
This was, I think, the second Christmas issue I purchased. It comes from 1963, the year after the golden issue at the top. While it isn't as special to me as that issue, it was another important issue as far as the evolution of my becoming a TV aficionado, for it includes the Tennessee Ernie Ford special The Story of Christmas, including a color layout from the animated segment that makes up such a major part of the program. It was my search for information about the animation - I was merely hoping there might have been some Christmas cards made from it - that led me to find the DVD of the program. It was one of the first vintage television shows I purchased, one of the first times that i was even aware such programs could be found in their entirety and not as a part of a highlights show. There are still times when I can't quite believe I have it, that the original broadcast-quality version of a 50 year-old show is something you can buy.
I don't know why I didn't save more Christmas TV Guides than I did; I have plenty from New Year's, probably because of the football bowl games, but I hadn't saved one from Christmas Day itself. Looking back on them, it's stunning to see how much recognition there is of the religious aspect of Christmas. I think it's this 1958 issue that actually has a special section devoted to religious programming, and the cover includes some explicit religious iconography in its wonderful collection of Christmas images. I was fortunate to find issues like this early in my TV Guide search; at this point, when I would go through bins of issues in various antique stores, I always started out looking for the Christmas ones before going on to other issues. That's why some of my most important finds were accidental buys: they were issues I "settled" for after I'd exhausted the holiday issues - Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.
This is my most recent purchase, and also the oldest Christmas issue I own - 1957. It's another one of those "bonus" issues, in that I was looking online for issues to fill in the gaps for the coming year's articles. In the course of that search I ran across this issue; it was not only from the right part of the country, it was quite affordable compared to some of these issues, and the decision to purchase was a pretty easy one. I think this will be the issue you'll be reading about next year at this time, though I could be mistaken; I have other Christmas issues you haven't seen here, and there are still more that I'd like to get, so it's entirely possible this one will be bumped down a year or two while some newer acquisition takes its place. We'll just have to see.
You just read about this one on Saturday (I hope), so I won't rehash the details, but this is such a happy cover - growing up in Minnesota, where there was rarely anything other than a White Christmas, it says everything about December and Christmas, the sparkle and brightness. I wish they made issues like this today, but I think it's a futile wish.
But today's not a day for fussing; it's for celebrating the most wonderful day of the year, and I couldn't think of a better way than this to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas. See you tomorrow to start looking forward to the New Year!
A fantastic tribute to TV Guides of Christmases past.
ReplyDeleteA belated Merry Christmas to you Mitchell and all your readers.