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I know my husband's grandparents (who died around 2000) continued to play bridge regularly in their retirement.  I believe they played weekly with the same friends for years. I doubt it would be possible to get that kind of commitment from people today. People perceive they are too busy. 

My mother always regarded a deck of cards as something special to be treated carefully. I remember she'd give my kids a deck of cards and expected them to be extra careful with them as if she just handed them a crystal vase. I never understood it. Because a deck of cards wasn't hard to come by. But now reading your post I think I get it. First of all, people did take care of their things no matter how small and wouldn't want to or might not be able to replace something because of carelessness.  Also, a deck of cards was central to social life for many people. Perhaps when mom was a child the cards only came out when company visited.

A few days ago I was at the GoodwI'll and hanging on one of the end caps was a bag with a very old, faded and discolored package with a pack of (if I remember right) Bridge cards and instructions on the game. I remember thinking, "that's likely from the 1940's". I wrestled with if I should get it or not but I was in a bit of a rush and trying to calculate finances in my head...I figured I'd wait. I wonder if it's still there? I was also thinking on how I want to have family game night again and I had heard of Bridge before but know nothing about it..maybe it would be good to get that instruction book. I will check and see if it's still there here in the next day or so if I get a chance to. I doubt there are many in the market for a set of old Bridge cards with their instruction manual. 

Games and such with family and friends sound so friendly, normal, and fun.  My mother-in-law lived in a four-plex (single two story building with four apartments) during the war.  She and her husband got to know the couples who lived there, all about their age with small children. For years  (truly years----into the 80's) the 4th street gang, as they called themselves,  would have a get-together once a year just to touch base with each other and reminisce about the old days.  So nice.

Things and relationships were much more cohesive back then.  

Looking at old cookbooks, it seems that presentation had become so important in the 40's and 50's.  You didn't just serve a frosted cake, you decorated it and had pretty things on the table.   A picture of my second birthday party in the 50's shows my mother had laid out the good dessert dishes -- she never owned china, but this was her best set of dishes -- neatly folded, white, starched cloth napkins, the silverplate utensils, and flowers.  The attendees were just my immediately family, my grandparents and an aunt or two, but the table was carefully arranged.   The celebrations and game gatherings in this post seem to be in that same vein - do it up fancy.  We never had any celebrations for days such as St. Valentine's Day, and my parents didn't even go out to eat, but there might be a tiny treat at our breakfast plates, or leftover cake, since my sister's birthday was the 12th. 

Card games other than family games such as Old Maid and Go Fish were forbidden in my family, because, the theory was, they were sometimes used for gambling - of course no one at our gatherings was gambling, but games such as bridge, poker, euchre and pinochle were still banned.  When the extended family gathered, though, we would put together puzzles that were set out, played board games such as Monopoly, played horseshoe or washer toss, badminton, whiffle ball, and played games such as the old "Password" game, based on the TV show.  And there was always, always, food!  But I did know some non-family women who met for bridge once a week for decades.

Working daily on computers and cell phones, commuting in a car that flashes a light when someone is in my blind spot and takes a cell phone call over my radio, and using a microwave to heat up my work lunches makes it hard to keep the 1940's in mind.  I'm trying to do what I can, such as hang out laundry, cook from scratch, sew, etc.   Thanks to someone's mention here, I just finished reading four of Gladys Taber's books.  Those were so interesting.

Kieva A, good luck - I hope your Bridge cards and instructions are still there when you return.  I recall my great, great-aunt having weekly Bridge parties back in the 1970s - she would have been in her 80's at the time.  Now, the PEO group I belong to here in Tennessee has a Bridge group that meets once a month.  Periodically, they take on newcomers/folks who want to learn and pair them with the seasoned players.  Am planning to join them the next time they do this, as I've never learned Bridge, but I play a mean game of Rummy!  :0)

Joan S, 

We grew up this way. Mom made every occasion a "party". All the special stuff came out. Most of the time it was just us- mom, dad & the kids. And she was very particular about how things were arranged and served on the table.

When I was younger I tried to emulate that. I wanted it to feel special to my family or other guests. But I found it didn't really matter to people any more. For example, they'd put a spoon in  the jar of salsa, open a bag of tortilla chips, drop the bag of slice turkey on the counter & hand you the bread. Another time for lunch a woman boiled up spaghetti, put it on our plates and poured cold sauce from the jar over it. That was lunch.

Growing up on a farm the food was basic, homestyle food. Everyone ate the same thing. And you could because it wasn't altered. Now everyone has special dietary needs and rightly so because of the way food is now processed.  That complicates things. My focus is often more on what can each person eat rather than is the table set up pretty.

I have changed a lot of what I do back to the 1940's, I have the time and energy so it works well for me. I have changed many meals to simpler things and less of meat.  I live alone so making for one person can be difficult, but I am trying.

I have been doing more reading for entertainment and trying to avoid watching Tv unless it is for news in the morning and evening as if it were a newspaper....we don't get papers anymore everything is going online. 

The news of today can be frightening and I imagine that is how people received it back then.  My grandmother used to talk about the gold stars in the windows of some homes and how sad it was.

We do get together as a family for games, have never played Bridge but we do play euchre and poker....my son in law loves poker LOL. We also play scrabble and monopoly.

I have been using Internet archives to read women's stories during WW2, very interesting and tells how strong they had to be.