Life, 1924-12-04 · page 46 of 72
Life — December 4, 1924 — page 46: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous post-Christmas commentary presented as a twisted version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Rather than peaceful slumber, the illustration shows a household in chaos, with various family members experiencing common holiday disappointments: - A boy with indigestion from overeating - A sister's failed romantic gambit (mistletoe gift) - A brother whose engagement ring was duplicated by seven other men - Another brother with a defective, unreturnable radio - A baby suffering colic from found candy - A cook bitter about her meager tip The satire mocks post-holiday letdowns and buyer's remorse—the gap between Christmas expectations and reality. The exaggerated miseries reflect 1920s consumer culture anxieties: failed romance, defective purchases, inadequate compensation for service workers, and children's overindulgence. The art style suggests this is from Life's humor section, using recognizable domestic scenes for comedic social commentary.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
WAS the night after Christmas and all through the house nota creature was stirring — excepting a mouse; anda small boy whose tummy just had to rebel at the goodies within it (hed eaten too well); and a sister who squirmed at the maddening thought,“what a Failure that mistletoe was she had bought!”; and a bro- ther who'd handed his sweetie a ring and then found seven others had done the same thing!; and a sister whose chum sent a gift she had seen was a trinket the chum got on last Halloween’, and a brother whose radio set was a frost and could not be redeemed, as the sales check was lost!; and a baby whose colic was not helped at all by the candy he'd come across out in the hall!; and a cook who was-sore as a freshly wet hen at the size of her Christmas tip—dollar and ten!; comicbooks.com