Vintage Holiday Decorations

I love holidays.  Who wouldn't love a day where you get to celebrate and hang out with your friends and family?  I'm a bit conflicted, however, when it comes to my favorite holiday.  I love Halloween because it's a day where I get to dress up and wear a fun outfit (always a plus in my book!), carve pumpkins, trick-or-treat with friends, and- my favorite part of all- watch scary movies.  I LOVE scary movies, especially vintage horror films from the 50s and 60s.  William Castle movies are so much fun to watch, and pretty much any movie with Vincent Price in it is bound to be awesome.  One of my favorite Castle movies, which coincidentally stars Vincent Price, is called The Tingler.  In this movie, Vincent Price plays a doctor who discovers that the tingling sensation people get when they are afraid is actually a living organism that lives on our spines.  He calls this organism the tingler and, when the tingler gets loose, horror (and hilarity- the tingler is a weird bug looking thing pulled around the set on a wire) ensues.  Sadly, I can never find vintage Halloween decorations or costumes at thrift stores.  I'm not really sure why this is, but it may be due to the fact that people didn't decorate as much for Halloween or the fact that kids were hard on their Halloween costumes.  If you see some vintage Halloween decorations or costumes, let me know! ;)

Vincent Price and the terrifying tingler.  Source

My other favorite holiday, Christmas, seems to be over-represented in thrift stores.  Vintage Christmas decorations are pretty easy to find, but they are usually put out in the thrifts around Christmastime (this depends on the store, but in general they seem to squirrel their Christmas decorations away until December).  However, you can still often find Christmas decorations in thrift stores year round.  I found the gem below along with a ton of vintage Shiny Brite ornaments at a local thrift last December.  I'm not really sure of its age, but I would guess that it is from the late 50s or early 60s. 

Vintage Santa and Mrs. Claus

Vintage holiday decorations, such as the figurine above, would be a really fun way to introduce the idea of US holidays to ESL/EFL students.  The teacher could introduce how holidays such as Halloween or Christmas are celebrated in the US, then discuss any similarities/differences to these holidays in the students' home countries.  For example, the students could compare the image of Santa in the figurine above to images of Santa from other countries.  If Christmas or Halloween are not celebrated in the students' home countries, the students could be asked to share information about holidays that are celebrated in their country.  If possible, students could even bring in decorations/pictures of decorations from these holidays.  This would be a really great way for the class to see and experience aspects of these holidays in addition to hearing about them from their classmates.  I also really like the idea of having students participate in US holidays, but I'm unsure how well this would work for historically religious holidays such as Christmas.  I feel like more religiously neutral holidays, like Halloween or Valentine's Day, would be more suitable to celebrate in a classroom.