An old fashioned Christmas. 🌲🎄

We used to spend Christmas day with my widowed grandmother. We opened presents under the tree in the morning.

At lunchtime we ate turkey followed by homemade Christmas pudding with almond sauce. We pulled crackers and wore the paper hats.

At teatime we had homemade Christmas cake Which had a thick layer of marzipan on top and a layer of white icing on top of that. My grandmother used to put a selection of very old figures on top of the cake. There were several reindeer, a big robin, an eskimo with an igloo, and a snowman.

I used to play with a large snow globe that only came out at Christmas, it had Father Christmas complete with a toy filled sleigh and reindeer. I used to love to make the 'snow' swirl round like a blizzard.

Like many families we watched the Queen's speech on television but I always wanted to get back to playing with my presents.

My younger sister and I lived with our parents in a huge rented terraced house (we even had our own playroom downstairs!) in Old Trafford. Not much money but plenty of love and attention. Our Christmas presents were usually second hand (I began to notice, being the eldest - Miss Marple). Baby dolls with clothes I do remember. Not so much the dinner to be honest - most children don’t notice really when young - it’s just ‘food’ isn’t it?

By the time we moved things were different. Mum and dad had a mortgage to find with the Abbey National and the fact we both passed the 11+ there was expensive school uniform to buy.

I remember second hand ice skates. Mum had scrubbed them up and applied copious amounts of Meltonium whitener (few cracks from liberal use) and a Timex watch (not second hand - ina box!) one year.

For a couple of Christmases things were a bit fraught with tension between my parents. Dad would get a bit lairy down at the pub, pre-dinner, mum would be cross. No grandparents on either side with us to help deflect the anxiety therefore a couple of memorable Christmas days for all the wrong reasons…

Then mum got a new job, full time instead of part time. Things got easier. Smiles returned. It made me very aware that lack of disposable income creates untold stress within a family. I often think of young children on Christmas Day whose parents are doing their best - but struggling.

Well, the 1950's were slightly different for me. No tree - maybe towards the very end of that decade the first faux trees came out and I think my parents purchased a small table top one in white (they never replaced it). Few decs were put up mainly those we made ourselves.

By the time we went into that decade I was coming out of childhood, so even my Christmas stocking (pillowcase) ceased. 25th December was my parents wedding anniversary and we made more of that celebration that anything else.

Towards the end of the decade celebrations were taking place, but these mainly involved the christmas meal, By that time, my parents were grandparents (not by me), so a lot more fuss was made of it on behalf of their grandaughter. Each year she was given the fairy on top of the Christmas tree to take home, and that was replaced annually.

Christmas just lasted for two days back then. Even New year = not too much as New Years Day was NOT a public holiday, so work as normal.

HelterSkelter1

Esmay. Stay home...dont go to those neighbours. It sounds awful

I agree Esmay
Say you’d like a quiet one this year. Buy a luxury ready meal, some cheese and a bottle of your favourite wine.
I’d rather have the telly for company on The Day.

I have always loved traditional carols - they were a big thing in school assembly once Advent started - beginning with O Come O come Emmanuel, so that’s still a favourite, but I love so many.

An abiding memory is of the tiny little real 🎄tree, that was dug up from the garden every year, poor thing, until my folks were marginally less skint and it was pensioned off and allowed to grow and flourish. But I still remember the boy next door looking askance at it, and saying, ‘Has your Christmas tree had a heart attack?’ 😂

Despite money always being very tight until I was a teen, my folks made a real effort, stockings were always bulging with little things, and the excitement of waiting for 🎅🏻 was huge.

We always had a turkey, crackers, etc., and usually at least one grandmother and aunt would come to stay. I expect they chipped in!

Our Christmas tree didn't go up until Christmas eve. In the afternoon mum would put out all the treats she had been collecting for months - boxed dates, figs, nuts and chocolate.

We each had a pillowcase which was full on Christmas morning. Nothing very expensive just colouring books, crayons, games etc and one big present maybe a doll or teddy.
Just the five of us for dinner then my auntie would arrive later with my cousins.
It was wonderful and all the better for being very low key.

I do remember the streams of garlands from each corner of the room to the centre, all held dubiously in place with drawing pins. And balloons tied up together in the corners! Christmas tree overloaded with furry tinsel, lametta, glass baubles, clip on trinkets and elves.

Christmas cards from all and sundry on every flat surface, or hanging on ribbons from picture rails.

Plug in lights with miniature bulbs that inevitably blew and were all individual styles, voltage, wattage, colour and connection - needed a box of assorted bulbs ready as replacements. Good job daddy was an electrician!

I’ve still got the little shades that covered the Christmas tree lights. My grandfather walked Plymouth until he found them. I would like to use them again, but I’m afraid that they would be too brittle. They have pictures on them of Humpty Dumpty, Cinderella and others. I have 10 shades altogether.

Our tree always went up a week before Christmas - much like mine does now. A fruit bowl on the side board and nuts to crack. Mum would have a bottle of sherry and Dad a bitter shandy. The meal was a capon (I think now banned) bought from the local farm, and always Christmas pudding with lashings of custard.

I remember it as a very loving cosy happy time, full of fun and laughter, with visiting relatives, card games by the adults and children sitting under the card tables playing with our toys. Much like our family get togethers at Christmas now. Daughter’s turn to host this year.

I do miss our Woolworths this time of the year. It just felt so Christmassy without being over the top. Boxes of lametta I have never seen since. Both DDs had christmas jobs there. Thirty plus years flown by.

We had a huge tree. The top would be bent over as it was taller than the room. The reason? My dad bought it on Christmas Eve when they were half price. I guess few people wanted a giant tree. Then there were the lights. If one went out, they all went. Quite often they stayed out too.

I often puzzle myself for the nostalgia I feel for things I didn't particularly enjoy as a youngster, which was mainly much church going. Catholic household, catholic school it was two pronged from both quarters. Umpteen trips to church with the school on the run up, carol practice, carol service, visiting the crib culminating in Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, when the pub a couple of doors along turned out just as that was beginning and swelled the congregation numbers considerably, often standing room only. The religious aspect was very much the focus and everything else was secondary. We were actually visiting friends in the Cotswolds last December and went to Tewkesbury Abbey whilst a local junior school inside practising their carols, it was such a beautiful moment listening to them.

Like most of our generation, Christmas presents were not the outrageously expensive gadgets of today they consisted typically of items such as books, a doll, a game like Monopoly, a jigsaw, kaleidoscope thingy, I loved those and chocolate treats, a selection box, chocolate money were received with a lot of anticipation and I think appreciation. We were forced to write a proper letter thanking the people who'd given them. Christmas tree and homemade paper chains. I had no illusions about Father Christmas, our dad told us from our very early years, he didn't exist. He didn't like us believing in nonsense, unless it was religious nonsense. I did spin the whole rigmarole out with my own children, because I felt I'd missed out, until they tumbled, in fact I was really annoyed with my older son when he told his brother, "it's not Father Christmas who leaves the presents, it's mum and dad who creep into our rooms with a pillowcase full of them, they think I'm asleep, but I'm not"

Christmas dinner always seemed to create a massive kerfuffle in our house cooking the turkey and steaming the Christmas pudding. I remember the late chef Gary Rhodes saying the same about his parents, also my husband similar in his house? What were they all doing that caused mayhem and meltdowns? Talking of which, I had my own meltdowns playing family Monopoly in the aftermath of Christmas, it began before the game started my brother and I usually had a massive quarrel over who got the dog, then it went from bad to worse and I certainly couldn't cope with the bankruptcy aspect of it On the subject of Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, mince pies, I loved them from an early age, now it seems, a lot of the younger generation don't appear to like dried fruit fare. My parents gave us watered down wine with the Christmas dinner, quite shockingly when we were pretty young, not that I particularly liked it back then, I don't think that would be approved of now. It was the one night we were allowed to stay up and watch whatever "the big film" was, vague recollections of The African Queen and High Noon. Tea time was Christmas cake, and the only time of the year when there would be a biscuit tin with exciting assortments including chocolate covered biscuits an absolute rarity during the rest of the year. My parents spent a lot of time cracking nuts again reminiscent of that time of the year. After Christmas between then and New Year we'd see relatives and go up to London to see a "big" film such as West Side Story and El Cid were two I remember and being taken to the ballet to see Coppelia and The Nutcracker.

And I forgot. Always Christmas morning service - when I often wore a present. I remember a hat from an aunt in Canada, and my first pair of stockings with suspenders and bra. 😊

HelterSkelter1

I do miss our Woolworths this time of the year. It just felt so Christmassy without being over the top. Boxes of lametta I have never seen since. Both DDs had christmas jobs there. Thirty plus years flown by.

You can still get lametta - some goes on our always real tree every year - we call it icicles. They shiver and catch the light.
I buy it online - never see it in shops any more.

Who else remembers working for the Christmas post in December? Our headmistress tried to forbid it but quite a few of us in the upper sixth ignored that and helped to deliver mail anyway. The cash was extremely welcome!

HelterSkelter1

I do miss our Woolworths this time of the year. It just felt so Christmassy without being over the top. Boxes of lametta I have never seen since. Both DDs had christmas jobs there. Thirty plus years flown by.

My son, when he was about 13 and had a paper round, bought some miniature tree decorations shaped like parcels from Woolies,and gave them to my elderly mum, who had a little artificial tree.

Off his own back, I had no idea he had thought of doing this, and they were ideal for her mini tree.

Was proud of him for being so thoughtful. Mum was thrilled with them.

Talking of presents in the pillowcase, who else had a John Bull printing set, so every new book and any bit of paper has a crooked inscription in it?
Also a miniature toy sewing machine, alas it never gave me a taste for sewing if any kind.

Witzend

Who else remembers working for the Christmas post in December? Our headmistress tried to forbid it but quite a few of us in the upper sixth ignored that and helped to deliver mail anyway. The cash was extremely welcome!

Oh yes. I did that one year.

Usedtobeblonde

Talking of presents in the pillowcase, who else had a John Bull printing set, so every new book and any bit of paper has a crooked inscription in it?
Also a miniature toy sewing machine, alas it never gave me a taste for sewing if any kind.

I had one of those! Also remember a toy post office, ditto sweet shop. And nearly always, a set of children’s stationery, for writing the dreaded thank you letters.

Our tree has lametta too Witzend

Christmas starts, when you want it to start, whatever the shops etc are doing.

Perhaps, I am fortunate, I watch very little television, so rarely see Christmas ads. I have seen none so far this year.

I have a Christmas planning spread sheet and I have already ordered all the kitchen meats, but getting into the mood, and getting out the decorations will start a week before Christmas as usual.

Christmas for me lasts the 12 days as it did in medieval times, starting 4 or 5 days before Christmas and ending on the the 1 or 2nd of January, slightly earlier than the tradional 12 days. DS andfaamily have until this year lived a 4 hour drive away and they come to us for a week during the Christmas period. I appreciate every moment with them.

I remember watching it with my children. The music is delightful

My mother managed to make a nice Xmas for us in spite of my Scrooge father (the epitome), who went to bed for the day!
Tangerine in a stocking and she laid out our presents unwrapped on a chair for each child. Table top Xmas tree, corner to corner decorations and an annual, Girl or Eagle (my father worked for a printing company so got them free). Apart from that, no acknowledgement that it was Xmas😢

Things bucked up at an aunt’s house, uncle dressed as Father Christmas, good food and drink, piano playing and an aunt and uncle dancing and falling into the large corner Christmas tree.

Someone commented above about “gone cold” Christmas meals. I have noticed that no matter how posh the new kitchen is - and there have been a few super posh ones recently fitted at various younger families houses, the diners aren’t as hot as they should be, often served on cold plates. In my opinion for all their “cheffy” ways I can’t say they are any better than what my Mum dished up (usually a two handed affair with Dad helping) and with lashings of gravy and hot hot hot!
Last couple of Christmas meals one nephew has fetched over his food warmer which made a great difference.
Mum in 70s did have a Hostess trolley though😃

Loved both of those programmes. Watched with my own youngsters.
Christmas for me was sitting under the real pine tree reading my School Friend Annual.

I look back on my Christmases of the 50's and 60's
getting up on Christmas morning,so excited finding my stocking filled with Tangerine,edinburgh rock, and sweets
presents on the chair,,,maybe a doll and a board game.and always a book, these were magical Christmases. not nearly as many toys as what the children get now ,,,but in my view so much better...