Memories from Christmas past

My sister and I were talking about the turkey last Wednesday to her son, mum would always buy the biggest bird (us 4 girls and her) and NOTHING was wasted, every day we ate turkey, she and another of my sisters always argued over the neck. We're all still here and the turkey was kept in the oven, not fridge! Central heating wasn't invented here until 1992 I think, same time as the double glazing! We were healthy kids, ice on the inside of the windows! Christmas snow, not slush. Paper chains as mum couldn't afford anything else. The tree was always the biggest she could afford, spiky blighter, that we all decorated and listened to the needles dropping off over Christmas. We thought the easiest way to remove said trees, being to shake, then hoover the needles, bunged the Hoover up! After that, shake, SHOVEL, then hoover what's left! One year, we all got batteries off our dads mum, couldn't understand why, then we opened dad's present, we each had a tape recorder and a radio (this early 1980's), apparently eldest sister whinged that we all had the same, 2 years between all of us, so after that, and even to this day, Christmas is £25 each! I'm now 49, still £25! I agree with original poster as to how we used to feel, now I don't care, it's just another day, it's expensive. Christmas dinner is mum and me, dad comes to us and stays for a bit but we don't do a big spread like most, we have a roast dinner, he'll be back boxing day to help finish eat the small turkey crown!

My best Christmas memory of childhood, was when we were totally broke. I must have been 5 or 6, and my parents couldn't afford a tree. My sister was/is very creative and imaginative. She used metal coat hangers crossed over and covered in existing tinsel and suspended together and from the ceiling with invisible sewing thread. She then hung our tree decorations with more invisible thread. It was so glittery and pretty - such an amazing memory...

All the usual childhood memories, but also as a teenager getting my first suspender belt and nylons. Wore them to church on Christmas Day.

I had a treasured copy of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" which I read and re-read on the days approaching the big day. I knew every detail of that book and still find the poem magical.

My dad would always ask family and friends to save the gold plastic bottle tops of Bells whiskey..... and no, we weren't all slugging back the whiskey, it must have taken several years!

He would then drill a small hole in the top of each, pair them up and tie together with a red ribbon. Not sure where he got the idea from but I still have a pair that go on our tree every year.

My best Christmas memory is of my big brother and I lying in our bunk beds on Christmas eve (when I was about 4) listening for the sound of Santa's sleigh bells. We definitely heard them .

We also took turns at tapping out the beat of various Christmas songs on the wall for the other to identify.

I have many other memories, of opening our presents, but this one of 'the night before Christmas' is actually the strongest.

Another from the same era is of us all in the car singing The Holly and the Ivy and other carols as we drove home from the swimming baths in our home town on a cold, pre-Christmas teatime.

Lovely to read all these memories .
We didn’t have much money when I was small & one year mum made some bird decorations for the tree using pipe cleaners . It was a long standing joke for many years to come that the birds all had 4 legs!
Another year I remember even at the age of 4 knowing I must hide my disappointment that my present was a doll I already owned dressed amateurishly ( mum was no seamstress) in some white shiny material with some curtain net attached to her hair . She was presented as a bride but I couldn’t wait to get the awful dress off her & get my dolly back to her real self.
Mum was very loving though & had obviously done her best in those austere years . Christmas was a happy time

Oh so many lovely memories. We weren’t well off but it was always special. Making mince pies and pudding with Mum and her special Tunis cake. Paper chains and crepe paper streamers. The year I received a pale blue tutu that Mum and a neighbour had spent hours making it in secret for me.
Dad getting up early on Christmas Day to light the fire so it would be warm for us on Christmas Eve Dad always went to the shops to buy each of us a surprise gift just from him.
So magical in those days.

I remember in the 1950’s being taken into Liverpool for Christmas shopping . All the big shops had grottoes but the best one was in Blacklers. I remember one year seeing Torchy Torchy the Battery Boy , which I think at the time was a children’s TV program.

Yes, like many on here my parents were poor, and they couldn't go too mad for Xmas. My dad had a good job before the war, a 'master baker' - made all sorts of speciality cakes for the big local bakery and their chain of shops. But he came back with a 'flour allergy' (result of malaria perhaps?) and couldn't do that job, had a menial job on the railways to make ends meet.

However, due to his baking background, we always had a wonderful Xmas cake and pudding - and he made them for relatives too. The big treat I recall was getting to scrape the bowl with the last of the cake mixture, then for our finished cake, eating every bit of marzipan I could get (still a sucker for the stuff!).

We did have a tree, but the room decs were mostly paper chains, and a couple of paper spheres that opened out from a small pack. My parents both died quite young, if they could see Xmas stuff these days I'm not sure if they'd know whether to laugh or cry?!

I've said before that my best ever memory was when I was six and I was taken into the front room where the Christmas tree was. Standing in front of it was the incredible rocking horse my father had made for me! A dapple grey with a real horse hair mane and tail. At that age it was as big as a real pony to me. The other thing I always remember is the real candles on the tree and the way the heat from them made the pine smell of the tree so much stronger.

A couple of days ago DD was saying that her best present was the huge collection of clothes that her granny knitted for her Sindy doll. It cost pennies because she was able to use up all her odds and ends of wool but would have cost a fortune from a shop

Mum, Dad and I (aged 3, 4, 5, 6 &7) would decamp to my grandparents for the whole Christmas period. My lasting memory is of Grandad suspending the turkey from the mantlepiece and roasting it in front of a blazing fire, basting it every 20 minutes whilst Mum and Gran prepared vegetables in the kitchen.

I’d forgotten this one! When I was 6 and my mother had recently had her 4th, with an under 2 as well, and we had no car, it was agreed that my father would meet me from school at lunchtime and take me to visit Father Christmas in one of the big shops nearby (all a good 3 miles from our house).

The plan was for me to walk a short distance from school - on my own! - to an aunt’s flat, where my father would pick me up.
Of course the headmistress had to agree to this plan - I had to go and see her to be sure it was allowed.

I don’t remember the actual visit to FC at all, but I still remember the head - curly grey hair, looking very smilingly at me over the tops of her glasses and saying, ‘I wish someone was taking me to see Father Christmas!’

God bless Miss Bolwell, certainly dead decades ago now.
Can you imagine such a thing ever being allowed now?

Oh Gin, do you think we are the only surviving members of the Lone Pine Club? Yes, always a book at Christmas and mostly small presents though I do remember the year my godparents did up and furnished a doll’s house for me - must have been nearly five, I think. I played with it for years and eventually sold it to buy a watch when I was about to start secondary school.

NotSpaghetti thank you it's the only one that really sticks in my my mind 🙂🎄.

GrannySomerset I was a a big fan of Malcolm Saville and the lone pine 5 I use to save up my pocket money and order the book from the local newspaper shop.

GrannySomerset I was in the Lone Pine Club! I still have a paperback somewhere, though I got most of my books from the local library in the 1960s.

Given 10/- to buy Christmas presents. Spent 7/6 on one for me🫢.

My dad always attended Midnight Service on Christmas Eve and would come in and say you better get to sleep now I have seen Santa coming down the main road, I still don't sleep well Christmas Eve

My parents weren't well off but always kept a good Christmas. Their wedding anniversary was on the 23rd so we always celebrated that with a special meal at home. At some point over Christmas, neighbours would join us for drinks and nibbles and general frivolity! Invitations were rarely returned but my parents didn't seem to mind. My father was from Northren Ireland and enjoyed offering hospitality. Christmas Day always began with a visit to church after which opening of presents began in earnest!

My mum would start preparing for christmas by making the cake and puddings weeks before.. Then we all make sticky hoop paper garlands and string them corner to corner across the ceiling and decorate a big tree with all the decorations, kept in a box in the attic all year. we always had an advent calender and so the build up to Christmas continued..OnChristmas eve we put out mince pies and sherry and out stockings by the fire. In the very early morning we found our stockings at the bottom of our beds always containing chocolate coins and a satsumer at the bottom. Mum would be up very early to prepare the turkey and roast potatoes. Then off to church.Lunch at about 2ish then the front door would be knocked and there was father Christmas with red coat,beard and a sack of presents.. Mum would always be having a bath at this time and rather extraordinarily we three children didn't question that! this was the never changing pattern of our christmases for years.. it was wonderful

My brothers and I went hunting for our presents one year and I found my doll a while before Christmas. Everything went flat, all my excitement vanished in guilt and regret.
When I opened the box on Christmas morning my beautiful doll was still a surprise because my mother had made her so many lovely clothes. I never revealed that I’d found her early.

My Mum had our house decorated to the hilt. Rather like walking into a magic cave. Wonderful. We did something less elaborate but equally exciting. Nowadays I don't do a single decoration but I do love Christmas. I leave the adornments to my sons and their families.

What some great memories- lovely thread! Thanks for starting Jaffacake2. I’d forgotten about Tunis cakes, we always used to have one as well as Christmas Cake. In fact when we were young women and had left home, each year for some years Mum used to buy each of us a Tunis cake - even then they weren’t a patch on the original ones, far less chocolate and a bit synthetic, but we loved the idea of carrying on the tradition. In fact I’m going to see if you can still get Tunis cake.

My uncle took us to a big city for Christmas shopping when I was about 5.
They took me to see Santa in Fenwicks,the queue was so long my uncle offered to stand with me whilst the women went shopping.
When my turn came I must have asked for a few things. Santa said, "I'm sure Santa and your daddy will manage that", and I said "That's not my daddy that's Uncle Joe", the place erupted as it implied he was my mum's fancyman, just as the family appeared near the Grotto.
To top it all my uncle got lost going home and we ended up on a Quay side nearly in the water.

A favourite present when I was 10, was the School Friend Pets Annual - I was animal-mad.

Was delighted some years ago to find the exact same book - 1959 - in a 2nd hand bookshop!