Seventy years ago, it was a Hi Fi Christmas for soprano Mimi Benzell and her husband Walter Gould. They are shown here with what Santa delivered, namely, a Graarard turntable, a Pilot tuner, a Bogen amplifier, a University speaker enclosure, and a Wilcox Gay tape recorder.
They are probably shown at their home, which, according to Wikipedia, was at 45 Cardinal Road, Manhasset, New York. The picture appeared on the cover of the December 1953 issue of Radio News.
Merry Christmas from OneTubeRadio.com!
We present a hundred year old silent film, the 1923 version of A Christmas Carol starring Russell Thorndike as Scrooge. It’s a short feature, so the story is quite condensed into less than a half hour. This rendition is accompanied by recordings from that era. Thorndike is best known as an author, and you can find his author page at Amazon.
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Eighty years ago in the U.K., there was a war going on, which meant that many Christmas presents might have been unavailable. But Britons were known for keeping a stiff upper lip, and if there were no gifts in the shops, then they could make their own.
This ad for Pyruma putty cement appeared in the December 1943 issue of Practical Mechanics. After making the model, you baked it in the oven and it became stone hard. The compound was also used by the military in making models.
If you were browsing the pages of Life Magazine75 years ago today, December 13, 1948, and you didn’t have your Christmas presents picked out, you couldn’t go wrong with one of these RCA radios.
If you wanted the “luxury look” in an inexpensive set, then the Model 75X16 was just the thing. The model 8B43 portable was just 6-1/4 inches high and came on the instant you opened it, thanks to the miniature but sturdy tubes and long lasting RCA battery.
The model 8X521 tabletop set was only six inches tall, and the model 8BX6 Globetrotter was a portable that could run on either batteries or AC.
Times might be tough, and during tough times, even Santa Claus requires a little bit of help. Fifty years ago, America was going through some tough times, thanks to the Arab Oil Embargo.
Help, in the form of the WIN Button, wouldn’t be available until the following year.
For some Americans, if there were to be Christmas presents under the tree, then they would
have to make them themselves. Fortunately, the November 1973 issue of Popular Mechanics showed how to make some great gifts for the entire family, using simple materials, with modest skills.
The earrings shown at right, for example, are carved from either wood or plexiglass. In fact, most of the designs shown in the magazine were two-dimensional, meaning they could simply be cut with a jigsaw, and then sanded.
The youngsters would enjoy either the pull-toys or the wooden trucks shown below.
What girl wouldn’t love the toy kitchen set shown below, all crafted with love by Dad in his wood shop. And to help Junior brush up on his numbers from 1 through 5, this entertaining device shown at the bottom of the page could be built, and Junior could plug it in to any 120 volt household outlet. When a button (switches from refrigerator doors were recommended), a Christmas-tree light would illuminate the corresponding number. Junior 
would have hours of fun, would have a solid understanding of the numbers 1 through 5, and Mom and Dad could laugh at OPEC for trying to steal Junior’s happy Christmas.
Today marks the 200th anniversary of the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” popularly known as “The Night Before Christmas” or “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Clement Moore reportedly penned the poem on December 24, 1822, while traveling home from Greenwich Village, where he had bought a turkey to be donated to the poor. He read it to his children that night, and it was first published on December 23, 1823.
Moore, a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan, was reportedly embarrassed by the light verse, and didn’t publish it under his own name until 1844.
Here, you can listen to the poem, read by Lorne Greene:
A hundred years ago, Santa was getting ready for Christmas. When it came time to make his list and check it twice, he made sure he got the most current information by radio, as shown in this illustration on the cover of the December 1922 issue of Radio Age.
A hundred years ago today, the December 19, 1922, issue of The Rock Island Argus and Daily Union carried this ad for Franc’s Furniture Store, featuring a complete radio set for only $15, which could be paid just $2 down and $1 per week. It was assembled and guaranteed by the S&M Radio Shop of neighboring Davenport, Iowa.
The set, the “Little Aristocrat,” featured a mahogeny case, and included detector, headphones, antenna wire, and insulator. It was touted as having a range of 100 miles, and would pull in station WOC, which was then licensed to the Palmer School of Chiropractic. The set was billed as an ideal eleventh hour Christmas present.
Christmas of 1922 was going to be a big one for radio, as evidenced by this ad in the Washington Herald a hundred years ago today, November 15, 1922. As shown here, Santa’s workshop was busy turning out radio sets, many of which would show up under the tree.
We previously profiled this dealer, White & Boyer, 812 13th St. NW, Washington. In addition to running the retail dealership, they were the licensee of station WJH, thus ensuring their customers had something to tune in.
