It seems that these days Christmas traditions are starting before we even purchase Halloween candy.
The Christmas season seams to start earlier and earlier every year.
By "starts," I mean retailers holding Christmas sales, radio stations playing seasonal music and TV stations airing holiday movies. It seems that these days such things are happening even before we purchase Halloween candy!
Growing up in Vineland in the '60s and '70s, the season did not officially "kick off" until after the city's annual Christmas parade.
Prior to the procession, children may have paged through catalogs looking at toys, but Santa Claus was not in the mall waiting to hear wishes. Retailers were preparing for their busiest season, but it was happening in stockrooms, not in store windows.
Santa lights the lights on Landis Avenue in Vineland on Nov. 30, 1959 ... also my first birthday. Homeowners moved nary a box of decorations from their traditional spots in the attic, and absolutely no one was selling any kind of cut evergreen tree anywhere. The only sign that something was "up" was when workmen began hanging the strings of red and green lights across the length of Landis Avenue.
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the city would hold its annual Christmas parade down that main shopping thoroughfare. Marching bands, floats and civic organizations would brave what was usually a cold night to march, with the evening's most special guest riding at the end. Then, for the piece de resistance, Santa himself would throw the switch to light those lovely lights and officially start the Christmas season.
MORE: Vintage photos around New Jersey
When we returned home from the event, the Christmas candles were taken down from the attic and set in the windows, the miniature creche was placed on the coffee table and the four little candle guys were arranged on the kitchen table to spell "NOEL" (my siblings and I drove my mom nuts by rearranging those pieces to spell "LEON" or "LONE.")
I liked it a lot more when the season started in late November, rather than early October.
Here's a gallery of Christmas celebrations from around the state in those good old days. Be sure to have captions enabled to read all about them.
Want more? Click here and here for a couple of galleries from previous years.
Greg Hatala may be reached at ghatala@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find The Star-Ledger on Facebook.