Christmas memories..

Getting told off for watching Christmas Top Of The Pops instead of eating our dinner. Always liked the turkey and stuffing sandwiches better anyway. Stuffing our faces with Quality Street and holding the coloured paper up pretending we had a colour telly.

Calistemon

We used to have a capon.

Perhaps turkeys hadn't been discovered when I was a child.

We always had a capon which was something DH and I used to do as well but the smallest we could get was always bigger than we needed so we stopped.

Forgot to say: in Bradford where my father grew up, the baker wrote the customer's name on a wooden skewer that he put into the beasties he was roasting, so people got the right one back.

My Dad had s butchers’ shop. His orders for turkeys never varied much but one year a supermarket , which were quite new in those days, opened not far away, We were left with lots of turkeys because theirs were cheaper than ours. Dad gave a few away to local needy families but had to freeze the rest. We were eating turkey until March and we took to making turkey gobbling noises whenever we were called in for dinner. ( The following two Christmas lunches were beef.)

MissAdventure

Then there was the Christmas lights every year.
Finding that one mysterious bulb that held the key to the whole set working.

With Daddy damning and blasting all the time he was putting those lights on the tree! My poor sister was roped in to help every year, while I was in the kitchen helping Mummy.

But the decorated tree was wonderful every year.

We had roast goose in the days when my grandparents, aunt, great-aunt were with us, and afterwards the smaller party had roast duck.

No disasters cooking - my mother was far too good a cook for anything remotely like a disaster to creep into her kitchen at Christmas.

Having parents of originally two different nationalities meant two Christmas dinners - the Danish one on Christmas Eve, followed by the tree and presents, and the British one on Christmas Day, which started with opening our Christmas stockings and dinner eaten at midday was followed by listening to the Queen's speech.

I still love Christmas, but have told DH long since that he puts the lights on the tree and the star and I cannot be bothered listening to him cursing. I then take over decorating the tree, and even although he is a marvellous cook, Christmas Dinner is the highlight of my culinary year, and there is no way anyone else is cooking it in this house. It is my Christmas fun.

I seem to remember my dad meeting someone late at night to buy a turkey he had put away.
Was there a black market in turkeys??
It may only have been about 4pm on a winter's evening, but it seemed late.

We only used to have turkey if it was given to us in a hamper! My dad used to have one from his workplace and then later when he left that job, my brother used to give us the one from his hamper as his wife is vegetarian !
I remember one year that my parents went out visiting relatives and left me in charge of the Christmas dinner that was already in the oven. I got involved in watching a film on tv and when they got back, the turkey and veg were fine, but the pigs in blankets were cinders!
It took until Boxing Day for my mother to speak to me again!

Years ago we used to help my mother in law pluck and draw 20 odd capons she would rear every year and which were given as Xmas gifts to various villagers and some kept in the freezer for special occasions. What freaks me is to canonised them we had to but little pellets of some thing in their necks at some point when they were being reared with a gadget and warned we shouldn't use the necks... for stock...!

My mum had a bit too much sherry one year. She went off to whip the cream and came back laughing hysterically. The bowl had whizzed out of her hand and there was cream on all four walls of the kitchen, plus ceiling and floor. The dog had a great time

Lexisgranny

My grandmother told me that the local baker used to fire up his ovens on Christmas Day and many people used to take their turkeys there to be cooked. I often wondered how they worked out which belonged to which family, not too mention the different times different sizes would take to cook!

When I lived in Devon, the local baker would do just this (up till about 10 years ago when he died). People would bring their turkeys with about a page of instructions regarding weight, cooking times, temperature, etc. Once when he was drunk in the pub, he told us what he did ("I just whack 'em all in for 2 hours on full heat, nobody would dare complain....")

i dont ever remember having any relations to ours for Christmas dinner we always went to one of two aunts when one passed away and the other and her family moved my mother had to cook Christmas dinner which she made a huge fuss of complaining the whole time one year she even went to work in a holiday camp over christmas and left my lovely Dad on his own he came and had dinner with us it was my first christmas dinner i had cooked as newly married and we had a lovely time

So bad a meal I cannot comment on it something always went wrong as my father cooked it.

I was brought up in Everton we lived in our paternal grans house. She had three sitting rooms one was ours middle one was hers front one was for show only. My maternal gran had a posh front room too we were never allowed in there.
At Christmas my dad would go to St Johns market in town. He would come home with a turkey or capons and game bird in season. Usually a big sack of fruit and vegetables some fruits we only got at Christmas.
Both my parents worked when we moved to the outskirts of Liverpool and life was tough for a large family I was one of eight. Our Christmas gift was a sock with a chocolate bar a piece of fruit a penny and a gift often colouring book and crayons. It wasn’t much but we appreciated what we were given. We had our dinner at two so my mum could watch the queens speech.

Does anyone remember the cod's roe ? A huge floppy thing which was boiled until solid/ cooked. We had it sliced with salt/ pepper and vinegar with a salad. I loved it.
That was boiled in the sleeve of a shirt as well to keep it oblong for easy slicing.
Herring roe was eaten as it was----floppy.

My mother with the skill of an Illusionist, inserted one silver sixpence into each portion of pudding as she was dishing it out, so no one was left out.

I still have a silver threepenny bit from out of the pud. We had to watch the fillings !

MissAdventure

Do I remember a pair of tights having anything to do with the steaming process?

It used to be the sleeve of one of dad's old shirts
( so long as it was the sleeve )

MissAdventure

Do I remember a pair of tights having anything to do with the steaming process?

Oh yes! The tights were to lift the pudding out the boiler. ?

Continuing the sprout theme, my Mother loved sprouts but they didn’t love her. After dinner my Dad would make a big thing of opening all the doors so that she had a clear run to the bathroom. We children always found it very funny ,though on reflection I don’t remember any mad dashes.

I had thought my Mum was the only person who served yellow sprouts until I read this thread.

My Dad used to drink the water they had been cooked in. He said it had all the goodness in it.

Calistemon

The windows in the sitting room streaming from all the steam coming from the kitchen!

Sixpenny bits wrapped in greaseproof paper in the pudding

Dad used to write ‘Bum to all’ on the steamed up kitchen windows. Not very festive but we kids found it amusing.

You were healthy with your wrapped sixpences. I doubt ours were even washed.

What times did people have their dinner?
Ours was at about 1pm I think.
Mum was quite a stickler about the time.
I think she was worried we might lay about a bit, enjoying ourselves.

we had goose for xmas dinner and my father plucked it and got it ready for oven..
remember him bringing in the christmas pudding aflame with brandy. a lovely sight.

Oh my mum could make nice trifles, so they said.
I don't eat anything like that.

We never had turkey at Christmas, always a chicken ( which I still prefer tbh).
I love sprouts, am I the only one? Particularly if cooked with some bacon bits.
I suppose we may have had Christmas pudding, but on reflection I think we had trifle instead.