A Very Vintage Holiday: Photos Recall Christmas Past

Get into the spirit of the season with these nostalgic photographs!

Turn back the clock and experience the magic of yesteryear with this collection of black and white photographs sure to awaken the holiday spirit.

Bettmann via Getty Images
The famed Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in 1955.
Denver Post via Getty Images
Denver's Christmas display in 1958.
Bettmann via Getty Images
A woman dressed in a Christmas costume, circa 1920s.
Boston Globe via Getty Images
Balloons spelling out "Merry Xmas" during a 1939 parade in Boston.
George Rinhart via Getty Images
Pennsylvania Station in New York adorned with Christmas decorations.
Orlando via Getty Images
A boy distributes presents to his family in the 1950s.
Evans via Getty Images
Traditional Philippino Christmas decorations hanging over the streets in the 1950s.
Keystone-France via Getty Images
A "modern" Christmas tree display in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Andreas Feininger via Getty Images
Christmas decorations at Rockefeller Plaza in 1949.
Vecchio via Getty Images
An inmate at New York's Rikers Island jail painting a huge Santa Claus on a wall in 1955.
Nina Leen via Getty Images
Rockefeller Christmas tree lit up at night in New York City in 1940.
Hulton Deutsch via Getty Images
Men fasten globes to one of the large Christmas lanterns ready to be erected in Regent Street in London.
Daily Herald Archive via Getty Images
Father Christmas with page boys around a Christmas tree in 1934.
Bettmann via Getty Images
Santa Claus is surrounded by scantily clad movie stars in Hollywood, California, in 1946, as his sleigh moves down "Santa Claus Lane."
Keystone-France via Getty Images
A house with Christmas decorations in Queens, New York.
Bettmann via Getty Images
A young boy looks on in wonder as his model train moves around the track in this undated photograph.
J. A. Hampton via Getty Images
A giant Christmas cracker containing an Austin car on show in a Wanstead motor depot in 1929.
Underwood Archives via Getty Images
Santa Claus carrying a bag full of presents in the late 1940s.
Bettmann via Getty Images
The home of Chicago Tribune publisher Robert R. McCormick in Wheaton, Illinois. There is snow on the ground and lights in the trees.
Lambert via Getty Images
A boy and his father inspect a small evergreen tree during a Christmas tree hunt in a snowy field in 1955.
George Rinhart via Getty Images
Christmas trees inside Grand Central Terminal.
Kirn Vintage Stock via Getty Images
A little girl stands by s Christmas tree clutching her doll in the 1950s.
Bettmann via Getty Images
Brussels prepares for its 1949 Christmas display, with millions of colored bulbs decorating the main streets.
MCNY/Gottscho-Schleisner via Getty Images
A Christmas tree in a dining room at Parkside Hotel in New York City in 1931.
Orlando via Getty Images
Car headlights add extra ribbons of light to the Christmas decorations and the festive "sugar cane" streetlamps of 1950s Washington.
Bettmann via Getty Images
Mary Pickford, assisted by little Johanna Randall (whom she is holding) and Muriel Wisdom, keeps up a Hollywood tradition in 1937 by trimming the first outdoor Christmas tree in Beverly Hills, California. Pickford was then the honorary chairman of the Holiday Beautification movement, which created the pre-holiday activities of the movie colony when she began to trim the tree.
Sherman via Getty Images
People lined up on Wall Street in New York City to post their Christmas cards and packages at a huge mailbox.
Courtesy David Lohr
A boy's first encounter with Santa in Erie County, Pennsylvania, in 1975.

Send David Lohr an email or follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Before You Go

LOADINGERROR LOADING
Close

What's Hot