Christmas memories..

Do I remember a pair of tights having anything to do with the steaming process?

The windows in the sitting room streaming from all the steam coming from the kitchen!

Sixpenny bits wrapped in greaseproof paper in the pudding

And then a moments silence when you all took the first bite of your dinner, then another while mum decided if the turkey was up to scratch.

Then everyone staring at me to see if I ate my sprouts!

And the "don't start!!!" warning off my mum if I looked as if I was picking my food around and examining it

Sorry to be depressive, but the main early memory I have of Xmas morning is waking up and finding " I've got mumps!"
As for the food , my favourite was the bread sauce.
We often went to stay with family who lived in the Northumbrian coutryside for Xmas. They had all the basics, while we Toonies were lucky if we had eggs.
Early 1940s

Ah, the mumps at Christmas.
What a shame for you.
I think I got ny first ever migraine one christmas eve night.

We were all convinced that my lovely M iL put the sprouts on the day before. They were always mushy and a deep yellow. ?

We never had turkey at Christmas, always a chicken ( which I still prefer tbh).
I love sprouts, am I the only one? Particularly if cooked with some bacon bits.
I suppose we may have had Christmas pudding, but on reflection I think we had trifle instead.

Oh my mum could make nice trifles, so they said.
I don't eat anything like that.

we had goose for xmas dinner and my father plucked it and got it ready for oven..
remember him bringing in the christmas pudding aflame with brandy. a lovely sight.

What times did people have their dinner?
Ours was at about 1pm I think.
Mum was quite a stickler about the time.
I think she was worried we might lay about a bit, enjoying ourselves.

Calistemon

The windows in the sitting room streaming from all the steam coming from the kitchen!

Sixpenny bits wrapped in greaseproof paper in the pudding

Dad used to write ‘Bum to all’ on the steamed up kitchen windows. Not very festive but we kids found it amusing.

You were healthy with your wrapped sixpences. I doubt ours were even washed.

I had thought my Mum was the only person who served yellow sprouts until I read this thread.

My Dad used to drink the water they had been cooked in. He said it had all the goodness in it.

Continuing the sprout theme, my Mother loved sprouts but they didn’t love her. After dinner my Dad would make a big thing of opening all the doors so that she had a clear run to the bathroom. We children always found it very funny ,though on reflection I don’t remember any mad dashes.

MissAdventure

Do I remember a pair of tights having anything to do with the steaming process?

Oh yes! The tights were to lift the pudding out the boiler. ?

MissAdventure

Do I remember a pair of tights having anything to do with the steaming process?

It used to be the sleeve of one of dad's old shirts
( so long as it was the sleeve )

I still have a silver threepenny bit from out of the pud. We had to watch the fillings !

My mother with the skill of an Illusionist, inserted one silver sixpence into each portion of pudding as she was dishing it out, so no one was left out.

Does anyone remember the cod's roe ? A huge floppy thing which was boiled until solid/ cooked. We had it sliced with salt/ pepper and vinegar with a salad. I loved it.
That was boiled in the sleeve of a shirt as well to keep it oblong for easy slicing.
Herring roe was eaten as it was----floppy.

I was brought up in Everton we lived in our paternal grans house. She had three sitting rooms one was ours middle one was hers front one was for show only. My maternal gran had a posh front room too we were never allowed in there.
At Christmas my dad would go to St Johns market in town. He would come home with a turkey or capons and game bird in season. Usually a big sack of fruit and vegetables some fruits we only got at Christmas.
Both my parents worked when we moved to the outskirts of Liverpool and life was tough for a large family I was one of eight. Our Christmas gift was a sock with a chocolate bar a piece of fruit a penny and a gift often colouring book and crayons. It wasn’t much but we appreciated what we were given. We had our dinner at two so my mum could watch the queens speech.

So bad a meal I cannot comment on it something always went wrong as my father cooked it.

i dont ever remember having any relations to ours for Christmas dinner we always went to one of two aunts when one passed away and the other and her family moved my mother had to cook Christmas dinner which she made a huge fuss of complaining the whole time one year she even went to work in a holiday camp over christmas and left my lovely Dad on his own he came and had dinner with us it was my first christmas dinner i had cooked as newly married and we had a lovely time

Lexisgranny

My grandmother told me that the local baker used to fire up his ovens on Christmas Day and many people used to take their turkeys there to be cooked. I often wondered how they worked out which belonged to which family, not too mention the different times different sizes would take to cook!

When I lived in Devon, the local baker would do just this (up till about 10 years ago when he died). People would bring their turkeys with about a page of instructions regarding weight, cooking times, temperature, etc. Once when he was drunk in the pub, he told us what he did ("I just whack 'em all in for 2 hours on full heat, nobody would dare complain....")