If you still remember these 9 Christmas traditions from the 60s and 70s, your memory is sharper than most people your age

Does the scent of fresh pine instantly transport you back to childhood? Maybe it's the sound of Bing Crosby's voice crackling through a record player, or the feeling of tissue-thin wrapping paper between your fingers that takes you there.

For those of us who experienced Christmas in the 60s and 70s, certain memories are etched so deeply that just a single trigger can bring them flooding back. And here's what I've discovered: if you can recall these specific traditions with crystal clarity, your memory is functioning at a level that would surprise most cognitive researchers.

Growing up as an only child in the suburbs, Christmas was the one time of year when our usually quiet house transformed into something magical. My mother would take a break from grading papers, and my father would step away from his engineering projects. The whole family would dive into traditions that, looking back now, seem both wonderfully simple and impossibly elaborate.

1. Aluminum Christmas trees with color wheels

Remember those shimmering silver trees that looked like they belonged in a space-age living room? They were everywhere in the 60s, often paired with a rotating color wheel that bathed the metallic branches in red, blue, green, and amber light.

My parents bought one in 1965, and I can still hear the gentle hum of that color wheel motor. We'd sit in the dark living room, mesmerized by the changing colors. It felt futuristic and cozy at the same time. These trees were considered the height of sophistication back then, though by the mid-70s, most families had stuffed them in the attic in favor of more "natural" looking artificial trees.

The fact that you can recall not just the tree but the specific sensation of watching those colors shift? That's your episodic memory firing on all cylinders.

2. Making paper chains and popcorn garlands

Before Pinterest and craft stores on every corner, we made our decorations from whatever we had at home. Construction paper chains were a December staple in every classroom and living room. Red and green loops, glued together with that paste that smelled vaguely like peppermint.

And the popcorn garlands! We'd spend entire evenings threading popcorn and cranberries onto string, pricking our fingers repeatedly in the process. Half the popcorn would end up eaten before it made it onto the thread. The finished garland would hang on the tree for weeks, slowly growing stale, but we loved every imperfect inch of it.

3. The Sears Wish Book arrival

Can you feel the weight of that catalog in your hands? The Sears Christmas Wish Book was an event, not just a publication. When it arrived, usually in late October, we'd spend hours circling everything we wanted with different colored pens.

I'd lie on my stomach on the shag carpet, carefully studying each toy section, making impossible lists that my practical parents would later edit down to something reasonable. The toy pages were practically memorized by December. That catalog was our internet, our window into a world of possibilities.

4. Christmas specials on just three channels

Think about this: we had three channels, maybe four if you counted PBS. And when Rudolph, Frosty, or Charlie Brown's Christmas came on, it was appointment television. Miss it, and you waited an entire year for another chance.

TV Guide was consulted religiously in December. We'd plan our whole evening around these specials. No DVR, no streaming, no YouTube. Just families gathered around one television set, watching these stop-motion and animated treasures together. The commercials were part of the experience too, with their jingles for toys and appliances that became as memorable as the shows themselves.

5. Real candles on the tree

This one makes me nervous just thinking about it, but yes, some families still used real candles on their Christmas trees in the 60s. My grandparents did this until about 1968, and we'd stand there with a bucket of water nearby, just in case.

The candles would be lit for maybe fifteen minutes on Christmas Eve, creating this ethereal, flickering glow that electric lights could never quite replicate. The smell of warm pine mixed with melting wax was intoxicating. Looking back, it seems absolutely insane, but at the time, it was tradition.

6. Christmas cards with real photos

Long before digital cameras and Instagram, families would take one precious roll of film to capture their Christmas card photo. You had one shot to get everyone looking decent, and you wouldn't know if it worked until the film was developed days later.

We'd receive dozens of cards from relatives and family friends, each one displayed on string across the doorways or taped to the refrigerator. My mother kept them all in a box, and when we helped my parents downsize recently, we found years of these cards, complete with handwritten notes about family milestones. Each one was like a little time capsule.

7. Department store window displays and visits to Santa

Downtown department stores were destinations in December. The window displays were theatrical productions, with mechanical elves, trains, and animated scenes that drew crowds of bundled-up families.

And visiting Santa meant standing in an actual line, sometimes for hours, in a store that smelled like perfume and wool coats. No online reservations, no fast passes. Just waiting, anticipation building, while Santa sat on his throne-like chair surrounded by fake snow and teenage elves who looked thoroughly over it by mid-December.

8. Tinsel, one strand at a time

Oh, tinsel. That gossamer-thin, impossibly tangly decoration that we insisted on applying one single strand at a time for the "perfect" look. It would take hours, and by New Year's, half of it would have migrated to the carpet, the cat, and somehow, the bathroom.

My father, the engineer, had a whole system for tinsel application. Equal distribution, proper draping angles. We'd find pieces of it in July, glinting in unexpected corners of the house like festive ghosts of Christmas past.

9. Midnight mass or Christmas Eve services by candlelight

Whether your family was religious or just enjoyed the tradition, Christmas Eve services were something special in the 60s and 70s. Churches packed with families in their finest clothes, everyone holding a small white candle with a paper collar to catch the dripping wax.

The lights would dim, and starting with one candle at the altar, the flame would be passed from person to person until the entire church glowed with hundreds of tiny lights. Singing "Silent Night" in that warm darkness, surrounded by neighbors and friends, created a sense of community that's hard to find today.

Final thoughts

If you found yourself not just remembering but actually reliving these moments while reading, feeling the textures, smelling the scents, hearing the sounds, your memory is doing something remarkable. These aren't just facts you've retained; they're complete sensory experiences, stored and accessible decades later.

Scientists call this "autobiographical memory," and its clarity is often one of the first things to fade with age. But yours? Yours is painting pictures in vivid detail, complete with emotional resonance and sensory information that many people half our age struggle to recall from last year, let alone from forty or fifty years ago.

So the next time someone makes a joke about getting older or losing their marbles, remember this: you can recall the exact sound of that color wheel turning, the specific smell of those paper chains, the precise feeling of anticipation when the Wish Book arrived. That's not just memory. That's a superpower.