In 1953 LIFE acknowledged the occasional absurdity of holiday commerce with a guide to some the odder “fancy” items being offered to shoppers. LIFE photographer Yale Joel wittily executed the idea by shooting these silly objects in a high-fashion setting, as if a jewel-encrusted spray gun was in fact the pinnacle of glamour.

Then, in 1969, photographer Yale Joel came back with a more outlandish version of the same premise.

The guide in LIFE’s December 7, 1953 issue was headlined “Good-for-Nothing Gifts,” with the tagline, “they are better to give than to receive.” According to the story, one of the hottest gift of 1952 was—for real—a sequined fly swatter. This meant that in 1953, manufacturers produced fancy versions of other household objects to try to capitalize on the trend. This led to all sorts of odd offerings: “Holiday shoppers whose main object is to pamper the recipient may choose jeweled backscratchers which are almost too pretty to use, velvet eyeglasses which are designed to be worn instead of a hat, timepieces for pets who cannot tell time.”

Thus did ordinary objects gain big price tags. The encrusted backscratcher, for instance, retailed for $6.95 at Lord and Taylor—which would about $70 in 2020 prices. Even today, you can buy backscratchers in packages of six for ten bucks.

But Lord & Taylor’s bejeweled backscratcher was a major bargain compared to the gifts Joel shot for another tongue-and-cheek gift guide years later in LIFE’s December 12, 1969 issue. This guide promised to have “something for everyone, and a few things for nobody.”

The guide included an 80-carat diamond for $450,000 (more than $3 million today), a “Masterpiece of the Month” club for art lovers ($1 million, or $7.2 million today) in which buyers would receive works of 20th century masters by mail, and a kit for making your own fur coat from 75 sable fur pelts for $125,000, “including tailoring.”

Then there’s a giant phone receiver ($5, or $36 today), which would get this gift guide’s award for Best Sight Gag.  

If nothing else, Joel and the editors of LIFE seemed to be having fun. Maybe that’s the real lesson for stressed-out shoppers: It’s the holidays. You may want everything to be perfect, but don’t forget to enjoy yourself.

This dog collar, which featured a Swiss watch, was made by Hammacher Schlemmer and cost $50 in 1953; a version with a compass instead of a watch cost $22.

Yael Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

These velvet glasses that slid back on the head were sold by Lord & Taylor for $15 in 1953.

Yael Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This satin edged sleep mask, edged with gold braid and had gold eyelashes, brows and twinkling stars, sold for $3.95 in 1953 from Lord & Taylor.

Yael Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This back-scratcher encrusted with gilt, pearls and seashells was sold by Lord & Taylor for $6.95.

Yael Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Bloomingdales sold this spray gun that was coated with gilt and trimmed with flowers for $7.95 in 1953.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

These work gloves with red felt fingernails and a large ring on the wedding finger sold for $2.95 in 1953.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This 80-carat uncut diamond from Tiffany’s would have been quite the holiday splurge at $450,000 in 1969.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This oversized receiver, “for really big calls” as LIFE put it in 1969, was sold by Hammacher Schlemmer/Invento for $5.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This smashed radio on top of a broken mirror was presented as a “mixed media sculpture” gift idea in 1969, with a $35 price tag.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This Honeywell “kitchen computer,” suggested for budgets, menus and other calculations, went for $10,600, with a two-week course in programming included.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The cost of creating “a unique fur coat, with 75 of the world’s most expensive pelts” from Russian crown sable was $125,000—including tailoring—in 1969.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The post Just for Fun: A Look Back at LIFE’s Tongue-in-Cheek Gift Guides appeared first on LIFE.

The breadth is hinted at in the first two photos in the collection. One is of actress Jayne Mansfield from LIFE’s Aug. 18, 1961 issue, taking a tub in a bathroom that is decorated floor-to-ceiling in pink shag. The room is, like the voluptuous blonde herself, an over-the-top expression of 1950s femininity. The photo also presents the bath at its most familiar, as a moment of relaxation and indulgence.

Contrast that with the bath taken by coal miner Mabrey Evans, which captures in one image the challenges of his circumstances. The photo was taken for a story in LIFE’s May 10, 1943 issue on labor issues in the coal industry. The story described how after a hard day of work, Evans would kneel in front of a washtub and scrub himself clean:

The washing process takes Miner Mabrey Evans about 45 minutes every evening. He carefully washes his hands, arms and chest first in a tub of hot water, and then while he scrapes the grime off his face, Mrs. Evans rubs the coating of coal black from his back.

The contrast between the photos of the coal miner and the coquettish actress is but the beginning. The collection includes a Japanese laborers in a communal bath, a British prep school student braving a morning plunge in 35-degree water, an aging Mickey Mantle seeking relief for his injury-ravaged body after a baseball game, photojournalist Lee Miller taking an impudent bath in the apartment of Adolph Hitler, and a Tahitian woman recalling the paintings of Gauguin with her loll in the island waters.

Some of the most striking images in the collection are of soldiers. Some of these men clean themselves in washtubs, as did the weary coal miner. Some enjoy a communal soak in ancient Roman baths at Gafsa. One of the photos featuring soldiers in the most joyous in this collection, and also the most famous.

That picture features American soldiers cleansing themselves in the ocean on the island of Saipan in World War II. The battle, chronicled in harrowing detail by LIFE photographers Peter Stackpole and W. Eugene Smith, was a brutal one, resulting in the deaths of 29,000 troops and many more civilians. The context helps explain the emotion of this particular bath, as soldiers took advantage of a lull in the fighting to strip off their clothes and refresh themselves in the waters of the Pacific.

It is, in its way, the epitome of bathing, these men who have seen such horror finding momentary relief by submerging themselves in the revitalizing waters.

Jayne Mansfield combed her hair while bathing in the pink carpeted bathroom of her home, known as “The Pink Palace,” in Los Angeles, 1960.

Allan Grant; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Coal miner Mabrey Evans scrubbed his arm in a tub of hot water in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, April 1943.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A student at Winchester College, an English boys school, took a morning bath in a cold tub in a room that was 35 degrees; his technique was to grasp the edges of the tub, plunge in bottom-first, and get out as quickly as possible, 1951.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Artist Pablo Picasso taking a bath at his Riviera villa.

Photo by David Douglas Duncan /The LIFE Images Collection

Bathing was a complicated process for 24-year-old schoolteacher Dorothy Albrecht in rural Montana; first she needed to haul water from a cistern 100 yards away from her cottage and heat in on the stove before climbing into the washtub, 1941.

Hansel Mieth/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Photographer Lee Miller took a bath in Adolph Hitler’s apartment soon after the apartment was discovered by Allied forces, 1945.

David E. Scherman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Russell Finch, a writer, enjoyed the latest invention of the day, a portable television, while taking a bath, 1948.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A girl in Tahiti, bathing, 1955.

Eliot Elisofon The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Basset Hound being bathed in the back yard.

Photo by Robert W. Kelley/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Tokyo bath house, 1951.

Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A nurse bathed two children, India, September 1957.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Soldiers in their remote World War outpost of Amchitka Island, Alaska, bathed in halved oil drums, 1943.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Patients receive treatment on a hot baths spa, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen and wife, Neile, took a sulphur bath in Big Sur, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A woman used a new invention—a back brush equipped with front and rear-view mirrors so that she could see where she was scrubbing, 1947.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Jeanne Crain on the set of the 1946 movie Margie.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Actress Jeanne Crain balanced a soap bubble on her index finger as she luxuriated in a bath in a scene from the 1946 movie, Margie.

Peter Stackpole/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aspiring actress Jo Ann Kemmerling read a book in the small tub that was set up in the kitchen of her New York City apartment, 1953.

Nina Leen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Soldiers in the Roman Baths at Gafsa in Tunisia, 1943.

Soldiers Swim in Roman Baths at Gafsa

Mickey Mantle soaked in whirlpool bathtub after a game, 1964.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Blondie, the pet lion, revelled in the shower spray of lukewarm water her owner Charles Hipp is directing on her pelt, at home, 1955.

Joseph Scherschel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

British soldiers of the Dorsetshire County Regiment took hot baths, 1944.

Actress Peggy Knudsen took a seaweed bath to produce better circulation and skin tone, 1961.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A Bald Eagle’s bath in California, 1949.

J. R. Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A photo from an essay on labor in Japan showed workers crowded in square cement bath, 1947.

John Florea/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Starlet June Preisser tried a milk bath—she didn’t like it—in preparing for a scene in the movie musical Strike Up the Band, 1940.

Peter Stackpole/LIfe Pictures/Shutterstock

American troops in the Pacific bathed during a lull in the fighting on the island of Saipan, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post LIFE Takes a Bath: Classic Pics of People (and Pets) Enjoying a Soak appeared first on LIFE.

But the attraction of this Manhattan crossroads is more than one night only. The role that Times Square plays in America’s largest city has been well captured by the pictures taken by LIFE photographers over the decades.

Times Square was given its name on April 8, 1904, soon after the New York Times set up offices nearby. It developed into the glitziest spot in the city, thanks to its abundance of entertainment spots and neon billboards.

The photos here capture the excitement and the hubbub, the celebrations and the showplaces. One of the most jarring pictures in the collection is in fact a rare photo of Times Square looking quiet and serene, thanks to a taxi strike that left its boulevards nearly free of traffic. (The idea of Times Square without people later became the centerpiece of a nightmare sequence in the 2001 Tom Cruise movie Vanilla Sky.)

The collection includes two celebrity portraits. One is a natural for the location: playwright Moss Hart and his wife, actress Kitty Carlisle. The other is of Robert Redford at the time when his career was taking off thanks to his performance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the photo is memorable for the way the actor’s Western aesthetic contrasts with the gritty backdrop of Times Square in 1969.

One of the most famous photos in the history of LIFE magazine was shot in Times Square, on a day when the space erupted in spontaneous celebration. It was 1945, and Japan was about to surrender, bringing an end to World War II. One exuberant man was going from woman to woman, planting his lips on them (and he was far from the only one doing so) when LIFE’s Albert Eisenstadt took the picture known as “The Kiss.” The photo has had a problematic afterlife, as a woman claiming to be the nurse in the photo came forward to describe the kiss as terrifying from her perspective, but the image nonetheless captures the national mood at the long-awaited end of World War II.

The crowds that day indicate the particular hold of Times Square on the civic imagination. It’s the place where people magnetically streamed because something important had happened, and they wanted to share the experience with others.

This photo is from a staged essay from 1940 on the “White Collar Girl,” the subject of the best-selling novel Kitty Foyle that was later adapted into a movie; here Carol Lorell, who resembled the movie’s star, Ginger Rogers, portrayed a scene in which the White Collar Girl, alone amid the glitz of Times Square, had finished her workday and was unsure to do with the rest of her evening.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Times Square on Dec. 31, 1941.

Gordon Coster/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square in New York City on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military police in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The motorcade of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved through Times Square, 1944.

William Vandivert/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A Times Square billboard for the Broadway show Mexican Hayride, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square billboard, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pigeons and loiterers (visitors) gathered in cement island in the middle of Broadway in Times Square, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Customers peered at the wares inside a small, brightly-lit Times Square watch shop, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square, 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A strolling blind musician played guitar and harmonica along Broadway at night in Times Square in 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square, 1944.

Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square, 1944.

Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Servicemen made calls to faraway family and friends from booths at the GI phone center in Times Square, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Getty Images

Sailors looked for fun in a curfew-closed Times Square.

(Photo by Carl Mydans/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

V-J Day celebrations in Times Square, August 14, 1945.

William C. Shrout The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

V-J Day celebrations in Times Square, August 14, 1945.

William C. Shrout The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

V-J Day celebrations in Times Square, August 14, 1945.

William C. Shrout The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

V-J Day kiss, Times Square, Aug. 14, 1945.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Times Square was uncharacteristically quiet during a 1949 taxi strike.

Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Traffic congestion on Broadway looking north from 45th Street in Times Square, 1954.

Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Times Square, February 1954.

Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The cast of ballet Fancy Free danced in the middle of Times Square, 1958.

Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Playwright Moss Hart with his wife, actress Kitty Carlisle, in Times Square, 1959.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Redford in Times Square, between meetings, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robert Redford hailed a cab in Times Square. Just a few blocks away, at the Biltmore Theater on 47th Street, was where the actor got his first major notices as the star of Neil Simon’s 1963 Broadway play, Barefoot in the Park.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The stroke of midnight began a new year, new century and new millennium as people celebrated in Times Square on Jan. 1, 2000.

Ted Thai/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Times Square: The Ultimate Gathering Place appeared first on LIFE.

This tribute to the Italian male began with these words:

In whatever he does, from quietly combing the hair of a girl friend to loudly showing off at the swimming pool, the Italian man is the most natural of men. His spontaneity and his self-confidence are unequalled. He knows the girl will sigh with bliss, that there will be water under him when he comes down. He treats fleeting moments as if they were the most important in his life—because they are. As his country—and his spirits revived, the world has become better acquainted and even fascinated with his engaging qualities. For his candid enthusiasm and sensuality have helped fill the world with music and art, laughter and love and a particular kind of triumphant masculinity.

While making generalizations—even positive ones—about the male population of an entire country can be a dubious enterprise, in this case the idea is justified by the results, which are outstanding. The photos for the essay were taken by Paul Schutzer, a prodigal talent who became a LIFE staff photographer at the age of 26, and whose most famous images came from the big stages of history; Schutzer would die while on assignment in a combat zone, covering the Six-Day War in 1967.

But in his essay on the Italian man, it’s clear how much he was inspired by the opportunity to capture something about everyday life. Look at this run of pictures and you can practically hear Paul Schutzer saying “Oh, that guy is amazing. And that one. And that one.” Over and over and over. The original essay ran for six pages in magazine, but Schutzer took thousands of frames, enough to fill an encyclopedia. Roaming the cities and the countryside of Italy, he couldn’t stop shooting—which is as true a form a tribute as can be.

A man combed a woman’s hair, Italy, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian man, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian man, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian man, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian man, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Photo essay on the men of Italy, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian man, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A father, soon to be overcome by emotion (see next photo), walked his daughter down the aisle.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A father broke down while walking his daughter down the wedding aisle.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A farmer tended his goats, from an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

An Italian mountain climber lifted his hat in salute after reaching a mountaintop, 1963.

.Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

From an essay on the Italian male, 1963.

Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post LIFE’s Ode to the Men of Italy appeared first on LIFE.

A 1960s Coven

A feature article from the November 13^th, 1964 issue titled, “Real Witches At Work: English Pagans Keep an Old Cult Alive”, depicts a coven of both men and women. The below photograph from March of 1964 shows the coven dressed in everyday Sixties attire walking around a small fire with hands interlocked in the evergreen and stoney woods of Oxfordshire, England. The writer then goes into the history of the ritual and explains that rituals are an act of grounding for them to be fully immersed with nature, as stated in the quote below:

“In a thousand-year-old rite, the witches dance around a bonfire within the prehistoric Rollright stone circle that still stands in Oxfordshire. At the climax of the dance they leap over fire to stimulate the sun as the source of life.” 

Witches dancing in circles around a fire, March 1964

(Photo by Terence Spencer/Popperfoto via Getty Images)

Mrs. Ray Bone performing a healing ritual in her home.

(Photo by Terence Spencer/Popperfoto via Getty Images)

LIFE covered witches during this time in a non-menacing way. It showed them as everyday people who want to do good for themselves and others by using magic. Both these texts do this by placing the witch archetype into an image readers from the time could accept: as an everyday housewife who balanced her work and career to have a fully rounded life. The magazine also reflected the changing societal expectations for women during the era. A later article from the “The Feminine Eye” section in the February 17th, 1967 edition of LIFE shows how the image of the witch had transformed through mid-century media. The article quotes a LaVey Satanist stating that she does not want to be called a witch since the term has “…sort of the connotation of a cookie-lady now”.

By the 1960s, second-wave feminism gained popularity in the United States. Knowing that, it should be unsurprising that LIFE magazine would cover witches. From a twenty-first century perspective though, it seems like a radical act considering the many inherited biases surrounding witchcraft at the time. The articles also helped LIFE’s mass audience gain a better understanding of the religion and its practice. Throughout history the witch archetype went from something to be frightened of to being represented in a popular magazine by the likes of Ray Bone, who said: “Twentieth-century witches [are] happy in our knowledge; we are simple people with simple beliefs.” 

The post The “Ordinary” Witches of LIFE Magazine appeared first on LIFE.

The fashions in the story are pure 1940s, but the social dynamics on display will be familiar to anyone who has ever worked in an office.

“One night or another the lights burn late in many American business houses,” the story began. “The occasion is that great leveler, the office Christmas party, an antidote to the social formality which ranks between a few discreet cocktails and a free-for-all fight. Then all business barriers collapse; executives unbend; the office clown finds a sympathetic audience.”

For this story LIFE photographer Cornell Capa visited the offices of Schiff Terhune, a New York firm of insurance brokers. (The company, well established at the time, carried on until the 1980s, which it was acquired by larger corporation. A nice history of the firm is included in The New York Times obituary of Frank Schiff, the son of William Schiff, who appears in one of Capa’s photos).

Capa’s photos ran over two packed pages in the Dec. 27, 1948 issue, which featured on its cover a more sober seasonal story on Giotto’s paintings of Christ.

The Schiff Terhune office party appears to have been quite the frolic. People danced and wore funny hats. Santa led a conga line. They even had kissing under the mistletoe—a tradition that has all but disappeared as companies have become more aware on the topic of sexual harassment. Indeed, some of these pictures, showing male executives dancing with female underlings, could be used for a human resources slide show on behaviors that are frowned upon.

In general, office parties have been a wellspring of cautionary tales about regrettable behavior—the Seinfeld episode featuring Elaine’s dancing is one sitcom example— which is why around holiday season etiquette guides and advice pieces for how to manage the office parties abound online.

Still, it looks as if the employees of Schiff Terhune found their party a welcome respite. Wrote LIFE, “By the time a conga line and a frolicsome vice president were in action, even the most shrinking violet felt expansively aware of the brotherhood of man.”

Santa, in the form of company vice president Arthur D. Marks, led a conga line through the file cabinets.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Joe Menroe. the “office cut up,” brandished a pair of pink cotton pants he had been given by the office Santa Claus.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Max Sherman’s soda bottle became tangled in the “pink drawers” that Santa gave him at the office Christmas party.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Stenographers posed with assistant department head Al Lyons at an insurance office Christmas party, 1948.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Insurance company vice president John Griffin danced with a giggling stenographer at their office Christmas party, 1948.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Joe Menroe and biller Jessie Merman met under the mistletoe at the office Christmas party, 1948.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Company president William Schiff danced with secretary Theda Berkeley at their office Christmas party, 1948.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Stenographer Dorothy Newman took a moment to rest her tired feet at the office Christmas party, 1948.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

George Dixon returned to his desk to get some work done during his office Christmas party, 1948.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Letting Loose at Work: LIFE Goes to an Office Party appeared first on LIFE.