, we can be inspired to recapture the true importance of each holiday.

Trimming Yourself For Christmas

It's Holiday time in the 50's. There is so much to think about -- presents, putting up the Christmas tree, decorating, baking and of course office parties. But for the lady of the house she needs to have some time for herself. Here is a fun article from the Rocky Mount Evening Telegram December 1957 giving some helpful advice for the little lady on how to 'trim herself' for the holidays. I include a photo of a retro girl's modern day look for the Holiday season. Why not add a little 50's flair to your Holidays this season!

Trimming Yourself For Christmas

JOHN ROBERT POWERS
You know the tree - trimming party is only a week away. If you haven't scheduled one, it's not a bit too late.
But how will you trim yourself for the occasion? With some gay and spirited ingenuity, I hope! Let your imagination play all its tricks and so inspire others to glow with happiness and the renewed appreciation of the magic of the season.
To spark your imagination, make a trip to the tree-trimming section of any store. Look for the miniature-sized baubles, the strips of tinsel, tiny bells and strands of Christmas beads.
With a black taffeta, felt or satin skirt (better still if it's red or green!) cut a large felt Christmas tree to baste on the front of it. Then trim it with all you have collected. You can choose a one-color motif as modern as today. Or make it an old - fashioned, multicolored fantasy. With a little planning, it can even serve as the blue-print for your big tree, a duplicate in miniature!
Skirts also will take on a festive look with a row of tiny bells bottoming the hem, sewed on at whatever intervals you choose. Rows of tinsel or green and red bows can transform even the most everyday skirt into one of the most charming conversation pieces at the party.
Those addicted to trouser styles can be the Christmas gamins of the season with bells, tinsel or beads striping the outer-leg seams or twisted into a belt with two or three dangling from the waist.
And don't forget your earbobs. From any button earring, miniature baubles can quickly be suspended with the aid of a bit of heavy linen thread. Tiny bells so used are also naturals to bring a twinkle to the eyes of all who hear your tinkling music as you lightly circulate among the busy tree decorators.
Tomorrow: Lucky Eight. "Figured For You", gives expert detailed instructions and illustrates how to select foundation garments that provide comeliness, control and healthful comfort for your individual type of figure. Send 10 cents in coin, plus stamped, self - addressed envelope to Secrets of Charm in care of this newspaper for "Figured For You."
Rocky Mount, N.C., Evening Telegram, Tues., Dec. 17, 1957

Posters from WWII

Today I am continuing my theme from my previous post.

Three days ago, US President Franklin Roosevelt announced America was at war with Japan, the third Axis power, following the surprise attack on our naval base at Pearl Harbor. Germany and Italy then announced they were at war with the United States. America immediately responded by declaring war on the two Axis powers.

It was just the year before that President Roosevelt signed The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. This was the first peace-time draft in the history of the United States. With the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war there was a swell of volunteers for the military branches.

As America geared up to engage in this new war ‘War Posters’ became popular. I guess you can call them propaganda posters. They were created to rally and motivate the citizenry. There were recruitment posters. There were posters whose purpose was to provide guidance as to what was needed and expected. Other posters defined our purpose to the Home Front. There were Employment posters and posters to encourage the purchasing of War Bonds which helped finance the war. And others were directed at recruiting women to fill the many jobs men were not there to do because they were over seas in Europe or the South Seas.

What would you have been doing then as a child, or young adult or middle aged or senior?

Today I selected posters to represent our military branches as a way to Honor all our soldiers then and now.

I wonder what branch of service I would have joined.

My uncle served in the Coast Guard. He was 21 and he spent eight years serving his country. When I was a kid I would ask him what he did and what life was like but he didn’t talk much about his time in the service. He was a modest man. He did his job and he did it well and with Honor.

My father was older and as a civilian he used his skills to design and build housing for the troops. He designed a house that folded up and could be transported and then built in one day. His homes were used as temporary housing in Washington D.C. and in the Midwest of all places.

His brother, my other uncle was a machinist and lived in Los Angeles and San Diego where he machined airplane parts for Hughes in LA and Consolidate in San Diego.


This was a time in America in which everybody did something for the war effort and for the welfare of the United States. Would it be so today.

The Day of Infamy December 7th 1941 - The Day After

(Read this while listening to President Roosevelt's speech)

Imagine if you will. Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, you found out to your incredible disbelief that the United States was attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. You want to know more. You are drawn to the two sources of information that you rely on most - newspapers and the radio (no internet or CNN then). You would not see film footage for weeks or months until it came as trailers to your local movie theater.


You are sitting with your girl, your wife, friends or family and you listen to the President of the United States.

The world changed that day. If you were young you might enlist in one of our Military branches. 

As a woman the one you loved would be leaving to fight a war in Europe or in the South Seas. You might find yourself working in a factory building ships, planes or tanks. 

It was a time in history that united people in a common cause. Yes there were mistakes, people and authorities over reacted. Ignorance and prejudice had a ready made excuse to exist. Americans who were Japanese were detained and put in interment camps. Americans of German decent lost their jobs. The Bill of Rights was crumpled up in many ways. 

This was the start of a long war coming along with a Great Depression. Yet the World survived and the United States thrived. Men and women fell in love, married, had children and raised families. People lost their homes or jobs but in time found ways to be make do and still be happy. People found strengths they never knew that had. New and everlasting friendships were made. New jobs were created and new technologies emerged. 

The World hasn't changed any. It goes through it's cycles. The Wheel of Fortune turns from upside down to right side up. 

I can imagine that your life and the world on December 8th seemed as uncertain as it does today. But we can realize the world didn't end, and life carried on. We don't have to be afraid of our present day knowing that things will change for the better with hard work, persistence, and cooperation. And we can do it with style and grace!

They Had Style They Had Grace

Strike a pose, there's nothing to it

Beauty's where you find it...

Greta Garbo, and Monroe, Deitrich

and DiMaggio, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, On the cover of a magazine.

Grace Kelly, Harlow, Jean, Picture of a beauty queen, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire Ginger Rodgers, dance on air

They had style, they had grace, Rita Hayworth gave good face. Lauren, Katherine, 

Lana too. Bette Davis, we love you

Ladies with an attitude Fellows that were in 

the mood. Don't just stand there,
let's get to it

Strike a pose, there's nothing too it

Madonna's 1990 song Vogue captured what distinguishes the 40's from today's contemporary life 

-- in the 40's and 50's they had style and they had grace.

The Golden Age of Hollywood gave us an image of what life could be like. It set a standard and and ideal for manliness and femininity. In the 40's we were emerging form a Great Depression and entering a time of war. It reflected who we were as a nation and who we wanted to be. It told us that even in hard time we could have class, we could have style, we could have grace. Maybe we could learn from the past and bring that to our times today. We could use some style and grace in America today.