Sally,
I grew up in the borough of Brooklyn in NY. And in NY ..the "neighborhoods" tended to be all Italian or all German or Irish etc., with an exception here and there....pro or con..we all tended to have the same experiences. Growing up, it would not have entered my mind that the corsages weren't a standard in everyone's house..or at Christmas, the struffoli were not being rolled on every counter. Sundays, the family gathered for a pasta dish and a meat. Everybody's brothers got arrested together... The daughters all found boyfriends at about the same time. If we got caught smoking..every mother gave us a crack as we walked home ( they were waiting on their ' stoops' ) and issued a warning about what waited for us when we got to our actual house and faced our biological mother!
The world was very small back then...😊
I remember those necklaces...the came later in my life and were around when my kids were small...also those horrid little pink and white and yellow and blue dots stuck to strips of paper.
I have never heard of a slo poke
Julie...I remember the purple waffle candies at Christmas...
and also a tannish blond...I think those had peanut butter in them...those were not Christmas fare tho.
Oh and those HORRID Banana..sort of a peachy yellow. Soft.. I think they are still around but the banana is really artificial -- worse than I remember.
A standard in my mom's purse was gum and the multicolored ( primary colors not the new fruit stuff) lifesavers
