I didn’t know it was an American thing, but I suspect the rush to put the stuff up so early is also an American thing. People put their trees and stuff up so early here, you’ve got to be sick of looking at it before Christmas.
I watched Howdy Doody in the mid-50s I guess. Clarabell was a clown who didn’t speak, but communicated by beeping a bicycle horn. I couldn’t find anything, in an internet search, about a cow named Clara in that show, but I did find a Clarabelle Cow as a Disney character during that same period. Either way, your mom was right. That horn was annoying as heck.
This isn’t the big upright that Paul usually uses. Buckles thinks this one is just a baby.