Have Yourself a Very Vintage Christmas

Have Yourself a Very Vintage Christmas: Crafts, Decorating Tips, and Recipes, 1920s-1960s by Susan Waggoner         Hardback Book: 144 pages                 Genre:  Adult Non-Fiction    Historical Times and the Christmas decorations, crafts and recipes for cookies and more of each decade from the 1920s-the 1960s

Great book, my memories of being a tiny child and watching the bubble lights on the Christmas tree, my brothers Lionel locomotive trains on their tracks circling the tree and taking up a lot of the floor in the living room at Christmas, all the fun and memories of decorations (that sticky angel hair – spun fiberglass), spray on snow,  tinsel,  trade-offs between topping the tree with either Santa, an angel or a star.    I loved this book, it brought back so many great memories of good times.    Susan Waggoner not only gives you a brief history lesson of what was happening at the time during each decade, but, she explains why the particular materials were used to make the Christmas memorabilia we associate different points in our lives (if you are of this vintage).    I learned a lot of the whys behind so many things that it was a real treat to get a better understanding of things I had previously taken for granted.   She even includes directions on how to make some of the vintage decorations, she also offers art of the holidays from the various decades many I remember that the reader can scan and use to make your own vintage Christmas crafts.   A really fun book here and oh, yes, there are loads of Christmas sweets recipes to delight your taste buds and take you  back to gentler times when all the responsibilities in life were handled by somebody else and you got to dream about what prezzies you hoped Santa would bring you.   For young folks there are wonderful retro itmes to be found here.    I smiled all the way through reading this book and I plan to put many of the ideas and reminders I came across to use in the upcoming holidays this year.   Thank you Susan Waggoner for taking me back through some of the most fun things from my childhood.   I highly recommend this book to all babyboomers and retro lovers, and everyone who remembers Christmas at Grandmas or wish they did.   Well done.

 - Shirley J.