You are correct about clothes. And most of our new clothes came at Christmas, new school year and Easter. I hated Santa for bringing clothes instead of toys but now I understand.
Start of school was time for new shoes a couple of pair of pants and some shirts. Easter was when we got our one “best outfit”.
I came from a large family and clothes were passed down.
Another difference was vacations. Hardly anybody I knew ever got on a plane to go somewhere for vacation. You piled into the station wagon and drove to the mountains or the beach and spent two weeks jammed into a cabin. Great fun (seriously). Summer camp was rec at the school, not $700/week private sports camp.
If you were white, had a little money and nobody in the family was sick the fifties were a good time. I'd wager that, for kids at least, the same was true for black Americans.