Things your parents led you to think were 'special' or 'expensive' that you now take for granted?

You were lucky getting Clarks sandals! We had to have clumpy Freeman Hardy and Willis copies of clarks in navy blue. [embarassed]

Shoes not bloody schools 😠

I always wanted Jelly Bean summer schools but we HAD to have Clarke's sandals - white ones that needed to be kept white with a sort of paste in a tube.
I longed for other shows and to wear wellies when it wasn't raining. Apparently to do this was abad thing ...it would 'draw' your feet - I have no idea what that meant.
These days you will find me either barefoot or wearing flip flops and other rash articles of footwear

Kitchen towel (I still feel extravagant using it in abandon now!).

The Ferrero Rocher and Walnut whips made me chuckle! Mine would be After Eights! Only at Christmas and strictly rationed to one per sitting! I used to nibble it from the corner and really savour it! I could pr Balt do a whole box in one now given the chance!

So many things, Mum shopped at Kwik Save and everything was the plain white no frills packaging! Branded crisps were a complete luxury, I’m fairly obsessed with wotsits and skips now! (In fact there’s a 12 pack of wotsits in my cupboard now!).

This thread has really made me reminisce and I can clearly see patterns and origins in the things I do/buy and say with my own children now! Someone said it ypthread, my kids don’t know their born!

And her family*

I went to Butlins with my friend and family when I was 13 all the way to Somerset, i was so excited to be going so far away and to Butlins Redcoats getting to stay ourselves in the clubroom at night till 9.30 I was giddy 😂

Jealous!!!

Butlins

I longed to go to Butlins

The power of advertising ☺️

DS bought some After Eights today with his pocket money and had 50p left over.

I remember them being special precious things.

I think I had it easy judging by this thread - a warm house, healthy food, extra-curricular activities, and we had the Radio Times all year round!

We used to get the Radio Times only at Christmas too. And Shloer was only at Xmas too.

Just remembering those delicious tuna paste sandwiches for packed lunch at school, used to dread those.

Must have been similar in France as my French DH would always tell me I couldn't have butter and jam on my baguette it was butter or jam and only on one half. He also used to have holes in all his towels and socks when we met despite coming from a fairly wealthy family. Eventually persuaded him to donate them to the charity shop and put a note in apologising plus lots of good stuff as it was only way could get him to get rid of them.

Has anyone mentioned the radio times? Only at Christmas

I think we had the same 'throat tightening' squash too. Looking back I would say it caused mild asthma. I think it was the preservative.

Variety Advent calendar in our Tesco this morning. Huge stack if them but not near the cereal, on a display at the end of the fresh meat section.
Even person on till didn't know they had them
DH will be happy and all nostalgic when I present him with his on Dec 1st.

I never realised how bad that squash was until we tried the real fruit one then after a while tried the old one - it was just like drinking chemicals and when Mum looked at the ingredients list the number of E numbers in it was horrendous and so it probably was drinking chemicals. Even my Mum agreed it had been terrible.

I think my grandad served that squash Lily. It used to make my throat feel tight. Have never had that with any drink since.

We had the most horrible squash which was basically coloured chemicals. Was very happy when Mum decided my brothers tantrums were due to this squash and got us squash with real juice in it.

We also had the reusing wrapping paper and Mum still has some lovely brown floral patterned wrapping paper from the 70s.

Christmas presents would get bought in Jan sales and kept in the presents drawer.

Lots of things but I remember looking out of the window each week as the 'pop van' rolled up and delivered a crate of pop to the house over the road, desperately wishing we were getting a delivery! We had squash if we were lucky but it was served very weak as it had to last.

KFC gravy, never to be eaten by us children, too expensive for us. Parents had it though. Now I'm like 'two gravy...gravy everywhere'

Naan bread - see above reasons. FML now I have garlic and cheese naan.

Iceland food was off limits but the adverts used to get us kids every time. So much that one of our birthday treats was a dinner made of all foods from Iceland!

I think they were called boasters? Quite big cookie type biscuits, with chocolate chips and big bits of hazelnut, never to touch those

After eights and matchmakers...never!

Forrero Roche ( apologies if I've spelt that wrong but I was never ever allowed to touch these) I remember getting money for a birthday and buying them I was so desperate to try them!

Ours was all food oddly, and now they wonder why me and the siblings are a little overweight when they deprived us of all the good stuff (whilst eating it themselves) and at the first opportunity we had we went out and buy all this crap now.

If you've got smaller kids, reused wrapping paper is really, really good for pass-the-parcel! If you alternate one layer of used wrapping paper, and one layer of newspaper, it also makes it really easy for the kids to distinguish between the different layers (and not try to rip of six layers at once...)

I still always reuse gift bags - why would anyone not? And paper, if it's nice, too.

We didn't have to reuse wrapping paper, but that was as dad had bought thousands of A1 sheets of misprinted florists paper in about 1973 (he tells me this was the second lot, but its always been the same paper to me). Everything was wrapped in that paper - school books, birthday presents, christmas presents. There's still plenty of paper left under the bed!