Family Christmas Nostalgia

Christmas at B Street, 1950's

Christmas-time at the new house, 1958 or '59 - Bro, Mom, Grandma, Sis & Pepper the dog

Christmas 1969 - Sis & me

The Atomic Christmas in Our House

Junior's home from school sick in bed today, so there's nothing more for me to do than play at a computer in the meantime. Which has one good result -- I can get caught-up on some blogging! Here at the Space Commander residence we're still fixated on creating our Atomic Christmas theme for 2011 and how to bring all that old goodness together with a touch of new. Be warned, today's post might get a bit ranty :)

My color-coordinated tree - aluminum and blue are the swanky colors for this Christmas!

The last time you saw this aluminum tree, it was freshly set-up out of the box. Even without decor these trees are striking. But now it's sprouted ornaments all over! Instead of throwing my usual varied rainbow of vintagey bulbs on the tree, this season it's all gone color-coordinated... more or less... in shades of blue, cobalt, aqua, teal.... whatever. It's all blue to me!

Unfortunately after I had made up my mind to do the coordinated ornaments thing, I was horrified to learn that we barely had a bulb left after sorting out all the non-blues from my accumulated stash. "No problem!" I thought, "I'll run to the store and buy some cheap, plain ornaments to fake out with the real eye-candy!" One by one I'd enter with high hopes and left with broken dreams each store on my shopping list. I had come up empty handed. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to sell me one single, plain lousy bulb that was even remotely blue!

Well, to be fair WalMart had an assortment, but these looked just a bit too post-millenial 2011-ish for my tree. And Menards had a few medium blue ornaments with some dopey graphics that nobody wanted. So naturally I grabbed 'em up to fill out the back of my tree.

But I refuse to compromise any further! Being a somewhat stubborn man who has now become so set in my vision of ideal atomic Christmas tree goodness, I'm now beginning to play around with the idea of using spray paint on some discolored bulbs I had no use for. Hmmmm... that is, if I can only find the right shade of blue paint. Sounds like a plan! :P

Okay, I've done finished my wordy bit now. It's time for the fun part: Space Commander's Show and Tell!

One of the contemporary copies of the classic Atomic Ball Clock hangs over the kitchen entryway

One of Grandma's holiday craft magazines

For the holidays I hauled my Uncle's cedar chest in place of the coffee table to show the family's old nativity. The figures are over 50 years old, they're banged-up, glued and worn (probably due to a very young space commander-in-training) but each and every Christmas they have never failed to take their places.

Always hassling with your greeting cards blown over with each blast of Winter's breath from an open door? Why not try hanging them up instead

My brother rescued this Nativity-themed music box from the trash collection and passed it on to me. It pays to have family with connections!

For some reason Junior thinks we don't have enough stockings hung... just in case Santa is feeling very generous to him this year (yeah, well don't get your hopes up boy!)

Just because it's non-blue doesn't mean it's verboten! I set these ornaments out in a large wooden bowl which Dear Mom had often used for the same purpose.

A Shag Christmas Greeting

From the local greeting card and gift shop... the Abominable Snowman living in MCM style on the slopes! Contemporary artist Shag (a.k.a. Josh Agle) never fails to recreate the humorous atomic graphic work of the past without sneering at it. He makes kitschy icons classy. His worlds are always populated by hip, swanky dudes and dudettes living the idyllic lifestyle.

The shop I recently stopped in carried a large number of Christmas-themed cards with the Shag illustrations... I like this piece the best (though all are worthy of admiration, I promise). And look at the Christmas tree ornament shapes of the ski-lift in the picture window!

For more Shag, please slink on over to: Shag official website

Hey! The stockings hung on the Wendell Lovett fireplace? That definitely has some possibilities...

Plunder from the Used Book Store

While the kidlettes are shooosting down the snow-covered slopes of Suburbia (more specifically, my front yard) I went on a hunt ( more specifically a used book hunt at the Yellowed Pages Used Books store).


I love reading vintage paperbacks, especially the old science fiction of the 50's and 60's. And today I hit paydirt! Rocketship Galileo (originally published 1947) by Robert Heinlein is a classic. Likewise Fredric Brown's Martians, Go Home (1955). Murray Lienster is another top author of the period, I found his Space Platform (1953) in near-pristine condition. And there's one of the prized anthologies edited by Martin Greenberg (the co-founder of Gnome Press, which was always on the cutting-edge of the s.f. genre of the day). This one's titled Men Against the Stars (1950).

Oooh, which one to dig into first??

Another thing.... Who says you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover? Being unmistakably a product of their time mid-century book cover illustrations, especially for the science fiction, suspense, mystery (you know... the "manly-man" type of reading?), were almost never failing at being intriguing, inventive or creatively abstract and modern. And, of course, always eye-catching!

Invading a Christmas Tree Near You!

Look what I found at a local retailer this year. Three contemporary yet authentic glass ornaments with a FAB retro space-age theme, ready to hang on the aluminum Christmas tree. These are full size ornaments, not plastic knockoffs. I almost fainted with holiday joy when I spotted these! Somebody pinch me ;)

Winters Past

Recently while looking through boxes and boxes of family treasures, I found these two contact prints among my Dad's photography. Now that we've just had our first real snowstorm of the season, its as fitting a time as any to share them here.



It'd be interesting to go back and photograph the same locations today... if I only knew where exactly in town they were taken from! I can however photograph the weekend's first snow as it settles on our beloved ranch house which we call home.

Have an Aluminum Christmas This Year!

It's the return of Grandma's Regal Sapphire aluminum tree, with the tinsel mechanically attached for that perfect hi-tech look!

Ahhh, all those Christmas seasons that I remember helping Grandma set-up and decorate this very tree. And what a spectacle it was, displayed in the corner of the living room near the kitchen entryway. The color wheel light endlessly casting reflections of red, blue and green, dance on the silvery needles. Soon it would be sheltering a colorful horde of presents, professionally wrapped ones by the retailers too!

When the first aluminum trees burst upon the scene in the 1950's, many people scoffed at the idea, and only treated as a fad by others. But not my Grandma. Unlike the nay-sayers and scoffers who never understood, Grandma "got it." And fortunately for later-comers like me, she still got it well into the 1970's so that I too could honestly claim that I had "gotten it" as well.

Today the Tree made of aluminum tinsel is enjoying renewed acceptance, not so much as a kitschy fad but more and more as trendy stylin'. In fact the trend has been gaining enough momentum that retails have taken notice and have been offering brand new renditions of the metallic icon in a whole host of color variations. What was old is new again!

So here's to you, Grandma and your forward-thinkingness... and thank you for all those memories you made that still keep me going forward today!

25 Days

Twenty-five days 'til Christmas. Less than a month away. Three weeks left.


And I haven't even gotten all the Halloween decorations put away yet.

Ricky Rivets Prepares to Blast Off

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you "Ricky Rivets" the robot. This Halloween my very own Junior is modelling a very vintage trick-or-treating costume, which I happened to win off of eBay earlier this year. And its a perfect fit! "Ricky" is a Collegeville Costume product which from the styling looks typically early 1950's. Junior also models to suit as an optional space ranger uniform. The red "Rocket Patrol Space Police" cap with rotating propellor (for providing maximum thrust during police hover craft chases) is another vintage find. It came from a local antique shop, still with it's original price tag of only 15 cents attached.

I could be slightly biased, but doesn't the little man look all spiffy in his improvised uniform? Enough to make any space commanding Pop proud!

(My apologies for this post coming to you a tad bit late for the holiday.... but better late than never)

Happy All Hallow's Eve

May you have a Happy All Hallow's Eve!

If you'll please pardon me for not staying longer, but I have a date with the very bewitching Miss Veronica Lake... or at least I can dream of it while watching her starring role in 1942's fantasy comedy flick "I Married a Witch", directed by René Clair, with Fredric March,
and Robert Benchley.

Sa-woooon!