Then and now - Christmas things you don't see any more

[housemum]

I was buying some Christmas cards in Sainsbury's and for some reason remembered how we bought cards in my childhood (1970s). I remember going into Woolworths, where you bought a selection box of 20/40 different cards. Mum would spend ages looking through the boxes, but whichever you chose there would always be a couple of really naff kitten-looking-at-a-bauble cards and that dismal brown-tinted sheep-in-the-snow painting. Everywhere now sells a couple of designs only in a pack. Also whatever happened to:

Paper chain garlands, like a honeycomb that stretched out and you pinned to the ceiling

foil garlands - the expensive version of the paper ones

matt wrapping paper by the sheet, usually with the print a little off-centre on each colour. Up until a few years ago I bought this from the local cheap market, and used it to differentiate Father Christmas presents.

Peanuts and cashews in ring pull cans (usually given as gifts - whoopee! )

Christmas tree lights shaped like Victorian lanterns

Christmas may have been tacky back then but it seemed cosier when everything was less "tasteful" :)

[YourCallIsImportant]

Advent calendars that didn't have any chocolate in them.

[iklboo]

Foil garlands - £1 shop is your friend for these!
Peanuts & cashews in cans - Lidl/Aldi
Christmas tree lights like Victorian lanterns - Wilkinsons

What happened to soda syphons? We always used to get one at Christmas!

[CointreauVersial]

You can still get those cheap card selection boxes - DH came home with some last year that were so ghastly I refused to send them to anyone I knew; I told him he could use them up on his mates.

Also, remember those crepe paper snowflakes that came flat and opened up like a giant concertina?

Lametta on the tree (we would still be finding strings of it down the back of the sofa in June).

Christmas lights that didn't flash - they were just....on. And they came with a weird bayonet fitting so you had to power them from a lamp base.

I definitely remember the cheapo Christmas wrap from the market - you had to use about 6 layers because it was so thin!

[TheReturnoftheSmartArse]

I saw some choccie-less,old-fashioned advent calendars in a fancy gift shop last week - £9.95 each! No wonder people buy the Disney chocolate ones for so much less.

And I still have some Christmas tree lights shaped like Victorian lanterns, I'll have you know!

[housemum]

Oohh, I'd forgotten lametta! And the angel at the top of our tree was one of those honeycomb ones, her skirt folded out and clipped together.

Food wise, mum always got a box of Mon Cheri chocolate coated cherries in brandy. There was sometimes a bottle of Advocaat for a Snowball (left untouched for 11 months of the year and thrown out next Christmas when it was all crusty at the top). Turkish Delight in little wooden boxes. Boxes of candied orange and lemon slices.

We buy a non-chocolate advent calendar from our local church each year - the girls often forget to open it, but never forget the chocolate one from grandma! When I was a child, and I hope I'm not the only one, I had the same advent calendar every year, carefully closing the doors when it was put away. Don't know whatever happened to it, must have been lost somewhere along the line but a shame because I still remember where some of the pictures were!

Whatever was a soda syphon actually for? I remember seeing adverts for them, and they looked all sophisticated to me, but do they just put bubbles in water?

[ScroteyMcBoogerBaubles]

I've searched all over for the 6 twiglet selection pack. They weren't nice but there was twigs, pretzel shaped, small oblong ones that tasted of nothing, round ones with green bits that tasted herby, and two others possibly triangles.
I just wanted them for nostalgias sake but they're probably deemed TOO tasteless now.

[housemum]

Cheese footballs! They took of the roof of your mouth, first with the scratchy wafer then with the chemical weapon inside that masqueraded as cheese - what a gift

[SomekindofSpanish]

Brandy snaps and chocolate liquers (sp?) in the shape of bottles.

Do they still sell those hampers that used to be in the back of catalogues? All sort of non-branded tins, biscutis, chocolate, alcohol in them .

I bought gold lametta last year - Homebase still sell it.

[StealthPenguin]

I still have a box full of old foil decorations that I absolutely adore - my nan passed them on to me as she couldn't hang them any more! Things like Christmas Stars and Trees that folded out to become three-dimensional and then you'd pin them together :o Used to have them dangling from the ceiling!

[Bluebell99]

I saw cheesy footballs yesterday in waitrose. I think they are having a bit of a retro come back.

[pigleychez]

My mum and Nan used to save up throughout the year and get a big hamper delivered before xmas with tons of tins of all sorts. I used to love rummaging through them and trying to work out what they all were!

[Sidge]

Gosh I remember all of those!

We had a The Naffest Tree at Christmas - squillions of coloured lights, lots of lametta, angel hair, baubles and a honeycomb angel. But everything was red, green and gold. None of this modern silver and purple malarkey.

We always had a cardboard tray of figs, and cashew nuts in the ringpull tin, which someone always managed to nearly sever an artery on.

We had loads of decs hanging from the ceiling, like paper lanterns, dangly sparkly things and those honeycomb fold-around decs. Decorating the tree alone just wasn't enough!

We drank Soda Stream mixes, and the adults had Amaretto, Cinzano or Bacardi. We nibbled on those disgusting cheesy footballs and Bombay mix. Wrapping paper had patterns on but no commercial characters.

[GypsyMoth]

Selection boxes were always stocking shaped with netting over the front!! Think you can still get those

[moomoo1967]

Brandy Snaps - you can get these in Lidl or Iceland

Hampers - I bought one a couple of years ago from Littlewoods.com and I still had stuff I never used from it

Cheesy footballs - Iceland my DD loves them

[suzikettles]

I remember those boxes of cards. I'd spend hours when I was Primary School age ranking the cards in order of attractiveness, then ranking my class in order of friendship, and then matching the cards. Favoured friends got the glittery ones.

I also had a complex system of salutation for the inside ranging from "from suzikettles", reserved for the boys who got the gloomy sheep, to "lots of love suzikettles" (bff only).

[Tillyscoutsmum]

We also had loads of foil decs hanging from the ceiling. I remember the lounge used to look really bare for weeks after the decs came down.

No one ever had a real tree - it was fake all the way.

Does anyone remember the fake snow spray you used to put on windows. We had a load of stencils and spent hours decorating the windows. It never completely came off and my mum would still be scratching off bits of fake snow in March

Christmas "tea" always included tinned salmon (but red salmon instead of the pink stuff used for Sunday teas the rest of the year). There was always trifle and blancmange (which no one except my Grandad used to eat). The adults drank sherry or port & lemon and we were allowed fizzy pop (dandelion & burdock or ice cream soda )

[peanutmakinalistncheckinitwice]

housemum i still have my nativity advent calender from when I was born and we get it out every year

[ginmakesitallok]

My Mum was never a great fan of christmas decorations so one year (must have been about 11) my DB and I raided my grans house and filled our living room with foil decorations hung, selloptaped and bluetacked to every conceivable space - and finished it off with fake snow on the windows. My Mum was livid! Sellotape etc took off chunks of paint, thumb tack holes in her walls and we never did manage to get all the snow off+97././

[nickelbabe]

we've got some of those honeycomb decorations.


I nabbed a couple from my parents, but DH has got a full set - the really big tacky brash-coloured foil ones!
We have to string them diagonally across the living room, and at the top of the stairs.
our house is 70s heaven at christmas! (so so tacky, but DH is rather old, so he doesn't realise, bless him!)

i love it though.

[suzikettles]

We always had melon with a glace cherry on top as a starter for Christmas dinner, except for my dad who doesn't like melon so had an exotic glass of fresh orange juice.

Thirty years on things are far more sophisticated and we have melon with parma ham. Dad just has the parma ham.

[Tillyscoutsmum]

I remember being horribly sick one year (I was about 7) after I snaffled a whole jar of maraschino cherries which had been bought specifically for anyone who wanted to drink Babycham as their Christmas drink

[whyme2]

I think sidge has hit the nail on the head with the colour schemes. Christmas colours were only red, green and gold, not all this modern colour combinations of purple and pink. Pink tinsel! aaarrgh.

Also Christmas trees didn't have a "colour scheme". Instead it was a lovely conglomeration of keepsakes and handmade decorations and possibly working lights if you were lucky

The selection boxes with the net covering - I have only seen them made up for pets nowadays.

[jen127]

what about the crepe paper twisted and pinned from one corner of the ceiling to the other ? We also had hanmade decoration which were egg boxes cut in to little individual bell shapes and covered with tinfoil and hung on the tree with a big piece of wool!
We had the fake snow spray with the templates ! It was fab stuff!
The bottle of Advocat and a few bottle os snowball! Unsure exactly what that was !!
I also loved the telephone call to Father xmas on Xmas eve at 6pm and then coming off the phone and throwing man and child behind me as I tried to get to bed as he was on his way!!

[smileitssunny]

suzikettles is it bad that I still do that with the cards?!

[StealthPenguin]

What about those naff cardboard-and-glitter decorations that you made in school? My nan would display them proudly!