For the Scarano side of the family, Christmas was more than just a holiday-- it was a livelihood. For decades, Regal Flowers of New York produced (or imported) a wide variety of silks, lights and other display material-- but it was the Christmas season where the real meat of the annual sales came to the fore. Department stores and cities were decorated by Regal Flowers, and my ever elegant and adventurous grandmother used to love to hitch a ride to Baltimore with her brother-in-law, sitting "up high" in the cab of the delivery truck on her way to visit my mother and sister in suburban Maryland. To this day, in the rotunda of Baltimore's City Hall, there are still pictures of Regal Flower Christmas bowers adorning Howard Street in the city's once elegant shopping district.
Grandpa made the master displays himself, and after dinner during the depression, Mother and Uncle Frank would be pressed into doing "homework." Not schoolwork mind you-- that was already long done; "homework" meant sitting in silence at the kitchen table with the radio playing, and painstaking pasting leaves onto wires for display pieces. We were never at a loss for white glue-- mother used to have jars of it tucked away, tapped out of the drums at Regal Flowers. Nor were mother and Uncle Frank the only family members pressed into service; all of my mother's cousins for example, worked at Regal Flowers at one point or another. My Uncle Mike (who lived with my grandparents after his divorce) created the ever wistful "Holly Boy" (to this day one of my favorites and pictured below) who yearly sits on my piano.
Of course not every design was a success. In "Santa as a Baby" (below) circa 1955, grandpa didn't quite figure that a bedazzled cardboard tree with a light-clip for a four watt bulb-- attached to a four watt bulb-- might be a bad idea. Although quite elegant and charming it immediately caught fire. You can still see the scorch marks of this product that didn't quite make it to market.
Two of my other favorites that still survive are Grandpa's Santas; one from the 30s and one from the 40s. My mother had them wired together in the 70s to fit on the back of a very old washstand from my father's side of the family, and I am glad to say they are sitting there in that very position this Christmas in our dinning room (below). The Santa salt and pepper shakers are not from Regal Flowers however, but instead belonged to my Great Grandparents and are from the '90s; the 1890s that is.
And then-- the Christmas tree. Family lore has it that a department store client found it impractical and expensive during the depression to change-out live Christmas trees in their window displays every week. This was necessary because the lighting in the windows was very hot due to the confined space and the trees loosing their needles was hardly good merchandising. Grandpa took the challenge, painstakingly winding and gluing forest green silk around progressively larger gauges of floral wire, and inserting each wire into larger coiled wire frames. These frames were further wrapped and glued in green silk, and wired into a trunk which was still further wrapped and glued in green silk. The result was a very durable (and HEAVY) artificial tree. We had an original through the early seventies when mother had to finally part with the lower half, but the upper half was sometimes used atop a table as late as the mid '90s when it too finally had to go. Although there are no more trees (that I am aware of) I do still have one of the hobnail lamps that was used in the original floor display which, has to be used on a timer since its Bake Lite switch nob has long since
dissolved during its over 80 years of service. Still, it is a nice daily reminder of my heritage and the happiness we brought to others.
A quality product, Regal Flowers had a hard time competing with cheaper Asian labor and the resulting "glitzy" products. Also, cities and department stores changed their approach to decorating and business fell off. But still, even after over fifty years, a few pieces hang on and every Christmas I get to look upon many things that never made it to the public but found a home in our hearts and in my mother's attic. May all who celebrate it have a wonderful Christmas, blessed with all the joys of this festive season.
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