I forget that regardless of class, I come from a family without many TVs!

Don't forget that fewer TVs is also part of the whole not so much bling side of the upper aesthetic too. I'm pretty sure it's never even occurred to my parents* that you'd even want more than one. Unless you're under 12 or something.

* academics, with all the upper-tastes-middle-money implications that have already been mentioned

We had one little b&w tv in the livingroom. We didn't have a den. Or a diningroom. We eventually got color, but no remote. I think the tv they have now, which they only use to watch dvds, is the replacement for the remoteless one. My mom has a vcr/tv combo in the bedroom, but that's pretty much only on when she's thrown her back out.

They don't watch much tv. Frankly, I don't think they can even get air-broadcast right now. My dad loves to rant and rave about how much crap there is on tv and that there's nothing redeeming out there. Yes, you would know because you watch so much of it on the tv that can't get any channels!!

Whatever. I doubt he's really followed a tv series since MASH went off the air.

We only had the one TV, but that is because a) we couldn't afford two and b) the electricity in our upstairs rooms (the bedrooms) couldn't actually support things being plugged in very much.

So the low class and the high class meet. Although I have this weird suspicion that my grandmother was actually of a high class and just married a crazy man-- when we went to visit her family (it ws just once) they lived in Westport and went to the country club and such.

I'm pretty sure it's never even occurred to my parents* that you'd even want more than one. Unless you're under 12 or something.

But how do you watch separate sports or different news channels? Such is the parental conflict in our house. Conflict with us doesn't count for shit, no matter how old we get. Basketball on Christmas is no go.

Or does everyone agree on polo beforehand?

Jesse, I can smell the old money from here.

I think even my lower-class grandmother only has two TVs! One in the den and one in the bedroom. (Note: my "lower class" grandmother actually has more money at this point than my "upper class" grandmother.)

Anyway, the old money in my family is very old and long gone. But we do still have the ratty looking Oriental rugs!

Basketball on Christmas is no go.

Silly, you don't watch TV at Christmas.

Anyway, the old money in my family is very old and long gone.

It so often is.

But we do still have the ratty looking Oriental rugs!

This is the important thing!

There's a great discussion on the whole old money v. new money thing in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Silly, you don't watch TV at Christmas.

Consider it a bit of a sobering up period when you've been drinking since 8am.

Old money knows how to hold their liquor, that's like a WASP specialty.

My cousin's grandmother came from an old money German Jewish family that had run into hard times in her youth (~1900) when her father joined an anarchist society and gave away all the family money. Her mother left him, but Hard Times ensued for the rest of her youth -- eventually she got into Vassar on scholarship and married well. (I.E. not just a prosperous guy but a real swell fellow.)

I don't suppose it's surprising I came away with all sorts of expectations about what being Jewish was "like", which took me a while to realize that in fact I was basing it on a very small sample.