Earlier this week, my oldest brother announced to his organization that he will be retiring next February. He’s the top dog at his company, so he needed to give his board plenty of notice to plan for a leadership transition. It’s is exciting news for him and it will be a big lifestyle change. I often joke that I didn’t find out how truly Type … Continue reading Preparing For Takeoff
As I do every year, over the last month I’ve used my personal Facebook feed to countdown the days from Thanksgiving to Christmas. This year’s vintage countdown focuses on the great illustration/design from vinyl album covers of the 1940-60s. Hope you enjoy seeing some old favorites … 🎼 25 Days to Christmas – Mitch Miller released this colorful album in 1958. He role of chorale … Continue reading Vintage Christmas Album Covers
As I do every year, over the last month I’ve used my personal Facebook feed to countdown the days from Thanksgiving to Christmas. I’m sharing the countdown more broadly through this blog post.
2017 Countdown: Vintage Christmas Advertising
2018 Countdown: Christmas Classic Toy Countdown
2019 Countdown: Illustrated Christmas Magazine Covers
This year’s countdown is a trip back in time through the 1970 JCPenney Christmas Catalog. My Dad worked his whole career as a JCP store manager and my brothers and I memorized almost every page.
I hope you see some favorite toys, mod outfits, entertaining gifts, and wonderful memories in these pages from 50 years ago. Note on the cover of the catalog it says that “toys and giftware orders need to be placed by August 28th” … already more than 90 days ago!
All scans are from the amazing christmas.musetechnical.com archive
🎅🏻 27 Days to Christmas – Snoopy & his Peanuts Pals earned a 2-page spread in the 1970 JCP catalog. To adjust for inflation, multiply the prices 7x. No doubt all of these toys & watches would be vintage ‘collectibles’ worth more than that on eBay today.
🏈 26 Days To Christmas – Uniforms for the newly merged NFL + AFL were popular fifty years ago in the JCPenney Christmas Catalog. The Chiefs had beat the Vikings in the Super Bowl the previous season and the Cowboys were on their way to beat the Colts in the January 1971 championship. Did they photograph the same kid in all 26 team uniforms?
⭐️🥃 25 Days to Christmas – Drinking & smoking were a big part of the 1970 holiday season. Lots of sophisticated bar sets, decanters, and lighters – with a full length fencing foil (left) to add to the fun!
🎁 24 Days to Christmas – 1970 fashions from the JCPenney Christmas catalog put Mrs. Roper from ‘Three’s Company’ into context with ‘quilted culottes’ and ‘shimmering caftans’ …
Every year for the last 10 years, I’ve posted a ‘countdown’ of vintage Christmas advertising, classic toys, or antique post cards on my personal Facebook feed. A few years ago, I started sharing them here – as a Christmas card of sorts to readers. This year’s Christmas countdown focused on 25 classic magazines featuring the ‘golden age’ of cover illustration. It was a fun countdown … Continue reading Merry Christmas – 2019 Christmas Countdown
In addition to writing a couple articles a week for this site every week, I also enjoy writing a Christmas Countdown that I post on my personal Facebook feed. I’ve posted my ’25 Ads of Christmas’ for a number of years and feature vintage advertising with great illustration.
This year, I did something different: I researched 25 ‘Classic Toys’ and wrote a little bit about the history of each. Just as I shared last year’s countdown here (LINK), I thought I’d collect this year’s and share it here too!
M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S !
🚂 Classic Toy Countdown #25 – In 1905, Joshua Lionel Cowen first circled Christmas Trees with his electrified Lionel Train. Wind-up trains had been popular for decades, but Lionel made Christmas “unforgettable” and became a toy people continued to play with into adulthood!
📷 Classic Toy Countdown #24 – Revealed at the 1939 World’s Fair in NY, the View Master modernized stereoscopic viewers. Originally sold through high-end specialty photography stores with travel & history reels, View Master reached major toy status with a landmark Disney licensing deal.
Its hard to believe that I’ve been writing this blog 2-3x a week for over 3 years. I started it more than a year before I retired and now that milestone is two years in the rear view mirror. I’ve enjoyed sharing this journey and appreciated all of the recent positive comments, messages, tweets, and emails readers passed on during the ‘Two Year FIRE Anniversary’ … Continue reading Birthday From From MegaCorp Past
I retired much earlier than most people. I was 49 years old, just two weeks short of my 50th birthday. As I talk with people about early retirement, I find that most people don’t really know how early is ‘early’. The average retirement age in the USA is 62. That’s a bit higher than it was a few years ago, it’s also a bit lower … Continue reading Are You Retiring ‘Early’?
A number of readers have been chatting about how many months they have until their own early retirement dates and how anxious they are getting. I started this blog when I had 15 months left before my FIRE escape date from MegaCorp. That seemed like a really long time at that point, but now when I reflect on it, it seems like no time at … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Let Me Count The Ways
One of my team members told me today that they are now on their “final lap”. We were talking about great cities to visit – my favorite is Rome – and they shared their plans to start traveling more in early retirement. Next year! This person plans on retiring on 5/1/16 after 35 enjoyable years at our dear MegaCorp. They’ve been a company loyalist for … Continue reading Roman Holiday In Early Retirement
This is the latest picture of the overhead cabinet in my office at MegaCorp. Each week for the last 52 weeks, I have been pulling down a marker to countdown the weeks. I thought I would share a quick picture now while there is a few still left. Here’s what it looked like originally and at the last update I showed … It’s amazing … Continue reading Post-it Flag Countdown Update
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