I’m dreaming of an early 90s Christmas

[jacqattacq]

I’m a child of the 80s (born in 77) so am usually nostalgic for those days at christmas time, but for some reason I’m suddenly craving the christmases of my teens:

Shopping with my mates in the newly opened shopping centre and going for a Burger King (FANCY compared to McDonalds back then because it was a novelty), deliberating over which Body Shop gift basket to buy my mum - white musk, dewberry or go rogue and get ananya?

Will my BFF buy me Tribe perfume for Christmas or a Purple Ronnie mug? When is the One Foot in the Grave Christmas special on? Will my dad let me have some Babycham? (Still a thing in the 90s) Can I convince my mum to put up the tacky foil garland decorations instead of all the new Victorian themed stuff that she bought last year when she decided it was all too dated?

Will the sound of christmas morning be a Now album or the Smash Hits compilation? There’s bound to be one of those in my stocking. And will my festive makeup look be created with Miners eyeshadow or the lurid M&S palette that everyone had back then? (Heather Shimmer lipsticks was non negotiable).

@PorpentinaScamander my DH always talks about Blackbushe market. I had Ford Market when I was growing up. Hooky "Tommy" vest tops and getting your ears pierced in the middle of a field. Haha

I remember having crushed velvet everything - dresses, trousers and a blazer. Another one who wore the floppy blossom hat indoors all the time and my Dad kept at me to take it off. And bodies, always too sodding short and trying to do the poppers up was impossible.
I loathed dewberry though, it made me feel ill. I liked white musk. And heather shimmer lipstick, I refuse to quite believe it went out of fashion. Sad day.

www.superdrug.com/Rimmel/Rimmel-Lasting-Finish-Lipstick-Heather-Shimmer-66/p/223275

You can still buy it!

i went to the mashut poll winners party twice! was great fun pip schofield being launched at by carter was hilarious

I remember wearing a crushed blue velvet reversible bomber jacket, black velvet jeans and a blue satin shirt stinking of colours by Benetton with my spiral perm and straight fringe!
I'd still wear they jeans!!

Born '78
I remember the year I got a tape deck from boots and the Now from Our Price :) unfortunately it wAs the same side in both bits! I was gutted and that was when shops were closed over the Xmas period so I had to wait to change it :(
I liked the lemonheads and the levellers as a teen :)

1975 baby here and I'm nostalgic for early 90s today too. I still loved Christmas and did more of the adult stuff but enjoyed it because the pressure wasn't all on me unlike now that I'm the mum and the host.

I loved decorating the house and faffed for hours making it look right. I did lots of baking, cakes mince pies etc but didn't have to worry about the main dinners. Only bought presents for a few people but enjoyed wrapping and shopping for them.

Actually had 2 weeks off rather than 2 days so had time for relaxing and daydreaming!

Now I know why my mum found it all so stressful, so much to do, so little time....

Watching the Madonna blonde ambition tour shown on Christmas Eve on bbc 2 and the smash hits poll winners party was always on around Christmas

Born '78. Age 14, Sat in my shell tracksuit on our dark green velour sofas being given my rave '92 double cassette tape as my present.

The highlight of Xmas 93 was take that in a children’s hospital on live and kicking.

Every Christmas in the 90s I would save Christmas NME and melody maker and spend the day reading them from cover to cover on the sofa - albums of the year, readers poll,review of the year
Noel's Christmas presents, EastEnders having depressing sad Christmas Day episodes
Excitement at Christmas no 1

They couldn’t work out how to get into them. Like a stretchy Lycra chastity belt.

That's so true.

I'm going to be in my ridiculously baggy striped jumper from either Benetton or The Sweater Shop, depending on how flush my boyfriend is feeling. And some ski pants.

With some socks from the Sock Shop.

Once, I got a bottle of Giorgio Beverley Hills perfume, I lathered it in over my Benetton rugby shirt and thought that Phil Oakey would spot me dancing in Victoria's and sack one of the backing singers off for me.

And I'll be hoping for some enormous earrings. No self respecting young woman left the house without earrings that reached her shoulders in the early nineties.

Probably around 1996, I was really excited to get my new Beautiful South album on cassette, and put it on the big black stereo in the lounge to play... Oh how mortified I was to discover in front of my mum that there was a different version of Don't Marry Her

I had a floppy velvet hat that I wore everywhere and kickers for school and DM boots for the weekends. I used to wear heather shimmer lipstick and had those french connection T Shirts that said ‘FCUK’ on them and thought I was one heck of a rebel 😂 I used to put tiny weeny clips in my hair and wear an awful lot of glittery make up. I had nail varnish in literally every colour and had hair mascara. My boyfriend in the Lower 6th got me the all saints CD and a forever friends teddy and I got him some Calvin Klein Eternity spray.

This thread has inspired me to play that Freiheit song

God I miss the 90s! Xmas shopping was of course all at the local shopping centre - socks and a tie for Dad from The Sock Shop and Tierack, a nice pair of earrings for Mum from H Samuel, some tat for my brothers from The Gadget Shop. All my paper and cards from Woolworths. Classic!

And Xmas TV! Noel Edmonds House party, Generation Game etc.

One of my highlight presents was a Walkman. It reversed the tape without having to take it out and turn it over. It had a radio too. It was well swanky.

Not sure of the year. 1990 maybe. Possibly 1991.

Also did hair knots, ‘baby doll’ dresses and docs. Don’t recall a crushed velvet dress, think I might have had a long velvet skirt though. 🤭

WHY WHY WHY have ALL of you neglected to mention the utter Christmas highlight that was the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party, truly the signal Christmas had begun!
Don’t actually recall it as a Christmas thing! Certainly recall the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party, just not a Christmas thing!

1996-swanning downstairs in my daisy baby doll dress, Calvin Klein jean jacket and trailing fumes of Tommy Girl behind me.

I think I’m going to wear my crushed velvet body with cut off jeans and stripey tights with DM’s of course. Hair flowers and LouLou for a night out. My bedroom reeks of joss sticks and patchouli oil. When I’m out in the pubs I’m wearing a fur coat and a tiara because of my great admiration for Courtney Love. I also wear granny dresses from Oxfam with stripey tights and boots because I’m a riot grrrrl innit.

It’s all SO familiar reading this thread. 80s baby here. Dewberry was ‘my’ scent and my sister was white musk. Charlie silver was an exciting new scent when it came out too, but not as nice as Charlie Red. I bought some a while ago for nostalgia. I felt ‘Exclamation’ was very ‘me’ too, along with my heather lipstick and blue hair mascara. I always had some exclamation in my backpack and wore one of those awful coat-hoody things that everyone wore. Can’t remember who mine was by, it was cream and blue. White eyeliner was a thing for one of my best friends - it looked weird to be honest. We liked our white shimmer eyeshadow though as we could just about get away with that at school without being told off.

For me Backstreet Boys was my music but I was a mid-eighties baby so it was mid-nineties by the time I was getting into music and inherited my sister’s walkman and many of her tapes. Sonya, Salt n Pepper, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion....what a collection!