Christmas memories..

When I think of Christmas as a child I remember walks to the church for midnight mass in the frosty air, holding my father's hand. Inside the church the smell of incense and candles was as familiar to me as my mother's perfume. The Latin service the carols, the rustle of vestments, gave me a feeling of security I've never felt since.

Oh god I’m actually crying laughing here! It’s fab.
“Bum to all” on the steamed windows! Priceless. ??
Soft yellow sprouts! ??
dinner at 1pm in case we were lolling about enjoying ourselves!

The best giggle I’ve had all week.
Laughter certainly is the best medicine.
Metronidazole is pants.

TBC

Himself and I went out for a short walk earlier and it was nice passing houses with Christmas lights. We started reminiscing about Christmases past and how it was when we were nippers.
God the young adults of today would laugh at how our houses were ‘decorated’ for the festive season! Paper chains, pinned with drawing pins to the centre light then looked into the four corners of the room. It would be deemed ‘common’ today! And as a Virgoan who likes symmetry I didn’t like that our ‘big light’ (hello Peter Kay) wasn’t dead centre...
?

Then bunches of balloons in the corners of the room (told you we was common). Blown up with a cardboard pump thingey as so many balloons weren’t good for puff. Some bunches had the long wiggly balloon in them.

Late Christmas Eve the ‘order boy’ would cycle round with a huge cardboard box of groceries. The early start of home deliveries who knew?

We too had a small gas fridge. I’d forgotten about that! Thanks for the memory.

Oh and the only alcohol mum & dad ever got in was at Christmas time. Mum loved a glass of her favourite tipple ... de Kuyper cherry brandy. Hmm. Wonder if they still sell it?
?

Oh yes.
3 balloons and a dangler, pinned up at strategic places on the ceiling.
Then from the 4 corners to the big light, you put some paper chains.

I don’t remember the cherry brandy Urmstongran but my Mum’s Christmas tipple was a babycham. Like you I don’t recall alcohol in the house other than Christmas and new year. I looked out my Mum’s babycham glasses this week. I’m going to serve trifle in them tomorrow and we’ll use her best dinner set.

Nice touch Grannynannywanny! ?

My mums friends house had a bar in the corner of the room, with those glasses displayed in it.

I used to do that with the wish bone and pinkies with our children but in recent years forgot,so now have 7 grandchildren
and will start again,thanks for the reminder.Nice to read about the turkey stories.Merry Christmas and hopefully a better 2022.

I found the babycham much more attractive when I was a student and went to a party where I was introduced to brandy with a babycham mixer.

With a cherry on a stick?

I’d completely forgotten about the cherry on a stick. That’s how my Mum used to have hers!

My aunt was given a massive turkey by a farmer friend. It wouldn't fit in the oven so it had to be hacked into portions before cooking.

Ive got those babycham glasses they are so cute.
My Dad used to make us snowballs with the cherry on a stick and my Mum used to have port and lemon, I still have a port and lemon on Christmas day. Cheers!

I’ve just found the babycham advert from the 1960’s. We were easily pleased in those days!
youtu.be/7rA3K0VQWZg

My memories are of church parade with our girls brigade, singing carols at our school carol concert, twinkling lights which glistened on my mums tree that she got out every year, baby ham and snowballs for the adults, lemonade for us. An Orange in the stocking, my sister being so excited she wet herself which wasn’t so good as we shared a bed. Then, Boxing Day, the adults all having a good party with us all meant to be asleep upstairs.

Babycham not baby ham ?

I love the bed wetting!

MissAdventure

I love the bed wetting!

I can remember it like it was yesterday. Not good ?

My friend and the whole family, all went round to her mums, every Christmas eve.
They stayed all over christmas and always seemed to have great fun.
After a good few drinks on Christmas eve, they all went to bed, and a while later my friend was woken up by her mum screaming.
"Michele, quick! Terry's in here and he's got his thing out!"

Michele's husband has wandered into her mums room, thinking he was in the toilet, and was poised over her mums bed, about to wee...

MissAdventure

My friend and the whole family, all went round to her mums, every Christmas eve.
They stayed all over christmas and always seemed to have great fun.
After a good few drinks on Christmas eve, they all went to bed, and a while later my friend was woken up by her mum screaming.
"Michele, quick! Terry's in here and he's got his thing out!"

Michele's husband has wandered into her mums room, thinking he was in the toilet, and was poised over her mums bed, about to wee...

A Christmas to remember for sure! They won’t forget that one. ?

My first Christmas dinner I cooked when I was married was turkey with all the trimmings. The following day we had it cold. As my husband was carving it he pulled something out of the inside. Yes you guessed it, it was the plastic bag with the giblets in! I never lived it down

Calistemon

We used to have a capon.

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

We always had beef because my parents didn’t like turkey, but I wasn’t over keen on beef. When I met my husband to be we used to have Boxing Day dinner at his mum’s house and she always bought a capon, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It was delicious, especially compared to mum’s over cooked beef.

My mum was very reticent about trying capon.

My Mum always managed to burn something on Christmas Day
Usually the Christmas Pudding when water boiled dry in the steamer
Too much, before lunch, sherry methinks !