Firestone Christmas Album
During the 1960s and '70s, the Goodyear and Firestone tire companies peddled annual Christmas albums in their stores, usually for a dollar each, to customers who waited to get their tires changed or wheels aligned. I remember going with my mother to pick up the Firestone Christmas Album. We might have also stopped by the S & H store to redeem stamped books—but that’s another blog post.
My mother was a sucker for all deals and promotions. The fill up the tank and get whatever the gas station was offering or buying heavy boxes of soap detergent that contained--yes! for real!—water glasses. We also went for the prize in the cereal box—again, worthy of another blog post, another flash memory.
I’m trying to think of why I was always my mother’s buddy for these errands and the only thing I can think of is that I didn’t object. I was the youngest and couldn’t be left alone at home, but also the other kids could have watched me. But, I would tag along and store up all these things in my head: The incongruity of going to a tire store for a Christmas album.
The articular album I’m remembering (there were apparently a
release of 7 or 8).
The Great Songs of Christmas Album Five Goodyear 1965
There was one particular song that bothered me as I lay down next to the hi-fi stereo, a cabinet as big as Mother’s hutch containing her dishes and silverware. I’m not sure why the stereo unit had to be half a city block. The sound was often terrible, it wasn’t because the speakers were so awesome. In the early 60s everything was bigger: cars, furniture, meal portions. The song I wished to skip over (if I were allowed to touch the arm/needle of the stereo) was “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” sung? (he talked it!) by Maurice Chevalier, It drove me crazy and felt so fake, so lazy. My favorite was “Some Children See Him” sung by Diahann Carroll. The lyrics were so evocative—especially during the height of the Civil Rights Movement—of course, it’s hard to know what is considered the height as the struggle is ongoing—before Martin Luther King Jr. was slain. The song was about how children saw their icons, through eyes impacted by their culture, such as a Native American child might imagine Santa as Indian, an African American child might see Christ, Baby Jesus as Black. This concept seemed unique at the time.
Now, through the magic of the Internet I can listen to this
album today per YouTube
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