December 1945

Exit Christmas False-Face

MOST of us who attended Christmas celebrations during the war years remember an uneasy feeling pervading them. It was not a feeling of guilt; it was more like the uncertainty of a masquerader. For we were not really happy. We laughed and made merry; dined, if we were able, on the usual turkey and cranberries, while all the time we felt as tho we were acting a part in a play. Hidden by smiling faces, our secretly anxious hearts were learning that living is necessarily a lonely business into which not even our dearest ones may fully enter.

Renaissance--American Style

IN A cramped city apartment, a bronzed soldier and his young wife are sprawled on the floor, their noses (and their hearts) buried in home-building books, as they slowly absorb a new and intriguing language-- hip roof and boxed cornice, clapboard and sash.

Restyling a 1910 Bungalow

DOCTOR'S HOUSE Rejuvenated

Eight Commandments for Peace

He was just a little kid then, not 6' 3" and 200 pounds as now, and his oldest brother was home from France with a couple of captured German pistols, and we had saved the world for democracy and there weren't going to be any more wars.

They Added Room From the Outside In

OBVIOUS way to make a little house bigger is to push out the walls. But for those who command neither the means nor the real estate for architectural expansion, there is another way. Mr. and Mrs. Dallas R. Johnston of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, for example, reversed the usual procedure, and, starting with the outside, built their addition in!

Ideas for Garden Builders

Christmas at "The Little Traveler"

Ivies for Every Room

ABC's of Decorating

Nobody Too Poor to Boy a Masterpiece

THOMAS HART BENTON, Missouri's half-hobo, half-highbrow incendiary of art, likes to torment museum directors by telling them he would rather see his paintings brightening the walls of a saloon or privy than a museum, because people never go to museums unless they are tourists anxious to do the place and get it over with.

Radios Are Back

THEY'RE back on the market! With new cabinet designs, greater efficiency, added scope, radios have returned to home-furnishings shops and radio stores.

You'd Never Believe It . . .

IF IT had been anyone else, Architect Rollin L. Rosser probably wouldn't have attempted it. But when his brother, Harold Rosser of Arcanum, Ohio, requested a modern four-bedroom home that wouldn't seem crowded on a 60-foot lot, the challenge had to be accepted.

Little Kitchen FOR A Little House

HAVE no qualms if the little house you're planning insists on giving you a kitchen area to match. Here, to show what can be done, is a really small kitchen-- only eight feet, four inches the long way, five feet, seven inches across-- and packed as a parcel with every convenience that makes a workroom complete and fun!

What You Need IN A Little Kitchen

Buy only what you do need is obvious advice. Less obvious: with every utensil that serves two or more uses you're just that much ahead. Least obvious, but wonderful: buy two or more of all the little musts you regularly use at two or more places.

How to Treat a Tantrum

Angels for Christmas

WHEN you hang an angel on your Christmas tree this year, you'll be taking part in a tradition which had a renaissance during both world war periods.

Christmas Contest Winners

YULE Trixies! That's the engaging title for some of the best Christmas Cookies that ever melted in a judge's mouth! They're Dish-of-the- Month winners in our Cooks' Contest, run off last May, for Christmas Cookies and Salads, and net their sender, Mrs. E. Philps of Oakland, California, first prize of $10. They're simple, but simply delectable-- chocolate brownie bars with a creamy peppermint filling.

The Man Next Door

At the moment a returned soldier unloads his duffle bag in the driveway of his home, it seems stranger to him than any billet he's had in the last two or three years. He's come to picture it bedecked with mother-of-pearl and chromium.

Article

How Did We Live Without Built-Ins?

Make Your Hall a Bright Salute

Things to Make WITH Sticks and Stones

Make a Cupboard of Your Closet Door

Plant Names and How They Grow

NAMES of flowers often are not only beautiful in themselves, but have delightful and interesting stories behind them.

Tree Decorations With Personality

YOUR stack of old Christmas cards, those pine cones from last summer's vacation, and a package of lace paper doilies are potential personality touches for your Yuletide tree. Crepe paper napkins, tin can lids-- almost anything-- can be turned into decorative trimmings that also may be sent to friends in lieu of Christmas cards.

Hints for the Handy Man

Window Garden of Herbs

HAVE you ever grown herbs indoors? It can be done. Many of the herbs that make the outdoor garden fragrant may also be grown on your window sill to give you pleasure all thru the winter.

Soldier, Hold That Insurance

WHEN Tech. Sgt. Jimmy S. went back to his old job of selling insurance, he was shocked to learn that while servicemen and women had taken an average of over $9,000 apiece of Uncle Sam's National Service Life Insurance, four out of five returning veterans were letting it lapse.

Are Your Children Orphans?

IT IS a tragedy for a child to lose his parents in death. It is a greater tragedy for him to be estranged from his parents while living with them.

Too Busy for Living?

DO YOU find yourself surrounded by tasks undone, oppressed by aims unachieved?

How to Cook a Rabbit's Goose

PETER RABBIT may offer an interesting base for children's lore but to the home gardener he is just a pain in the bark. He's so villainous, even a pun like that is permissible. He is completely unpredictable as to when and what he will damage. Sometimes he chews the bark off plants early in the fall and sometimes in the winter when the snows cover all sources of food except branches of trees.

My Christmas in a German Prison Camp

THE men in our prisoner-of-war combine saved food for weeks for a Christmas feast.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

Now must be made a sorry confession. It portrays to all the worm what an incompetent gardener I am. I slunk into the grocery on my way home tonight and bought a head of Chinese cabbage.

DEATH TAKES No Christmas Holiday

THE one-year-old grasped the fluffy white panda, whose black button eyes had winked so brightly at her across the room. An hour later she was choking in pain. One of the button eyes, twisted off and popped into her mouth in childish curiosity, had lodged in her windpipe. She died before her frantic parents could get her to a hospital.

Colored Flame FOR YOUR Fireplace

Kitchen Planners

It's NEWS to Me!