Christmas Dinner 1950s Style
Note the formal table setting above. Elegant, polished, shining, and decorative. Polishing the silver was a long and tedious job, but so worthwhile! Beautiful!
Christmas Dinner Menus
Menu #1:
Oyster Cocktails in Green Pepper Shells
Celery and Ripe Olives
Roast Goose with Potato Stuffing
Apple Sauce
String Beans
Potato Puffs
Lettuce Salad with Riced (Grated) Cheese and Bar-le-Duc (currant jam)
French Dressing
Toasted Wafers
English Plum Pudding
Bonbons
Coffee
Menu #2:
Cream of Celery Soup
Cheese Sticks, Salted Peanuts, and Stuffed Green Olives
Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding
Potato Souffle
Spinach in Eggs (hard-boiled eggs filled with cooked spinach)
White-Grape Salad with Guava Jelly (peeled and de-seeded white grapes on lettuce leaves)
French Dressing
Toasted Crackers
English Plum Pudding with Hard sauce
Bonbons
Coffee
(Menus from The American Woman’s Cook Book, 1950)
Christmas Cocktail Parties
Cocktail parties were popular in the 1950s, and the Christmas cocktail party was no exception.
Favorite drinks:
martinis
daiquiris
mint juleps
whisky sours
champagne cocktails
punch laced with alcohol
Appetizers:
Finger foods such as canapes, Vienna sausages, cocktail wieners, cheese, deviled eggs, and olives.
Sweets such as petits fours, candies, cookies, and other small desserts.
1950s Cocktail dresses:
1950s Christmas tree with lots of tinsel!
Christmas is timeless, however it’s celebrated.
Dawn Pisturino
December 12, 2021
Copyright 2021 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.
Dawn Pisturino's Blog 
I’m a broken record. But it’s still humbling how much decorum went into Holidays. Being a modern, dirty Philistine I have one holiday sweater. It’s a “Dale of Norway” that I found for a pittance at a thrift shop, that I wear after Thanksgivingtide for Yule and Easter (when anything requiring formal dress occurs.)
LikeLiked by 3 people
Times have changed,
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ahhh the retro love of detail (polishing the silver) and not one cellphone on the table cloth either when the family is eating. Lovely nostalgia!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Super. and aptly timeless, dawn.
Narayan x
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is every night at my house. 😂
LikeLiked by 2 people
You must have a lot of energy, Michele, to do this every night! But your family must appreciate it. I hope they appreciate how much love and hard work you put into it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
haha Dinner is always appreciated, but it never looks quite like that! 😁
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mine never looks like this, either! Too much work!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am emotionally overwhelmed just by looking at it. Having grown up under Communism this would have been challenging to my moral standards. But I guess in those days we had not yet caught up to the reality of overconsumption and its effect on the environment. Still nice to look at and in my younger days it would have been just teething to do.
LikeLiked by 2 people
During World War II, people had ration cards, and that was not long after the Great Depression, so 1950s prosperity must have seemed like a miracle to people. We always appreciate what we don’t and can’t have.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lol, yes grandma’s were the same all over the world. These possessions meant the world to them and besides family they particularly enjoyed these table settings with neighbors, church and friends.
And ordinarily the dining table was covered with a runner or cloth.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’d go with menu 2. Stylistically the fifties were great, I love going through vintage shops. Great main photo you have of the dining room. I can’t help but feel we’re ‘devolving’. You’ve had a couple of posts in this vein, can you put in words what it evokes in you?
LikeLiked by 1 person
It reminds me of my mother. I see the 1950s as a happy, hopeful, upbeat time when people really enjoyed life and appreciated what they had after the deprivations of World War II. People nowadays seem very ungrateful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wondered. “Happy, hopeful, upbeat” defines it, I’ve thought of it similarly in my ruminations as ‘optimism’. I’ve thought our “national character” in 1955 had more in common with the people at our founding, than they would of the people of today.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree with you!
LikeLike
Oh yes i remember these days how the crockery and cutlery that were engraved and took a long time to save before these sets were purchased were kept in a display cabinet for these very special days.
Our moms literally idolised the queen mary christmas table settings. Just we girls were the maids to polish the silver, wash the crockery and starch the linen for these occasions.
True times have changed.
Keeping it simple, less is lovelier
Still love the vintage sets though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree, that looks like a lot of hard work! And I remember my grandmother’s china on display and locked away until Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas. And the silverware. They were precious possessions to her.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not sure what happened to my post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Somehow on certain blogs my comments don’t show after i posted.
Grannies all over the world in those days were the same…lol…they loved these dining fineries. A set dining table was their masterpiece they created on these occasions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL. You accidentally responded to someone else’s comment. No worries!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh goodness me…lol
What does this…oh golly…lol
It’s the years…🙂…definitely
😊…I’m also extremely tired today i should add.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, I have flashbacks of a Gilmore Girls episode here 😉
But the dresses were incredible!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Get a load of that spread!!! Is my invitation in the mail??? It ain’t here yet!?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very funny, Brother Lawrence!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey Dawn! Look I get way serious and agonize over bad things going on but I do try to keep my own sense of humor not as well as you seem to be doing but at least I didn’t “lose it yet” in more ways than one!
I love to laugh but hardly get to these days so I have to try harder to find some opportunity to do so and you did it again you “Funny Lady.” But not that what you posted itself was funny, it was more beautiful and very kind in my eyes but there is a hint of humor; think about it for anyone that doesn’t have a clue about you or the material, “The Cows Are Back.”
Gee even with my twisted imagination the old Poltergeist Movie “They’re back” comes to mind and the preceding posting was a barrel of laughs, those memes, and what you said on that one! Imagine some guy that had a few beers and your posting pops up! So I would have reblogged this for sure but again was not able to and if you don’t object I’ll try a bit later to build it the from scratch way! Like baking a cake right; and I’m half-baked already anywho! Hardy ha-hah!
LikeLiked by 1 person
If I can make you laugh, Lawrence, that makes me happy! Feel free to re-post it. And have a Blessed Day!
LikeLike
So cozy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] Christmas Dinner from the 1950s Housewife — Dawn Pisturino’s Blog […]
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for sharing!
LikeLike
[…] annie; pooja; jiheuer; brayden; gail; josh; noah; anne; ian; justine; miriam; gastro; woolymuses; dawn; tgeriatrix; garfield; clarissa; joy; […]
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!
LikeLike
Love the tinsel Christmas tree and the traditions!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you very much!
LikeLike
Looks simple but very elegant! And both menus are sound delicious.🙂
Happy holidays and all the best in New Year! 🎅🎄🙋♀️
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! The same to you and yours!
LikeLiked by 1 person