Last week I was clearing out an old box of Christmas decorations that have seen better times. At the very bottom of the box was an old magazine. It was called House Beautiful, the Best of Christmas. The year was 1969 and the cost was 75 cents an issue.

As I turned the old, brown, curled pages, it brought me back in time.

So today let me take you back to the Christmas of 1969.

The first thing I noticed is that they enjoyed their adult drinks. Full page ads of Benedictine liqueur, Cointreau liqueur, J & B rare scotch, Martini & Rossi, Old Style Kentucky bourbon and Seagram’s 7 Crown whiskey.

The cutest drink ad was Santa looking over a bottle of Coca-Cola with the words “the real thing” written in big letters under the bottle. This was during the cola wars with the Pepsi generation.

The Christmas trees were the very popular aluminum trees. Some were different colors like red and green, but most were silver. Usually decorated with solid-colored balls. Lights were a fire hazard for aluminum trees, so a color wheel was plugged into the wall facing the tree. The tree would turn green, red, blue and yellow as the plastic colors rotated around. The cost for the tree with the wheel was about $25.

For those sticking with the traditional tree, Scotch pine was the popular choice. The tree would most certainly be decorated with shinny icicle lights that were the rage in 1969. An 8-foot tree cost about $7-$8.

Sears and Roebuck advertised Footlights carpet for your kitchen. It was popular in 1960s to have carpet on your kitchen floor and even shag rugs were made for the kitchen floor. The catch phrase under the carpet ads read - You’ve changed a lot lately. So has Sears.

Who remembers your mom, sister or your aunts using electric hot rollers. They came in a case with a few different size rollers. They were plugged into the electric wall socket and in a few minutes, you could roll your dry hair onto the hard plastic curlers and secure with a clamp. Leave in for about 25 to 30 minutes and out came big bouncy curls. This style case was called Kindness from Clairol.

Popular gifts that year were lunar lamps, digital clocks with AM, FM radio, toasters with sides to warm pastries, alarm clocks that could be programmed up to seven days ahead, blenders, waffle irons, sewing machines with self-filling bobbins, electric broilers, electric juicers, and Kodak projectors for super 8 or 8 mm film reels and fondue pots of every size and color.

The Christmas ham and turkey dinners looked just as delicious as they do today. Holiday dessert recipes centered around red and green Jell-O. Jell-O Whip n Chill, red Jell-O with fruit cocktail in a mold were a hit. Also boxed cake mixes were very popular.

As my husband read this, he related that Christmas in 1969 was not a happy one for him. The Vietnam War was in full swing with 475,000 Americans there serving their county. Joe had been drafted into the Army six months earlier. He arrived in Vietnam just three days before Christmas for a yearlong tour. Just a young man of 19 and his first time being that far away from home in a war-torn country. He along with many other new soldiers went to Christmas Eve Mass and when the church service was over, and all the young men sang silent night he remembers there was not a dry eye in the packed chapel. He made it back to the states later that year and for this we are always thankful.

The one thing that still resonates from 1969 to this year some 54 years later is that Christmas is a time for family, making new memories and looking forward to a brand-new year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.