Memories of Christmas when you were growing up ?

My childhood memories of Christmas were lovely ,Midnight mass then home to eat hot roast beef sandwiches then we were allowed to open our presents before we went to bed .In comparison to presents children get today we didn't get lots but we did appreciate what we got except for the year when I was expecting a Tressi doll and got a cut out cardboard one with paper clothes to cut out and hang on,.

Watching Blue Peter as they lit the candles on the thing made out of coat hangers and tinsel. (I can't remember what it was called)

The smell of turkey wafting around the house on Christmas eve, with bowls of nuts and fruit in the living room.

It was so exciting!

Then one of my dads socks with bits and bobs in on 'the day' and into mum and dads room to open our other presents. lovely, it was.

It was magic. Pillow cases at the ready to leave by our beds. Mum busy in the kitchen cooking the turkey and dad peeling the veg. Brother and I listening to the radio and like MissAdventure, bowls of fruit and nuts, the smell of Mac red apples was the real smell of Christmas as you only seemed to see them at that time of the year-----now you don't see them at all. The table creaking under the weight of food on it.

The cat jumping on the sideboard licking the cream off the trifle.
The fire crackling and dad banking it up with coke, until a piece rolled out and burned the corner of the rug and he didn't tell mum, brother and I were giggling.

I continued to emulate those fantastic Christmas's when the children came along because I wanted to hang on to the memories. Wonderful times past.

Fruit that wasn’t in tins, nuts you had to crack yourself with those silver pliers, putting out mince pies and sherry for Santa on Christmas Eve, then sitting at the top of the stairs Christmas Morning waiting for dad to go down and check that Santa had been, he always had?

I used to get a tin of Sharp's toffees in my stocking and still keep craft items in one of them today.
The stocking was made of a thick kind of cellophane and used to crackle if I pushed it with my feet to see if it had been filled.

I don't remember ever watching television except for the Queen's speech.

We had those paper chains which used to stretch from each corner of the room to the light in the middle.
The Christmas tree had decorations, tinsel and also bits of cotton wool decorated with glitter to look like snow.

Not even Morecambe and Wise?

Just as MissAdventure described - such lovely memories - and riding down our long hall on my new blue scooter.

We always went to my Maternal grandparents for Christmas
My grandad was a real Christmas person, we always had pork pie and mustard with toast for breakfast (my grandparents came from Leicestershire) then it was helping Nan peel the sprouts and potatoes while the men had a bevy. Grandad always carved the turkey, dinner at 1 he used to have a little tree in the centre of the table with ribbons and a token present at each plate setting (a perfume or soap or little toy)which he himself did then after Nan washed up we listened to the queens speech at 3 ( no tv) by this time I was bored and probably reading a new Rupert annual or colouring until teatime which was ham, celery in a glass jug, cheese and bread and butter followed by fruit and evap and Christmas cake that Nan made in June and mince pies
That was it off to bed similar the next day then back to normal
The trimmings were a tree with proper candles and streamers from corner to corner of the ceiling, including some I made sticking loops together

The tree did not go up till Christmas Eve; and there was always a lot of swearing from Dad trying to get the lights to work!

Cherryade was the Christmas Eve treat; and brazil nut chocolate.

I have a vivid memory of one Christmas spent at my paternal grandmother in London; in one of those huge terraced Edwardian houses that seemed to have just one room on every floor and went up and up: cellar, basement ground floor, then several other floors before the attic rooms, where my brother and I slept on Christmas Eve - we could look out over the rooftops. That year Father Christmas brought me a doll's cot made of metal and swathed in pale pink drapes.

Were they invented then?

Morecambe and Wise - in response to MissA

Hoping to get the latest Famous Five book!

Oh, well they'd been invented by the time I was a child.

They had a Christmas special, I think.

Yes, I do remember it.
I was thinking of when I was young; their first BBC show was after I was married!

Did everyone have the box of dates that said "Eat Me" on it, with the plastic 2 pronged fork in it?

Yes!!
The obligatory box of dates.

And those orange and lemon slices in a ring.

Oh yes. Horrible, they were!

Paper chains everywhere. My Dad loved them and made intricate patterns on the ceilings.

I had a pillow case by my bed with presents which I took to my parents room to open, small things, colouring, sweets and some clothes. Our children always brought their stockings to our bed to open and even now I love opening a gift sat in bed on Christmas morning.

After breakfast we all helped prepare vegetables and lay the table. Mum then went off to change, she always had something new to wear and it was ages before I realised it was the only time in Winter she had anything new that wasn’t knitted by her.

We’d sit by an open fire, often with an Aunt and Uncle. The adults had a drink, my Dad delivered the gifts from under the tree, always a doll and a book for me, small things for the adults.

Christmas morning was a very special time. Warm, relaxed, full of happy anticipation. The shape of it was carried forward with our children. I love that one son and his wife do the same things with their family, the magic is still there. No paper chains though .

I thought some of these were obligatory at Christmas and used to buy them even after I was married including those slices.
MIL loved those slices and DH will eat anything sweet except those stringy dates. I love dates but buy the posh Medjool ones for me.

I'm not sure any of us actually liked the dates.
The longer they got left, the stickier they got.

The first Christmas I ever really enjoyed was when I was in my thirties and had just married The Wonderful Man. We went to stay with his parents and it was the first time I'd been to their home (we lived 240 miles apart). It was a small, homely Georgian Mansion that looked like it was built just to celebrate Christmas in. They had a blue Aga in a farmhouse style kitchen and mince pies were constantly appearing out of it. I felt as though I was living in a film set.

My childhood Christmases were horrid, unloving and often marked by drunkenness and violence, so the contrast was enormous. Here lived the UK's version of The Waltons - and I'd just become one of them! Almost every year since then Christmas has been spent with my beloved parents-in-law.

Newbury fruits just remember we always had them and nuts to crack

Mum spending Christmas eve morning baking sausage rolls and mince pies. It was the 60's and we didn't have a freezer