A 1950s Christmas 🎄

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A favorite 1950s decorating trend was to use Ivory Soap ('The One That Floats!') to flock the Christmas tree. For a fun nostalgic activity, purchase Christmas tree miniatures form the dollar store and have residents create flocking from Ivory soap and decorate their mini trees like the old days! Below is a recipe for making Ivory Snow for Tree Flocking.

(Below excerpted from Craft Thyme)

The Original Recipe:
2 cups Ivory Soap Flakes
2/3 cup liquid starch
4 tbsp hot water
glitter and 2 drops of blue food coloring

Unless you live in 1950 it’s going to be a lot of hassle to get your hands on at least two of the three ingredients, so, here is my DIY, modified recipe for Christmas tree flocking. Makes enough for a wreath and a bunch of pine cones with left overs:

Modified Recipe:
1 bar plain Ivory Soap* (grated) Get as close to one bar as you can without grating your fingertips
1/2 cupish heavy spray starch (sprayed from the can) or Powdered Starch* mixed according to the instructions
3 tbsp warm water from the tap (the hotter the better)
OMITTED- glitter and/or blue food coloring

Step 1
Grate the soap... Click below for full instructions.

Full Instructions

Here's What Christmas Looked Like in the 1950s
By: Lori Vanover Source: Taste of Home

Christmas Dinner

Though menus shifted as new products came on the market, holiday fare always included recipes passed down through the generations. And the main course centered on an impressive cut of meat. Green bean casserole, invented in 1955 by Campbell Soup Co., remains a popular addition to holiday menus. And in the post-war 1950s, cream cheese, bacon and spinach were the foundation of appetizers and side dishes. John Hafer shared this photo of Christmas in 1957 at their home in DeWitt, New York.

Aluminum Christmas Trees

The aluminum Christmas tree was introduced in 1958. More than a million of the trees were welcomed into American homes until they fell out of favor in the mid-1960s. Mary Ann Gove of Cottonwood, Arizona, shared this photo of her Uncle Lewis and Aunt Dot’s aluminum tree. If families chose a real tree, they covered it in glittering tinsel.

Bubble Lights

Bubble lights were all the rage in the late 1940s and ’50s. “This bubble light tree is among our most cherished Christmas decorations,” writes Carolyn von Gohren of Olympia, Washington. “My grandfather gave it to my parents in the early 1950s. The 27-inch tree has 18 lights that ‘bubble’ once their liquid reaches a certain temperature.”

Christmas Parades

Millions watched Christmas parades showcasing the amazing balloon confections of Pittsburgh’s Jean Gros in the late 1940s and into the ’50s. Inspired by the giant balloons at Macy’s parade in New York City, Gros fashioned smaller versions for parades in small towns. This 1952 parade in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, featured more than 40 balloons.

Top Toys

Many new toys were introduced in the 1950s. Consumers went nutty over Silly Putty when the novelty item debuted in 1950. When Hasbro introduced Mr. Potato Head in 1952, there was no potato—kids had to use a real spud. In 1953, Jack Odell learned that his daughter couldn’t bring toys to school unless they were small enough to fit inside a matchbox. His employer, Lesney Products, went on to sell millions of the die-cast metal vehicles. Play-Doh showed up in 1956, the Frisbee (originally dubbed the Pluto Platter) in 1957 and the Hula Hoop in 1958. Greg Groom of Columbus, Ohio, shared this photo of Christmas morning in 1959, when he unwrapped a jet and a car.

Beloved Dolls

Dolls still stand atop many a child’s Christmas list. But the kind of dolls they’ve desired over the decades have been as varied as Barbie’s wardrobe. The Vogue Doll Company’s Ginny dolls, named after creator Jennie Grave’s daughter, Virginia, took girls by storm during the 1950s. Sweet Sue dolls, made by the American Character Doll Co., were also popular. But since the 1959 launch of Barbie, the doll world has never been the same. Sisters Vicki, Barbara and Jacqueline Strampe all received dolls from Santa Claus in 1952.

Large Family Gatherings

In those days, when most family members lived within a few miles of each other, large holiday gatherings were the norm. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all assembled together, as in this family photo from 1951. “My grandma (center) has hosted Christmas dinner in her farmhouse for more than 60 years,” says Amy Armes of Bright, Ontario. “She’s cooked turkeys as large as 49 pounds.”

Bedtime Stories

For some families, Christmas Eve wouldn’t be the same without a special story. After hanging stockings and putting out Santa’s snack, their mother, Rosemary, read the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, recalls daughter Deanna Harmon of Goodyear, Arizona. Deanna snapped this photo of her mom with younger siblings, Stephen and Trudy, in 1951, in Dennison, Illinois.

Midnight Mass

Mary Beth Fulton of Lincoln, Nebraska, says her family never missed midnight mass on Christmas Eve in the 1950s. “My mom would fix up my hair in pin curls and do the same for my sisters. We’d wear new dresses with black patent leather shoes. After a traditional fish dinner, Dad asked me and my siblings—Judy, Janice and Terry—to kneel in front of our Christmas tree and say a prayer. Then we’d go to St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church, where there’d be folding chairs in the aisle to handle the overflow crowd.”

Festive Attire

It was common for people to dress up for Christmas in the 1950s. Even the trees wore their best. “Our tree, always a Scotch pine, was trimmed with red lights, red shiny balls and Ivory Snow laundry detergent flakes that had been whipped and layered on the branches to look like new-fallen snow,” says Gary Long of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. In 1952, Gary’s grandmother, Mary, was overwhelmed by the gift of a diamond ring. Grandpa Delbert could not afford one when they he proposed in 1922.

10 things you didn’t know about Green Bean Casserole
Campbell History November 17, 2020

1. Green Bean Casserole was created by a Campbell Soup Company employee, Dorcas Reilly, at our Camden, New Jersey headquarters in 1955. She was one of the first full-time members of Campbell’s Home Economics department—now known as the Campbell Test Kitchen, where I work. Fun fact: Dorcas was my manager at Campbell back when I first joined the company out of college in the late 1980s, and even attended my wedding in 2001!

Dorcas Reilly, on the set of live TV commercials that were filmed in the late 1940s atop the original Campbell’s plant in Camden, NJ

2. The original name was “Green Bean Bake.”

3. Our Green Bean Casserole recipe is viewed 4 million times each Thanksgiving Day.

4. To this day, the recipe calls for only six ingredients: canned or fresh green beans, Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, soy sauce, black pepper, milk, and French-fried onions.

Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup label from 1955

5. Green Bean Casseroles are served at 20 million Thanksgiving dinners every year.

6. But it wasn’t always meant as a holiday dish! I find it interesting that the recipe was originally developed as an everyday side dish, and it didn’t take off as a Thanksgiving favorite until the 1960s when Campbell’s put the recipe on the Cream of Mushroom soup can label.

7. 50% of our Cream of Mushroom soup sales occur November through January during a typical year.

8. A lot of different ingredients were tested in Dorcas’ original recipe, like Worcestershire sauce, celery salt and ham, but they have since been removed. Of course, it can still be customized to please many different taste preferences, like Bacon & Cheddar Green Bean Casserole. The same recipe can also be applied to almost any vegetable—broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts are great twists on this classic!

9. For years, there were precise guidelines around the food styling of Green Bean Casserole and how it was photographed. The French-fried onions had to appear only around the edges of the casserole, not in the center. That’s changed in the past decade, so feel free to sprinkle them all over!

10. Dorcas’ original recipe card for “Green Bean Bake” now belongs to the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. That’s the same building where Thomas Edison’s light bulb is on display!

The original recipe card for green bean casserole

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