In their Christmas ad 100 years ago, Vick Bros. put Santa in a car. It was not the first time Santa appeared in a car here, but this image, probably originating elsewhere for national use, had particular verve.
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| December 23rd, 1922 |
Generally modernizing Christmas gifts was a prominent theme.
As we think more seriously about electrifying everything, it is interesting to consider the similar push for electrical gadgets and stimulating demand for electricity. Portland Railway, Light & Power Co. pitched "An Electrical Christmas." This was not new in 1922, but with each year there was more of it. Most of the gifts were gendered, for the wife and for easier housekeeping.
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| December 21st, 1922 |
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| December 23rd, 1922 |
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| Full page, December 23rd, 1922 |
Other items seemed to hit nostalgia more. A recipe feature for Christmas dinner suggested three menus:
- Raw oysters, soup, roast goose with apple sauce, canned pineapple fruit salad, and plum pudding
- Raw clams, soup, roast suckling pig with cranberries, string bean salad, mock mince meat pie
- Oyster stew, chicken pie with cranberries, cauliflower, and Norwegian prune pudding.
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| December 23rd, 1922 |
For the goose menu:
First raw oysters. Then a clear soup. If the housewife has an enameled ware soup...she has a foundation for her clear soup....
For the roast have the Christmas goose of English tradition. The goose is a noble bird, imposing in appearance and most excellent in flavor. Many housewives, however, fear to try goose as it is not easily roasted. It needs much basting for one thing and a rather slow oven. If, however, the hostess owns an enameled ware roaster she need have no misgivings. These roasters are self-basting and the arrangements for ventilating allow the goose to cook as slowly or as fast as is needed.
The goose must have apple sauce as its accompaniment. Apple sauce when properly made can be appetizing. The apples should not be pared and sliced until just when they are to be cooked. Put In an enameled ware saucepan with just enough water to keep from burning and cook quickly; add sugar just before removing from the fire, also a dash of lemon juice if the apples are not sour. Cooked in this way the apple sauce will be a golden amber as the enameled ware will not darken the fruit. Onions and boiled rice go well with the rich roast goose. A fruit salad is a refreshing next course Canned pineapple covered with a layer of sliced bananas, with a spoonful of whipped cream on top is a very good salad and easily prepared.
For dessert, of course, comes the plum pudding....
Culinary history is not the thing here, but these seem old-fashioned for 1922. The through-line promoting enameled ware is interesting to register. Advertising in Salem for enameled cookware seems to pick up in the late 1890s, and then appears regularly after that. So it was not any new thing in 1922.
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| Dec. 24th, 1901 and March 10th, 1909 |
And there was a note about the start of what is now Mahonia Hall.
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| December 23rd, 1922 |
Previously see:
- "Santa's New Speed: Changing Ads in 1919" (2019)
- "Christmas in 1920: Vick Bros. Building, Music, Appliances, Santa" (2020)
And notes on the first electrification of an outdoor Christmas tree at the Courthouse in SJ history columns:
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