I could have lived in past eras as I like it so much.
I think the downfall happened in the middle of the 60', with some intervals. I remember some pretty things in the end of the 80' (some, I said 😀), as in the 90' and so on, but most clothes are not as elegant as before. We are lucky when we can find some quite decent.
But it's not just the clothes, life in every aspect was better and nicer before. Now we have some progress in the health department and we have the glorious internet, mobile phones and such, but taking that off some improvements, we are not better.
But never mind, we can always hope and wait for better times.
Now we will see some elegance and nice living from the 50s and the begining of the 60s.
Tomorrow it will be Saturday. Oh blessed day, I do like Saturdays.
Now I will tell you why. I work full time but I am an homemaker. So, in the week days I do less work but obviously I must do a lot of it,it's just that just I can't savour it properly because either I am in the morning rushing or in the evening already tired.
But not on Saturdays!
So, I awake up early and I go wild doing things !
I do my morning routine: me time (washing and dressing, etc), I do a quick tidying all around, including living room and kitchen, bedroom, and everything, as I am not at all a night woman, I am very much a morning person, I do like to awake up early and listen to the birds and watching the day being born.
In the morning, quite early, I go shopping. I do like to do it when the shop is opening and there are just a few people there. Such calm. The produce is all there and not chosen yet by the customers, everything is nice and tidy. It's a pleasure.
Then I go home and there I go and do what I want in my homemaker realm, being laundry one of my favourite activities.
So, after washing, I put them on the line to dry with the sun, which gives it such a nice smell.
Ironing is a good thing too. I do it in front of the television and I either watch the news or a video on youtube, being the subject homemaking or doctrine and eschatology.
I hoover too, I dust, I wash the floors, I do a lot of cleaning and tidying, I cook and I do some declutter in my bedroom which makes me find always something that I forgot, which I call " go shopping" inside my house.
Just look how life was beautiful in the years past.
I know that problems and difficulties were present in people's lives in each decade, let's think about the two wars, the big depression and so on, but what I mean is the beauty.
From the end of the sixties life went from ugly to uglier. I know that there was pretty thing even after that date, some quite beautiful, but life in the whole, the clothes, the habits, everything went down. The number of nice things (clothes, car and life in general) was smaller than before it.
See the 1900s - 1919
This picture reminds us so much of the time before the war of 1914-18.
The 20s.
It's so interesting how this picture, which is from January of 1920, just the ending of the previous decade and the begining of a new one, shows us exactly similar clothes to the 1900s, more after 1910.
Notice how here the skirt is so much shorter. For sure many women then used longer ones still, but we see the new trend.
Today is the Epiphany, also known as the Three Kings Day.
I know, as I have reading around, that many people take the Crib and the Tree down and all the decorations after Christmas or after New Year's Day but there are Twelve Days of Christmas, we should only take it down AFTER the Epiphany and the Crib after the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. But it's ok to put also the Crib down after the King's Day.
This was a way to teach the basics of Faith without the risk of being persecuted in that calamitous time in England when Catholics were arrested and killed In Odium Fidei.
The meaning of the lyrics is:
The two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments
The three French hens stood for faith, hope, and love.
The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The five golden rings rerepresented the first five books of the Old Testament, which describe man's fall into sin and the great love of God in sending a Savior.
The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.
Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit-----Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.
The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.
Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit-----Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience [Forbearance], Goodness [Kindness], Mildness, Fidelity, Modesty, Continency [Chastity].
The ten lords a-leaping were the Ten Commandments.
The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful Apostles.
The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in The Apostles' Creed.
As for me I will keep the Crib on till the Presentation of the Lord, Candlemas, also known as Our Lady of the Candles or the Light Day (2.February), and take the Tree and decoration after today, slowly, without stress.
I'm not American or Canadian so I don't do Thanksgiving, except in my heart, because many years ago, my husband, who lived in America for some years, wanted to invite me to have luch with him and decided to make Thanksgiving lunch just to invite me.
Less than a year after we were married.
So I do like Thanksgiving.
And now to the First Thanksgiving.
"Blaring trumpets and thundering serenaded Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés as he waded ashore on September 8, 1565. The Spanish admiral kissed a cross held aloft by the fleet's captain, Father Francisco Lopez, then claimed Florida for both his God and his country. As curious members of the indigenous Timucua tribe looked on, the 800 newly arrived colonists gathered around a makeshift altar as Father Lopez performed a Catholic Mass of thanksgiving for their safe arrival in the newly christened settlement of St. Augustine. At the invitation of Menéndez, the Timucuans then joined the newcomers in a comunal meal.
Some Florida historians have argued that this feast - and not the one held 56 years later by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags in Plymouth, Massachusetts - was actually North America's First Thanksgiving. It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land", wrote University of Florida Professor Emmeritus of History Michael Gannon in his book The Cross in the Sand".
