Friday, November 23, 2018

The Day After Thanksgiving – 1968

Well, it’s the day after Thanksgiving. Hope your holiday was great!

Fifty years ago, the day after Thankgiving was November 29, 1968. And that was the day that Santa Claus made his traditional arrival at Sheffield Shopping Center, as announced in the full-page Journal ad above.

(It’s kind of a strange looking Santa in the ad. Although he is usually described as being able to fit in a miniature sleigh, this ‘jolly old elf’ looks to be towering more than six feet tall. He also has one of the longest and most bendable torsos I’ve ever seen.)

I don’t remember making the trek to Sheffield Center for a Santa Claus arrival more than once if at all. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we were too busy watching cartoons. (The ABC television network used to rerun a bunch of their Saturday morning TV programming on that Friday after Thanksgiving, which I wrote about here.)

Anyway, on that same day after Thanksgiving 1968, the article below ran in the Journal. It tells of the appearance of Edna Kaye’s Steel City Strutters of Lorain at Philadelphia’s 49th annual Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The photo of the Snoopy balloon is from the Macy’s parade in New York. Note the lighthearted holiday fare playing at the Astor.

2 comments:

-Alan D Hopewell said...

I remember one year, early 70's, the Elyria High Marching Band was in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. The host, the late Bob Crane of "Hogan's Heroes" fame, pronounced the name of our county seat as, "El-RYE-Ra"!

Anonymous said...

That's interesting about the EHS Marching Band in the Macy's Parade! By the way, I enjoy reading Alan Hopewell's comments!