Happy Christmas traditions that would baffle the children of today.

We always had Mapleton’s FruGrains for breakfast on Christmas. Day. My mother thought they were too expensive to have regularly.

No big presents, few sweets - I was a wartime child. Christmas was total magic all the same. Real candles on the tree, new crayons, painting books - how I loved those! Paper decorations. - I especially remember a paper bell that folded flat but opened as a three-dimensional bell. Carols at the piano, played by my mother.

My mother was Danish, so we had our Christmas dinner and presents on Christmas Eve.

What would surprise both children and adults today is that it was only at Christmas that a bowl of sweeties was placed on a side table and we children could help ourselves whenever we wanted.

All the rest of the year we were allowed to spend our sixpence pocket money on sweeties on a Saturday and then it was up to us whether we ate the whole lot on Saturday, which my sister did, or spread it out to last the week, my preference.

Oranges, apples and bananas made their appearence at Christmas too, although we were sometimes given one of these on other days.

On Christmas Day we opened our stockings always allowed to borrow Daddy's long woollen ones that he wore with his kilt - it took me years to work out why I had one of the blue pair and my sister one of the green pair. (Mummy filled the partner and sneaked in with them, when she hoped we were asleep.) We ate British Christmas dinner on Christmas Day with duck instead of turkey which none of us cared for, washed up then listened to the Queen's speech.

These days it would probably surprise children that the entire family rose when the National anthem was played and sang it. I still rise when either the British or Danish national anthem is played, even when on my own.

Every day from Boxing Day to Hogmany there were visitors for dinner in the evening and on Ne'erday we went to good friends for dinner. This too was a highlight of the year, as it was the only occasion as a child that we went out with our parents to someone else for dinner,

When my girls were young my husband put times in a bag 2pm to 5pm 5pm to 6pm...and we all had to draw our lucky dip to choose what we watched for our alloted times. It caused more fights than it was supposed to stop and the trade war! They still laugh about it now!

Ooh! I used to love the deep red 'jonathan' apple and huge tangerine in my stocking very year! I'd scoff them whilst opening presents left in pillow case at bottom of bed!

I just want to say thank you to everyone contributing to my post. It has made me smile going down memory lane.

Not just Christmas Day, but the run up, my adult children are amazed when I tell them we had an advent candle no calendar, mum would put it in the middle of the table at dinner time and we would take turns to watch it burn down then blow it out when that days number was gone. Then the milkman’s list, great excitement, mum would tick bottles of fresh orange and grapefruit juice to be delivered on Christmas Eve along with extra milk and cream, then we would be allowed to choose the bottles of pop, we had a grate of 12 bottles, so 3 each !, these were open one at a time over the Christmas period, I loved the cherryade and so did my brother so we got 6 of those, but one brother liked lime so 3 days of limeade with dinner not so good, my eldest brother always had lemonade or orange! Such a treat you didn’t get pop only on very special occasions.

And the tin of quality streets was huge lasted all Christmas, watching the film Boxing Day afternoon with mum handing out the sweets she loved the green triangles! Dad the purple I loved the toffee penny - you could make that last longer not like my brother who like the creams silly boy 😂, oh and the lime barrel I did like that one. Then mum always got a box of all gold from my dad she always had the coffee cream first why don’t you get coffee creams any more !

My Nan always bought us new outfits to wear to church Christmas Morning, one year she bought me a red coat with a white fur bonnet and muff, I felt so dressed up I loved it.

So many good memories

I used to sit for ages writing my letter for Santa to put up the chimney. Sometimes it fell back down into the fire and I ended up in tears saying he didn't get it and sat down to write it out all over again just to make sure. I must of put my poor mum's head round the bend with it all.

Enjoying this thread. Most of these traditions were familiar to me. We had several farming aunts and uncles and there was always a party for us young cousins (there were lots of us) in a big farmhouse dining room. There were sandwiches, (egg, Shipham paste etc.), followed by jelly and tinned fruit salad. Then games like spin the plate for forfeits, and consequences, where we wrote various things on strip of paper, folded them over and passed to the next person, until they were read out at the end and were very funny.
There was also a Sunday School fancy dress party between Christmas and New Year. Our costumes were always home made and my mum was very scathing about anyone who bought costumes for their child. We have some great photos of those parties.

Father Christmas used to leave my children a tangerine, nuts and sweets in their stockings/pillowcases, as he did for me too.

We didn't have a TV when I was very young but we did have a piano. One uncle played professionally so I remember one year when he played Christmas tunes and my cousins and I danced all evening.

Streamers were made of paper, cut and glued into linked rings.

We wrote letters to Father Christmas but we never put them in the post box. Mum put them on the open fire so that they went up the chimney. I must admit even as a five year old I wasn't convinced FC got the message

Oh, that's the best Christmas post, Marmardoit 😂😂😂

A lemon, plus a squeezer was unheard of in 1950’s Wales !!!!

Yes we did, except we pressed them onto the lemon squeezer to get fluted sides.

Did anyone make bells for the Christmas tree by forming washed milk bottle tops over a finger? Than threading them on cotton. We used to make yards

I recall one year, probably about 1949, a parcel arrived in the post shortly before Christmas. Not unusual, as all our relatives sent to us by post since we had moved away for my Dad’s job. But this one had “ Open immediately. Do NOT wait until 25 December” on it. It contained bananas, the first I had ever seen!

Always had a stocking with tangerine in and some nuts which Mother had to crack open later..some dates - Ugh still can't eat them and always had pork pie and shortbread biscuits for Christmas Day breakfast after Mass as we still had to fast for Holy Communion...

My mother never bought a lot of fruit during the year. We didn’t have a lot of money to spare to fill a fruit bowl so occasionally I was sent to the greengrocer to buy myself an apple or an orange and threatened with dire retribution if I spent the money on anything else! But on Christmas Eve, I would go with my father to buy an assortment of nuts, oranges, bananas, and his beloved Cox’s Orange Pippins. “You have to shake them”, he would say. “If you can’t hear the pips rattling, they’re not ripe!” And sure enough he would shake every bloomin’ one before he let the greengrocer’s wife put them in the bag! She would say, “Go on then, Judd, give ‘em a shake!” I have no idea whether this bit of home spun, once a year ritual meant they were ripe or not, but it will remain the one abiding Christmas memory I have of my dear Dad. I still do it now if I buy Cox apples. So if you see a mad woman in a supermarket, listening to apples to see if they rattle, please say hello!😁

We had a sock at the end of the bed with apple tangerine and a chocolate coin and a penny in it. It’s was the best thing ever for all of us. When we went downstairs we each had one present and appreciated it. I especially loved colouring in books and simple boards games and spent hours neatly colouring in the pictures. They were nice times we didn’t have much but we were very grateful and never spoilt.

I was a child in the 1950s. As well as an apple and an orange in the stocking we each had a new penny. I dont know where that tradition came from.

We kids used to climb in bed with our parents to show them what "father chrustmas" had brought us and they would pretent to be surprised. Apart from the little bits in our stockings (sweets, crayons, a colouring book etc). we were only given one "big" present to open. There might be another small one under the tree for boxing day.

On christmas day we all trekked around to the houses of the relatives where the adults had a drink. My grandmother, two aunts and their husbands all lived within a 10 minute walk. That was quite common in working class areas in those days. On christmas night we went to my aunt and uncles for dinner. On boxing night they came to us. That went on for many years. I cant remember when it stopped.

Christmas was never much fun after the age of 13. I was lucky if I got through it without a whalloping from my father. After I left my parents home (age 22) I would just join them for christmas dinner. Gradually over the years the custom tailed off and I tried to dodge the big family gatherings.

I used to dread it come november when my mother began to hint and say "what are you doing for christmas" and I told her I preferred not to think about it. Why she would want someone coming to visit out of obligation and not really wanting to be there I cant imagine.

In the Northeast and Scotland, I’m sure first footing is still popular. JackyB it was tradition to bring in a coin, food - just a piece of shortbread, a drink - usually whisky and a lump of coal. This would signify wishing the recipient family health, wealth, prosperity and a warm hearth/happiness. I can remember how the menfolk would gather outside in the street, waiting for midnight before going back inside.

Rum butter on cream crackers, and a glass of non-alcoholic raisin wine at grans. My mum used one of her nylons and put a knot between the satsuma and each present and a half crown that had been polished. Silver threepenny pieces? wrapped in greaseproof paper in the Christmas cake. A pillowcase of annuals and presents on the foot of the bed
A boy I knew got watercolour paints in a tin and thought they were sweets and ate them and a girl swallowed a balloon and had to use the potty until she passed it.
When slightly older a fountain pen because I had always sprung the nib.
Christmas parties where my father worked, where I knew no one and the horrible game of spin the plate at the Chapel party where you had to kiss the person it landed in front of behind the organ. Oh, the joy of the 50's Christmases.
Family get-togethers where everyone played drafts and dominoes and the men cards betting with matches as my gran would allow no money to be exchanged.
Waiting for the drunken great uncle to arrive who always cried and sang mournful hymns, not cheerful carols and terrified us. No, I would not like to go back. It all seemed such hard work for grans and mums and all the food had to be homemade even the pickles and chutneys.

I know so many of my friends who have a Chinese takeaway on Christmas Eve,
I wonder how that started.
We always had cold ham, sausage rolls, pork pie and pickles etc as a child as the day had been busy .
When my Father died when I was 11 ,my other and I used to walk to my Aunt’s house , no transport on Christmas Day.
It was 4/5 miles and I hated every minute.
Sometimes we didn’t even go until we had had our lunch which was never really special.
No maternal cousins at all so I was very lonely.
Children today are often made the centre of Christmas, I felt I never was.

An orange as a treat with school dinner on the last day of term. Wouldn't impress a 21st century child. And they'd probably expect it to be peeled for them.

Having special "Sunday best" clothes to wear to Church.

Some things puzzled me when I was little. Why a piece of coal? Wasn't that what naughty children were supposed to get? We had a coal fire so that would surely be useful.

I came from a english/jewish home. We celebrated then (as m family still does now) and HAPPY festivity. So, I always had that pillowcase at the bottom of mybed to be filled by FC. No other decorations when I was a child except those long chains of sticky strips of paper. No trees until I was well into my teens. Did also have the Hanukak candles lit for the eight days. We did have tv ( from 1953) like so many people in this country.

Tangerine, sweeties always in that pillowcase. For much of my childhood chocs and sweets were on ration, so this very exciting. Very un-exciting Xmas days though, not until I was well into my teens and then my brother, his wife and their young children would come over did the special Christmas meal come into being. By then, my parents had a small (table top size) tinselly, Xmas tree they put up, year on year. What changed each year was the fairy on the top (no star), and that always went to the youngest g.daughter at the end of christmas day.

As my parents grew older, they found it more and more difficult to cope with this day and the catering etc. The last Xmas day I spent in their home was just after the birth of my eldest. In the January, my Dad came to me with the very large enamel dish they always used for cooking the turkey, handing that to me and saying it would be better to use my house, rather than their small council flat, for future Xmas Days - and that is exactly what happened.

Kept that large dish for many years just used that once-a-year.

One tradition that we then began was that on Christmas Eve, a day on which I spent many, many hours, preparing different dishes, for the following day - for our tea (started when there were several young children), we would have the only takeaway meal of the year. A chinese purchased entirely with the Luncheon Vouchers that my hubbie saved throughout the year to pay for this one big family meal. The Kids absolutely loved it - highlight of their Christmas (no other takeaways or eating out could be afforded).

The daughter to whom I now go for Christmas meal still keeps this tradition alive, so I also join them on Xmas Eve for th at takeaway.

When I was very young my father never bought the tree until Christmas Eve, carried it home on his shoulder and set it up in the coal bucket. We decorated it with some treasured spun-glass baubles, tinsel, paper chains and clip on candles that were never ever lit. It stayed up until Twelfth Night.

Many of the traditions already posted are common to me too. Being a teenager in the 70s, trying to record Top of the Pops Christmas special on my cassette player figured too. And the Morecambe and Wise Christmas special!