Christmas memories..

We were all convinced that my lovely M iL put the sprouts on the day before. They were always mushy and a deep yellow. ?

Ah, the mumps at Christmas.
What a shame for you.
I think I got ny first ever migraine one christmas eve night.

Sorry to be depressive, but the main early memory I have of Xmas morning is waking up and finding " I've got mumps!"
As for the food , my favourite was the bread sauce.
We often went to stay with family who lived in the Northumbrian coutryside for Xmas. They had all the basics, while we Toonies were lucky if we had eggs.
Early 1940s

And the "don't start!!!" warning off my mum if I looked as if I was picking my food around and examining it

Then everyone staring at me to see if I ate my sprouts!

And then a moments silence when you all took the first bite of your dinner, then another while mum decided if the turkey was up to scratch.

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

Sixpenny bits wrapped in greaseproof paper in the pudding

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

The Christmas pudding steaming and steaming and steaming and …………

We had a pulley on the kitchen ceiling for drying the washing and the wishbone was left up there for a few hours till it dried out. Then it was pinkies at the ready to snap it.

We used to fight over the wishbone. There were 6 of us kids.

Did you also find one person had the wishbone in with their meat?
Was it saved to dry out out before snapping it?
What a strange old tradition, really.

My DF used to get our turkeys direct from the farm, feathered, heads still on, the whole shebang.
DF chased me around the house every year with the turkey feet, opening and closing them by the attached tendons!
The giblets were used for the gravy, but never the liver as DM said it made the gravy taste 'odd'. DF would briefly flash the liver under the grill and spread it on toast!
As soon as the turkey emerged from the oven, there was a race between my parents to get to the Parson's nose first!
One year, the Turkey was 'resting' on top of the fridge (does anyone here remember gas fridges? Ours was cream coloured, tall, with a lever door handle and the gas vent was at the back right corner of the top) when we heard a crash, and the dog and cat dashed into the breakfast room as though their tails were on fire. Us three humans ran into the kitchen to find the turkey on the floor, Mum's best meat platter smashed to pieces beside it, and cat and dog paw prints all over the floor!
We never found out who knocked the turkey off the fridge, the cat wasn't big or strong enough, and the dog (or so we thought) couldn't climb or jump that high.
Turkey was picked up, rinsed under a very hot tap, and served up as usual and was delicious!

We used to give my dad the legs and dark meat.
I assume it was his choice.... never thought to ask.

Yes MissA a turkey but a day late.

I used to love the giblets and I preferred the leg rather than the breast of the turkey. I think ours came from the local butchers but being in Scotland it would have come from a local farm.

Did it have a turkey in the wrapper?
I'm hoping there was something?

Like many families we never had any money. One year my mother ordered a turkey from a mail order catalogue so she could pay weekly. It arrived in Boxing Day and someone had written 'Ha ha' on the wrapper

I think my dad may have eaten the liver.
Not the parson's nose.

Trisha57

My mum always had the turkey liver from the giblets on toast on Christmas morning!

I used to boil them for gravy stock and my MIL used to hover around me waiting for me to drain the pan to take them away and eat them!

Our Xmas dinner was a chicken sent to our local station ( Woolwich) by my mum’s brother a farmer in Leyton Buzzard.

We got our turkey from a farm down the road - we lived in the countryside - when I was a child. On Christmas Eve I think, or may have been a day or two before, my Dad took us with him to collect it. It was only a small farm so probably no more than 50 turkeys all together. We only had a small oven and on more than one occasion my dad was found outside sawing the legs off to get it to fit in. Happy days.

Oooh, ergh!

My mum always had the turkey liver from the giblets on toast on Christmas morning!