cc  >> We have our speaker today,  Rochelle Pennington, is going to  talk about an earlier time of  Christmas.  Let me also let you know that  she is an author, an author in  newspapers, an author of books  now.  She's a professional writer.  We have three books of hers here  in the bookstore.  "A Christmas Tree Ship,"  "The Historic Christmas Tree  Ship," this is the adults  version.  The first one is for younger  people.  And more to the point,  "Old Fashioned Christmas."  She'd be happy to sign these  books afterwards for you.  So without further delay, let's  please welcome Rochelle  Pennington.  (applause)  >> Thank you very much to each  and every one of you for being  here this afternoon to spend a  bit of time talking about the  bygone days of Christmas past.  Who remembers a time when spices  and vanilla were purchased from  the friendly Watkins man?  Where you didn't necessarily  have to go to the store,  sometimes the store came to you. 

 The Fuller Brush man, to clean  up that Christmas kitchen  with a broom.  Who remembers rotary dial  telephones?  And cloth diapers.  And party lines, where you could  pick up the phone and wish your  neighbor a Merry Christmas,  and possibly be wishing the  entire neighborhood a Merry  Christmas at the same time.  When I was talking about these  days with my grown children, my  daughter looked at me.  She had never heard of party  line, and she had one thing  to say.  Was that legal?  It was legal.  And it was on every street in  America.  So, let's take a nostalgic  glance backward and remember a  time, a time when every  Christmas tree was real, a time  when Christmas shopping meant  paging through a Sears and  Robuck catalog, or heading  downtown to Main Street.  Who remembers the Five and  Dimes?  Ben Franklin and FW Woolworths.  A time when Christmas dinner  was prepared from canning jars  lining the pantry shelves. 

 Who remembers the glass pantry  doors, fruit cellars, dirt  floored basements?  Who remembers Christmas,  the arrival of Norman Rockwell  paintings of Santa Claus on the  cover of the Saturday Evening  Post?  And handwritten letters  addressed to the North Pole with  wishes for: record players,  train sets and Raggedy Ann  dolls.  Who owned a Raggedy Ann or a  Raggedy Andy doll as a youth?  An "Old Fashioned Christmas"  is my new release.  And it invites readers to relive  the memories that guide our  hearts homeward to those  treasured memories of yesterday,  from 1930 until 1960.  Raggedy Ann dolls and choo-choo  trains, Pogo sticks, and Yo-Yos,  checker boards, king me.  Little kids visit Santa with all  their hopes and dreams, happy to  give him their list of toys they  were expecting to find under the  tree.  (laughter)  Well, most of the time, they  were happy about that.  Who didn't wish for a shiny new  bike, with a bell on the handle  bars.  I see a victory sign in the back  row going up.  A shiny new bike.  How about Lincoln Logs. 

 Does anybody know who invented  Lincoln Logs?  They were invented by Frank  Lloyd Wright's son, John.  Manufactured, folks, in Chicago.  What I love about the old toys,  the antique toys, is that I  recognize the place of every  city where the toys were  manufactured.  I can go right down the line.  And they're all, they're all  made in the USA.  It was a time when fathers  carried lunch boxes down the  street, hard at work, when you  know, those quality products  represented the backbone of who  we were as a country.  A jack-in-the-box.  Who had an erector set, for my  gentlemen folks in the audience,  an erector set.  And who remembers this guy?  Mr. Potato Head.  Do you notice anything different  about this original  advertisement?  It's a real potato. 

 The first 14 years, you did not  get the head.  You had to go into the kitchen,  and this was done by design.  It was meant to teach kids that  vegetables are our friends.  Eat your vegetables.  So you had to ask your mom for a  potato from her potato bin, in  order to make your person and  his wife.  And who didn't have a coaster  wagon?  This is a page from the Sears  and Robuck catalog.  The catalog was also referred to  as the Wish Book or the Big  Book.  Any wonder why?  It weighed what, five pounds  maybe.  So the Wish Book came,  JCPenny's, as well.  Any others that you can think  of?  Montgomery Wards. 

 Sears and Robuck, exactly right.  And who didn't want to be a  cowboy in the 1950s.  That was the era of the cowboy  craze.  So the toys changed through the  years.  Everybody wanted to have a  holster, chaps, hat and a vest  with fringe.  And who can remember the smell  of the just-shot-off cap gun?  In the 1950s, truly, there were  more buckaroos in American  backyards saying howdy, partner,  than there were on the entire  frontier of the Old West.  Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers.  Of course, the Lone Ranger.  Everyone wanted to be a cowboy.  Even this grandpa. 

 A famous painting by Norman  Rockwell reminds me of the  famous quote, "Even a man is  a child when Christmas comes."  Who could forget good old  Howdy Doody?  I usually hear singing when  someone even spots his face.  They start singing the show  song, It's Howdy Doody Time.  Howdy was quite a character.  In the 1950s, he even lit the  Rockefeller Center Christmas  tree.  It was the first television  special to air in color.  And as long as it's election  day, Howdy even ran for  president in the 1950s.  President of all the little kids  in America.  He received more votes than the  third party candidate.  He was running on my favorite  political platform.  This is true. 

 His platform was history books  will have more pictures.  Admission to rodeos will be  free.  Christmas will be celebrated  three times a year, not once.  And my absolute favorite, all  banana splits hereafter will  have four scoops of ice cream  instead of three.  Howdy Doody was on many  children's wish lists in the  late 1940s and 1950s, lunch  boxes and belt buckles.  I have a coloring book along  with me.  Puzzles, dolls of course.  So Howdy was a favorite.  Another favorite, Miss Barbie.  She appeared in 1959, and the  world has not been the same  since she arrived in her zebra  striped swimming suit with high  heels and sunglasses. 

 Given our economic climate right  now, I'd also like to just read  a short excerpt from the book,  which talks about the years.  And there were a great many of  them between 1930 and 1960,  where many of the presents were  not ordered from a catalog or  purchase from a store shelf.  The Great Depression, of course,  was economically devastating to  our country.  It was a time when people had  more time than money.  And they used that time wisely,  especially when the holiday  came.  Many old fashioned Christmases  were not as well funded as those  of today, especially during the  lean years of the Great  Depression.  But they were no less merry to  be sure.  Fathers would find the way to  provide, even through another  jobless year.  Breadlines stretched for blocks.  And soup kitchens helped to put  a little warm nourishment in  cold bellies. 

 Men stood in long lines for  food, and in longer lines for  unemployment when the Depression  was at its worst.  Families learned from necessity  how to make a few meager dollars  stretch to afford a simple  holiday.  Parents made do during these  years of prolonged economic  downturn when there was little  more to give than their love,  and offered sons and daughters  as exciting a Christmas morning  as possible with inexpensive  toys and homemade gifts.  Fathers' weathered hands carved  toy chests from scraps of  lumber.  Doll houses were painstakingly  constructed with tools on a  basement workbench.  Lamplit windows told of parents  crafting homemade gifts late  into the long hours of the  night, after their children were  bedded down, sound asleep.  Mothers kept busy during this  period of time, too, with their  own handiwork.  A new dolly for Christmas, quite  possibly may have been an  impossible wish to grant, but  there still could be a new dress  for the old dolly, or a stuffed  teddy bear with button eyes  stitched by hand from leftover  fabric.  Every house had a sewing machine  and a mother who knew how to use  it.  Pin cushions, spools of colored  thread and needles could be  found in homes, as surely as  bread and milk. 

 Christmas dresses were sewn from  Butterick and Simplicity  patterns, carefully pinned to  fabric pieces.  Oh, what mom couldn't create  with a couple of yards of cloth,  or from a ball of brightly  colored yarn.  Who among us can't remember a  pair of slippers or a hat,  crocheted by our grandmother  during these simpler times.  Or a sweater knitted by a  favorite aunt who loved us very  much, even if it was in our  least favorite color.  Or an afghan blanket made of  granny squares fastened together  with a crochet hook.  Often, these presents without  price tags were the most  heartfelt of all, and brought  with them a sense of love and  togetherness that material gains  could not provide.  These handmade gifts represented  a personal investment of time by  the giver, and you didn't need  to worry about batteries not  included or assembly required.  Truly, it was a period when many  people thought of a gift not  necessarily as something you  bought, but as something you  made.  It was a time when there may not  have been a lot of presents  under the tree, but that didn't  mean you didn't have gifts.  Even if your eyes couldn't see  them, gifts included love,  family devotion and time. 

 Time was a gift that was given,  not only at Christmas, but every  day of the year.  And you came to realize that the  best things in life aren't  wrapped inside pretty boxes with  bows on top.  They're held in their heart  instead of your hand.  It was a period in our nation's  history when treasure was  measured in terms of something  that had nothing to do with  money.  These financially difficult  years taught those who lived  them the value of thrift and  deferred gratification.  Yes, boys and girls had hopes as  large as life, but they also  displayed a contentedness  between the dreaming and the  coming true.  That represents primarily the  1930s.  But the '40s were also  financially difficult for the  American public when our nation  entered World War II.  That war spanned the Christmases  of 1941, '42, '43, and '44,  ending in '45.  There were many rations placed,  even on toys. 

 Rubber was scarce.  Metal was scarce.  The production of bikes  completely stopped.  The production of Lionel Trains  completely stopped.  You needed special permission  from the rationing board in  order to have a bike.  So wish lists needed to changed  during the 1930s and 1940s.  Now, some of the favorite toys  during that period of time.  In 1934, the Shirley Temple doll  was all the rage.  Who remembers the Good Ship  Lollypop?  The Besty Wetsy doll, who  dampened her diapers in 1935.  Monopoly was released and it  became, as it still is, the best  selling board game in the world. 

 By 1939, we had the Viewmaster  and the Red Rider Air Rifle.  In the '40s, Slinky, Tonka Toys,  Scrabble, Candy Land, Silly  Putty.  And in the '50s, the Radio Flyer  Coaster Wagon, Match Box Cars,  our friend Mr. Potato Head,  Play-Doh, the Frisbee, Legos,  Hoola Hoop, the skateboard, and  the Chatty Cathy doll, who would  say, "Will you brush my hair?"  "Tell me a story."  So, those were some of  the wished for toys from 1930  to 1960.  This, folks, is a photograph of  the Great Depression, where the  Salvation Army was distributing  toys and food to the needy.  This particular photo comes from  Indiana.  Also on wish lists, toboggans  and sleds.  Who owned a toboggan or a sled  way back when?  Okay, toboggans, sleds and ice  skates.  Ice skates would hang in every  size from rusty nails in the  garage with the loop laces  hanging.  Kids knew how to, not only sled  and toboggan and ice skate, but  they knew how to build a snow  fort.  And in the old days, we had  plenty of snow for them to do it  with. 

 They knew how to roll a snow  ball, build a snowman.  This is 1955, Plymouth,  Wisconsin.  How do you like that hat?  It's a tractor tire and a  50-gallon drum!  1955, right here in Wisconsin.  And there's just a friendly  snowman, painted by Wisconsin  watercolor artist Cathy Stern.  She painted 11 paintings for the  "Old Fashioned Christmas" book.  We appreciate her talent  so very much.  It was a time when mothers  urged kids to "go outside  and play."  Who has heard those words?  Go outside and play.  I think many of the youngsters  today would look at you in the  strangest way if they were told  to go outside and play.  So even the music of Christmas  in the 1930s, '40s and '50s  emphasized the chillness of the  season.  What do we have?  We have Walking in a Winter  Wonderland, Let it Snow, I'm  Dreaming of what?  A White Christmas, exactly  right. 

 So last January, I was actually  going to write a letter to one  of my local newspapers, where I  had previously written newspaper  columns for, with a missing  persons report, because in  January, when we had had 100  inches of snow, I asked my  husband to drive me through  town.  We live in a small town.  And drive me through town,  because I had not come across a  snowman.  This is so strange.  Why have I not seen a snowman.  And he drove me through town.  Not one.  So I was going to, just for fun,  write a missing persons report  and ask where the snowmen were.  By this time, by the time we  have 100 inches of snow on the  ground, I was convinced we  should not only be able to find  a snowman, but whole families of  them, yes.  Snow. 

 How did we know it was coming in  the '30s, '40s, '50s, many  people it was coming by  consulting the pages of the Old  Farmer's Almanac.  Fathers kept their axes sharp.  Do you remember those big old  two-story houses with the single  paned windows.  Do you know what I miss most  about the single pane windows?  Any guesses?  Yes, Jack Frost's artwork.  So we're warmer now.  We have less drafts creeping in  the cracks and crannies, but I  do miss the brush strokes of my  friend Jack.  Sometimes snow piles were higher  than the car when, to  grandmother's house we would go.  This was taken in Wisconsin,  1936.  That is dashing through the  snow.  So we had some fierce winters. 

 Kids would, eat for breakfast,  any guesses, to fortify  themselves against the subzero  temperatures.  Exactly, Cream of Wheat and  Quaker Oatmeal.  I heard them both at the exact  same time.  Mothers would pull the winter  wardrobes out of the closet.  Winter wardrobes included not  only long johns, who didn't wear  thermal long underwear, flannel  shirts, and knee socks.  But also those woolen sweaters.  Doesn't it just like make you  want to itch right now even  thinking about it?  (audience exclaims)  Okay, folks.  The last was a car in 1936.  These are actual gas prices in  1936, a dime.  I'm told that that's why they  call it the good old days. 

 And I sort of agree.  And here's another example of  dashing through the snow.  This is not recommended for  folks at home.  Do you see they're actually  skiing behind that car?  And then we have the Christmas  tree.  What was found under the  Christmas tree?  All those great toys we just  talked about.  And for most people, it started  with a real tree, with sap on  your hands and that first  fragrance of Christmas, the  evergreen.  Who remembers tinsel?  Who remembers how long it took  to put that tinsel on the tree?  I've heard more and more stories  about handfuls.  I just saw some hands go up in  the audience also.  This was not a job for a one mug  of hot chocolate.  This was ten mugs of hot  chocolate to get the tinsel job  done. 

 Strand by strand.  This tinsel was manufactured  here in Wisconsin at the  National Tinsel Manufacturing  Company in Manitowoc.  The tree, folks, was truly the  center of the holiday decor.  Lights famous in the 1950s were  the large, multicolored bulbs.  What was the problem with those?  Think of the Three Musketeers,  one for all and all for one.  If one went out, screwing and  unscrewing, checking and double  checking.  So those were the rage in the  1950s.  In the 1940s, it was the bubble  light.  In the 1930s, families still  used real candles, yes, and they  were lit.  Yikes!  I wonder, is that where our home  insurance policies came from?  My grandma always said we never  put the tree up until Christmas  eve. 

 Well, no wonder, right?  Okay, who remembers the  beautiful ornaments from days  past, also, particularly shiny  bright.  And one of the ornaments I find  most interesting that people  don't even realize is an  ornament, I always thought that  little handle was for carrying  your snack back and forth to  school.  But it was actually added by  design, on purpose, to make the  box of animal crackers a  Christmas tree ornament.  So the next time you see one of  the little handles, that's what  it's doing there.  It's actually a Christmas  ornament.  Here we have "Deck the Halls."  The most famous poem in the  English language is "T'was  the Night Before Christmas."  Almost everybody can recite  the second line, T'was the night  before Christmas...  >> And all through the house...  >> Not a creature was  stirring...  >> Not even a mouse.  >> Okay, see?  And here we go, The stockings  were hung... 

 >> By the chimney with care..  >> In hopes that St. Nicholas  soon would be there.  So here we have Deck the Halls.  It wouldn't have been complete,  our holiday decor, without a box  or several boxes of the spun  glass Angel Hair.  That also, folks, was  manufactured here in Wisconsin.  Peeking in a family's window  there.  Most of the homes, two story.  Who remembers hardwood floors,  porcelain doorknobs, skeleton  keys, banisters.  Anybody ride down a few  banisters in your day?  Okay.  And all those bedrooms at the  top of the stairs filled with  all those children. 

 Porch swings, hammocks, tire  swings.  So we decorated the inside and  we decorated the outside.  This, folks, is Robert May, the  man who invented Rudolph, the  Rednosed Reindeer.  The photo is courtesy of the May  family.  He's decorating his house with  an image of the icon in the  1950s.  He invented Rudolph in the  1930s.  He was an advertising executive  for Montgomery Ward, just south  of Wisconsin in Illinois.  Rudolph's original name was  Rolo, then Reginald, till  finally it was decided he should  be Rudolph.  The city was decked out.  This is downtown Chicago, State  Street. 

 This shows the size of the candy  canes lining the sidewalks.  And who remembers the toy store  windows, the elaborate displays.  Kids on tippy toe, peeking  inside, noses pressed to the  glass, hands too.  And town wouldn't have been  complete without a trip to,  yummy, yummy, the candy counter.  Licorice sticks and lemon drops.  Do you see the ribbon taffy up  on the top shelf?  The candy was bought by the  piece or by the whole handful,  weighed out on those  confectionary scales.  This is in 1947.  A photo of a young lass throwing  the power switch to illuminate  all the Christmas lights in  downtown Chicago.  Shopping, shopping.  A time when ladies wore dresses,  all of them. 

 It would have been quite a site  to see a lady walking down the  street in a pair of trousers.  Their packages are not only  boxed, they're wrapped.  When I ask for a box nowadays,  the clerk looks at me like I'm  asking her for a thousand  dollars.  Do you have a box for this?  I plan on giving it for a gift.  These were the days when service  was impeccable.  Who remembers the massive rolls  of wrapping paper mounted to the  countertops?  Clerks in the shoe department  measuring your feet.  Department stores who staffed  seamstresses to make necessary  alterations.  Another shopping in the city  wouldn't be complete without a  stop at one of the corner  diners, where coffee was brewed,  pot after pot.  Could hardly keep up with the  demand.  And the movie theaters. 

 For a ten cent admission price,  you could catch one of the  downtown showings.  In the 1940s, we had It's a  Wonderful Life released.  Also in that same decade,  Miracle on 34th Street.  In the '30s, A Christmas Carol  came out.  And in the '50s, of course,  White Christmas.  City sidewalks.  The crown jewel of the city  sidewalks, New York City.  The Macy's Thanksgiving Day  parade, with the enormous,  world's largest stocking.  Macy's, folks, was the largest  department store in the world,  Followed by Marshall Fields in  Chicago, and Harrods' in third  place in London.  My sister, oh, maybe five, six  or seven years ago gave me, for  my birthday, a card from the  Hallmark store. 

 They still carry them.  It had a gigantic parade  balloon, one of the colossal  balloons, with all these people  holding the ropes.  And the message was very simple.  It said we would've never have  been good at holding the ropes  for those colossal balloons,  because we would've been  thinking the whole time how cool  it would be if it got away.  (laughter)  And I couldn't agree more.  And I was completely fascinated  to learn that in the early days  of the Macy's parade, in the  very first years, it was  actually the Christmas parade,  and the Santa Claus parade  later, and finally the  Thanksgiving Day parade.  But in the initial years, they  would do just that.  At the end of the parade, they'd  let the balloons go.  They'd time them with a slow  leak, so just a little bit of  air came out at a time, so that  the balloons would float over  the city for about a week.  And then whoever got the balloon  and brought it back to Macy's  was given an award of $100. 

 So it was done on purpose.  It was discontinued after two  mishaps involving airplanes.  (laughter)  They're very funny stories.  So that ended.  Now then, okay, here we have  youngsters in Milwaukee,  Wisconsin, in 1947.  This was courtesy of the  Milwaukee County Historical  Society.  They're waving at the Santa  float.  And of course, the beautiful  Christmas parades in downtown  Milwaukee were supported by  Schuster's.  And the master toy maker  Schuster's arranged to have live  reindeer on their Santa float.  Then they'd be corralled up  behind the store. 

 And children would not only be  able to see Santa, but the  reindeer as well.  This comes from Macy's.  It is an advertisement letting  folks know that during World War  II their parade was cancelled.  There were several years, '41,  '42, '43 and '44, where the  Macy's parade did not proceed  down those grand streets in New  York.  Here's why.  I talked earlier about the  rubber shortage during the war.  Well, Macy's donated all their  rubber balloons and had them  melted down.  Rubber was so desperately  needed.  They were melted down and made  into rafts for the military, and  also tires for tanks.  I mentioned earlier the  production of Lionel Trains  stopped, as well as bikes. 

 New automobiles, the production  halted, as well as appliances.  This is the 1940s, so following  those difficult Depression  years, it continued well beyond.  Who remembers Christmas cards,  by the dozens and dozens in the  mail box?  Okay, and that friendly postman  with those packages, brown  paper, strings, coming up the  walk.  A time when handwritten letters  were part of everyone's life.  Sorting Christmas mail, December  23, 1931.  An original Christmas card from  the 1940s.  And Christmas seals, 1955.  You could recognize the  handwriting, the individual  handwriting, your heart could  recognize it before you ever  opened the envelope.  And oh, to get that annual  Christmas letter with news, a  letter addressed to the whole  family.  But the most important  correspondence of the whole  season was written with those  sharpened pencils. 

 And the letter began, Dear  Santa.  And a fa-la-la-la-la, and a  partridge in a pear tree.  Christmas would not have been  Christmas without the music.  Now, between 1930 and 1950, we  have what is called the golden  age of Christmas music.  Most of our most loved,  cherished songs today came out  during that period of time.  Let me just share a few of them.  In the 1930s, Santa Claus is  Coming to Town, Winter  Wonderland, White Christmas,  I'll Be Home for Christmas, Have  Yourself a Merry Little  Christmas, Let it Snow, the  Christmas Song, Here Comes Santa  Claus.  All of these came out at that  period of time.  And up until 1960, Sleigh Ride,  Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer,  All I Want For Christmas Is My  Two Front Teeth, Silver Bells, I  Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,  There's No Place Like Home For  the Holidays, I'm Getting what,  for Christmas?  Nuttin', exactly right, because  I Ain't been?  Nuttin' But Bad, exactly right.  Little Drummer Boy. 

 These all originated during that  period of time.  It was not only the golden age  of Christmas music, it was also  the golden age of radio.  Radio was the rage.  It was the most important means  of communication, whether you  were listening for news or  comedy, drama, sports, all of  that.  It came over the radio in the  1920s, '30s and '40s, and even  into the mid-1950s.  TV did not surpass radio until  the mid-1950s.  Now, the first radio broadcast,  folks, just as a matter of  trivia, was broadcast on  Christmas eve.  The first words spoken over the  radio, ever, over the radio  waves, "And she brought forth  her firstborn son and wrapped  him in swaddling clothes, and  laid him in a manger because  there was no room for them in  the Inn."  The first song broadcast over  the radio airwaves?  "Oh, Holy Night," played on  the violin.  Who remembers Christmas  carolers, carrying their song  books door-to-door, through the  neighborhood.  Choirs began practicing all  those special selections long  before the holiday was here. 

 Who remembers these?  So funny, I was at an event  recently, and a grandfather came  up to the table.  He was looking at the different  records I had.  He told me that he had his album  collection out the day prior,  and his young grandson came over  and picked up one of the albums  and said,  "Wow, Grandpa, this is  a really big CD!"  (laughter)  And the needle following in that  grooved path, round and round  the disk.  Band members.  Everybody was in the band, or  nearly everybody.  Practiced their selection, also,  for special Christmas concerts.  When was the last time you heard  one of these?  Or a harmonica, all those  wonderful old instruments.  Bing Crosby.  Anybody know his real name?  Harry Lillis Crosby.  This is Harry Lillis, who we  know and love as Bing, of  course. 

 The song "White Christmas," was  first sung by Bing on Christmas  day, December 25, 1941.  "White Christmas" was the  world's number one selling  record for 50 years.  The number one song in the world  for 50 years.  It was passed up when Elton John  recorded his song "Candle in the  Wind" as a memorial to Princess  Diana.  Who has more number one hits,  Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, or  the Beatles?  Bing Crosby.  By a long shot.  So amazing.  Bing Crosby, 38 number one hits.  Elvis Presley, 18.  More than double. 

 And the Beatles, 24.  So a little trivia  on Mr. Crosby.  Sheet music for "Rudolph the  Rednosed Reindeer," another one  of those favorite songs from  that period of time.  Norman Rockwell painting  representing the arrival home  after World War II.  And one of the most cherished  songs from that period of time,  also, is "I'll Be Home For  Christmas."  It really did summarize the  sentiments of so many families  waiting for their loved ones.  The 1940s, folks, was known for  the holiday as the years when  Christmas was not red and green,  but rather red, white and blue.  This is a Christmas card from  the 1940s with the American flag  over the snowy scene, with the  steeple top there.  Furloughs were few and far  in between.  A furlough home could be as  simple as gathering with family.  Here, they're playing a game of  cards. 

 Go fish.  Crazy Eights.  The American flags down the  snow-lined street there again,  also.  And who remembers the flags in  the window?  One single star meant one family  member serving in the war.  Two stars, three stars,  represented an individual family  member away from home.  If the star was gold instead of  blue, it meant that you had  sacrificed one of your loved  ones.  During the World War II ration  years, Christmas as well, gas  was rationed.  You were allowed four gallons a  week.  The speed limit was reduced.  Later it was three gallons a  week. 

 Nylons were rationed.  They were needed to sew into  gunpowder bags.  People rode their bike or walked  everywhere they could.  Food was rationed, sugar, lard,  everything, coffee.  Coffee was brewed and brewed and  brewed, until the pot was  finally colorless.  The same grounds would be used  for days at a time.  One restaurant, I liked the sign  that I read in one of the  history books I studied.  The restaurant would put a sign  up for the coffee complainers  that said the coffee was too  weak.  The sign read, "Quit  complaining, some day you'll be  old and weak, too."  (laughter)  This is an actual ration  cookbook, folks.  It tried to help cooks in the  kitchen make the most of every  morsel. 

 And this is a Sugar Shy  cookbook, when sugar was  rationed, how to make our  cookies and cakes with as little  sugar as possible.  It wouldn't be Christmas without  the tastes of it as well.  Let's see, without the tastes of  it, as well.  The kitchen at this period of  time meant gunny sacks and  bushel baskets, and fruit  cellars, and all of that.  If you went to the grocery  store, your merchant had his own  doorway, and so did the hardware  man, and the florist, and the  baker, and the butcher shop.  So it was a time, not of  megastores, but individually  owned stores.  Every house had a box of Brach's  candy, a box of Whitman's  chocolates, as well.  Who remembers cutout cookies,  peanut brittle and fruitcake?  We can't talk about Christmas  past without mentioning  fruitcake.  This is one of the Wisconsin  Electric Company cookie books.  Anybody recognize this cover?  Every year. 

 A Norman Rockwell, gathered  around the table.  It really was a time of sitdown  suppers, where families ate  meals together, checkered table  cloths, cast iron frying pans,  potato mashers with wooden  handles.  And it of course, wouldn't have  been Christmas for many folks  without church, be it Christmas  eve, a candle light service at  midnight, Christmas morning.  Shining up for church in the old  tin bath tubs was as important  as showing up.  Many houses, even up until, you  know, 1960, did not have indoor  plumbing.  Let me introduce you to my  sister Brenda, my brother  Charlie and I'm in the front.  (laughter)  And here, folks, is my husband  in the little bow tie out front.  He came from a family with eight  children.  It was a time of starched shirts  and ties.  The little girls would have  their hair set in curlers. 

 When I think back to curlers, my  head starts to hurt.  Remember sleeping with those?  Shining your shoes, getting  ready for church.  And of course, those wonderful  nativity plays, where the steps  at the front of the sanctuary  became the rolling hills outside  Bethlehem.  One grandmother who I  interviewed when I was doing my  research for the book, summed  Christmas up in this way.  She said Christmas wasn't  Christmas for me until I was  sitting in church on Christmas  eve, singing "Silent Night."  And I'll close, folks, by ending  with our friend Billie the  Brownie.  Who here has heard of Billie the  Brownie?  Raise your hand.  Okay, Billie the Brownie was as  famous, or more famous than  Santa Claus to little kids in  Wisconsin in the 1930s, '40s and  '50s.  Billie was a product of a  promotional campaign for the  Schuster's Department Store in  downtown Milwaukee.  He started out in print ads, and  later had his own radio program,  introduced in 1931, on the air  every day in November in  December for 25 years.  Little kids wore their Billie  Buttons when they'd go down to  the parade and go to Schuster's  Toyland. 

 They called it the Toyland and  the Joyland.  And Billie would inform little  kids what was going on at the  North Pole.  He'd remind them to be good, to  eat their vegetables, to be kind  to siblings, do the homework,  help with the dishes.  Needless to say, mothers loved  Sir William, as I call him.  So, very helpful.  And there was a story every day.  A story and a magic storybook.  Little kids stared at that lit  dial on their radio, mesmerized,  waiting to hear what Billie  would say next.  Here's another one of the  original buttons, and another.  Schuster's up in the upper  right hand corner, there. 

 If you wrote a letter to the  radio station, WTMJ in  Milwaukee, Billie would answer  your letter with a postcard.  Bless your heart for being so  good all year long.  Santa will beam and chuckle when  he hears about year especially  good behavior this year.  Thank you for your very nice  letter with the list of  Christmas gifts you want so  much.  And he ends the letter, I'm  holding thumbs for a big  Christmas for you.  And I hope to see you often in  Schuster's Brownie Toyland.  With an igloo full of love,  Billie the Brownie.  So Billie is a local favorite.  He's remembered still.  I love it when folks who know  Billie hear his name mentioned,  and it's as if someone's  mentioning a favorite friend  that they had from so long ago. 

 Folks, I'm going to close today.  I see we're right at the time,  and ask if anybody has any  questions.  In the back.  >> I don't know if this is too  complicated for you to answer,  but you had mentioned the  balloons that got lost, and some  incidents involving airplanes.  You said it was funny.  Is it funny, ha-ha, or funny  bizarre?  >> Actually, both.  Funny ha-ha, and funny bizarre.  In one year, a plane saw the  balloon floating there.  It was a smaller plane.  And they flew up to it, and  intentionally tried to wrap the  rope from the balloon around the  wing of the airplane, which was  successful. 

 And they flew the balloon back  to the airport and landed.  The other one was much more  dangerous.  It was another pilot in a small  craft, who intentionally flew  his plane into the belly of one  of the balloons.  He tried punching it in the  tummy.  And then it got wrapped around  the plane.  That was the incident that ended  the balloon launch.  >> I saw a question here.  >> Who did the voice for Billie  the Brownie?  >> There were several different  voices for Billie over that 25  year period.  I didn't research the actual  individual names, only that they  kept their identity a secret.  If anybody knows, does anybody  know in the audience, the voices  of Billie?  Because there were several over  that long period of time. 

 They chose girls, primarily,  because they were worried when  the young men would go through  puberty, that there'd be too  much of a change.  And one was a middle-aged  mother.  And her children never knew that  she was the voice of Billie the  Brownie.  Any other questions?  If not, I wish everyone here a  very Merry Christmas.  Oh, one more question.  >> I was just going to ask, some  of the drawings that you showed  looked like they were old  drawings.  Were they done specifically for  your book?  >> They were.  We had 11 paintings commissioned  for the "Old Fashioned  Christmas" book, the snowman,  father dragging the  Christmas tree home, the Deck  the Halls, the church with  the wreaths on the door,  the painting of the mailbox.  So, at the beginning of each  chapter, would be one of the  Cathy Stern paintings.  And again, we are very, very  grateful to her. 

 And now she has those available  as prints and as Christmas card.  Yes?  >> You must have come across the  coal bins in the basement.  >> Yes, I know.  Coal, remember?  I was threatened with that, too.  I might have received it.  (inaudible)  Yep, the wood stoves,  the coal furnished houses  to keep everyone warm.  Question here?  >> People actually got coal?  >> Well, it was threatened.  Did you ever get coal?  >> No.  >> It was always threatened,  you'll get a lump of coal in  your stocking if you haven't  behaved, instead of a present.  So it was equalizer. 

 (laughter)  Let me be the first, possibly.  Probably, to wish you all  a very Merry Christmas.  Thank you.  (applause)