Hankering over past times.

I loved our Christmases with the same decorations every year for the tree

Nothing has changed for us, we use all the same decorations every year, except for greenery, which, obviously, is gathered afresh every year.

We add a few things now and again, last year some decorations for the recently extended kitchen,some wear out and get checked, but our tree contains a few decorations from my parent's childood and mine and ones slowly added since the first Christmas I hosted 55 years ago.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

eazybee

I don't think Christmas was simpler in the past; it was certainly much harder work; I am thinking of my early childhood in the 1950s. Everything was cooked from scratch, shopped for in town, carried home on the bus, cooked in a very cramped kitchen and stored in a pantry or the meat safe. And the washing up!

Agree and then there was the queuing for bread on Christmas Eve which had to be ordered ahead of time. As for those sausage rolls kept in a tin for a day or two and the milk in cold water. Then there was a turkey or capon to be plucked and gutted by my grandad. That is if you were lucky enough to get one. This was in the forties and early fifties. However, I loved our Christmases with the same decorations every year for the tree and our pillow cases hanging up for presents. It was magic despite shortages and Bronco toilet paper.

I don't hanker after the good old days but I miss my youth!
I'm staying with my DS and the DGC who are teenagers.
Their trials; friendships, homework, clothes, jobs or lack of them parents, I'm never going on holiday with you ever again
All remind me that not a lot has changed except our worries are different.

I can remember when banks closed at 3pm. Some in the city were open til 12.30 on a saturday but only main branches. I was monthly paid (1960s) and of course there were no cash machines then. You had to find a branch of your bank, join the queue, and it coudl take 15-20 minutes at busy times.

I worked in a large library system where someone often had to travel to another branch "on relief" if someone was absent sick or on holiday. I always volunteered because it was an opportunity to go to the bank without using "my" free time. Libraries were nearly always near shopping centers and banks. When my boss remarked what a "willing girl" I was I told him that it was an opportunity to get to know the city and the bus routes. He repeated this to his boss who was really impressed by my sensible attitude to what was usually an unpopular duty. As a result he put my name forward for a course which escalated my promotion.

What none of my bosses appeared to see was that I revelled in the opportunity to be unsupervised and make a journey across the city. There were no mobile phones then or ways of keeping track of people once they left the building. And if anyone at the destination remarked on how long I had taken there was always a good excuse:

The bus driver put me off too early
I dont know this part of the city
Ive come all the way from XYZ
I missed my connection

DaisyAlice

I miss my parents and my dog. As a child I enjoyed a wigwam that Mum made and a paddling pool that was an old wartime collapsible army bath. I now treasure my children, grandson and friends that I have made along the way. Grandson still loves a big cardboard box as I did as a child. Yesterday it was a shop, a house, a truck and a hot air balloon.

I had quite forgotten until you said Army bath I had a paddling pool which had been a life raft for the forces.

I miss my mum. As she was before dementia took hold. (She died last year.)

I don’t hanker either. I miss the family members (some of them!) whos are no longer here.
I don’t miss the freezing cold house, monotonous food, strict discipline or being constantly enveloped in cigarette smoke. Or the class consciousness and worrying about what the neighbours would think.
Instead we have much improved medical care, less discrimination, better outcomes for girls and women, better housing and more machines to reduce hard work both in the home and workplace. Also more understanding and empathy and inclusion.

I certainly remember toasting bread in front of the fire it seemed fun to us. It wasn't for my mum who had no money for the gas meter to fuel the cooker. I hated Stork margarine and being envious of my friend who always had butter.

I remember all those things NanKate and roasting chestnuts on the fire as well.In December the chestnut man did a great trade with a brazier full of roastingnuts which you got in a small paper bag and always burned your tongue on them.

Can you remember bread on a toasting fork held in front of the coal fire, plus butter, marg or jam ? Delicious.

We turned off all the lights and made butterfly shapes on the wall with our hands. Simple pleasures.

We used to say to mum ‘tell us about the olden days’.

Oh happy days Kitty

You knew where you were back then, yes, it all had to balance, no writing things off, the dreaded inspectors might turn up and search for any little discrepancies.

How different things were by the time I retired.

Can honestly say my five years at work from 16-21 when I left to start my family were some of the happiest of my working life.

I worked in a bank too calendar and loved it. Not sure I'd like the way it has changed. I liked the sense of order - our branch once was 1d out and we were still there atc10pm trying to find out where the error was. I was a nervous wreck in case it was my till!

I was good at my job and what I didn't like was not being able to progress beyond a certain level because I was female.

Calendargirl

I think of banks closing at 3pm, no means of getting cash except from the bank

Remember my first Christmas at work in the bank. We shut at 12 on Christmas Eve, must have had notices up informing customers beforehand. As we all left at about 12.30 or so, all in our hats and coats, as we opened the front door to leave, a gaggle of customers stood outside. They were gobsmacked to see us all leaving, cash all locked away, long before cash machines. They all needed money to do their Christmas shopping.

Feel bad saying it, but my 16 year old self found it rather amusing.

I wish I could go back to the 1960s with todays technology!

oh yes, lighting the fire and lighting the fire to have a bath with bathwater that you'd have to share with someone else, a pan would be boiled to warm the water up a bit

Whenever I get a bit nostalgic for the past, I think of banks closing at 3 pm, no means of getting cash except from the bank, just about everything except churches closed on Sundays, a freezing cold house (before we had central heating when I was 14), my poor father going outside early on snowy mornings to get the fuel for our solid fuel boiler, coming home from school to a cold house, clearing out last night’s ashes and laying a fire for the sitting room - making those long twisted zig zag things from old newspapers, etc.

Of course there were good things, too - esp. things we take for granted now being such treats (tangerines at Christmas!) - but despite the downsides (I wouldn’t be without the internet but I often think it can be a curse - porn and social media bullying etc.) but I can’t say I’d ever swop now for then.

I'm interested in the past, but I don't think I hanker for it apart from disliking how everything nowadays seems to be valued in financial terms.
When I first became a diabetic in the 60s the treatment, although life saving, was still fairly basic. Boiling up syringes and blunt needles every day; not being able to test my blood sugar levels and ending up in comas frequently.
Now I have insulin pens with super-sharp needles and highly developed insulins; a scan-able sensor in my arm which gives me immediate blood glucose readings on my phone. Just SO much easier!
Modern medicine generally I appreciate as both my daughters were 'test tube' babies, and I've just been told that cataract surgery will give me back my distance vision!
I'm very glad I didn't live in the time when people were bled when they were ill, or when women often died in childbirth.

I miss people being respectful of one another in the workplace and not viewing you as a commodity that has to reach targets

I certainly dont hanker after my childhood as I had a miserable one in many ways. Each day was like treading on glass so as not to anger my father or provoke one of my mothers "wobblers" (panic attacks)

The time I think of mosy nostalgically was when i was in my early 20s and had just got my own flat. I had my feedom and no one was entitled to tell me what to do. I was at the beginning of my career as a librarian and the world seemed like my oyster. It was the mid 1960s and a fun time to live. I wore the latest fashions, had a group of single friends my own age and enjoyed the lively Liverpool club and music scene.

When I look back I think of a song by Bob Dylan where he reminisces to when he and his friends used to gather in the back of a bar, joke and drink til morning:

"I wish, I wish I wish in vain
That we could sit simply in that room again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I'd give it all gladly
If our lives could be like that"

I hope you're feeling better kitty.

Oh yes the dentist. He took all of my teeth out when I was 11. Life changing.

The school Dentist was worse, luckily my mother opted out for me. They made an appointment for a relation and said they needed two extractions instead they took out six of their second teeth all at the front and they wore dentures from the age of 12

I had a disaster with the school dentist aged about 10. My teeth were crowded and he extracted 2 of my front teeth which were my 2nd teeth, to make space!! This altered my bite and my teeth have cost me a fortune as an adult in order to have a decent smile.

Life wasn't always more pleasurable in the past, remember the visit to the Dentist? The school Dentist was worse, luckily my mother opted out for me. They made an appointment for a relation and said they needed two extractions instead they took out six of their second teeth all at the front and they wore dentures from the age of 12.
I am pleased we have technology that lets us talk face-to-face with friends and family even in other countries.
I try to live for each day.