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).

I haven't rtft but I'd love a 90s xmas. With my mum, pre alcoholic and pre schizophrenic where she loved the Body Shop and Boots make up. God i miss her.

My dad always made our living room look like a grotto and was always so happy he got 2 weeks off work. It was so relaxed and we were all giddy for xmas.

Those tops with the poppers were the worst for going to the loo but the BEST when boys were trying to feel you up but you didn’t want them too. They couldn’t work out how to get into them. Like a stretchy Lycra chastity belt.

I don't know. I was wearing (a crushed velvet) one the first time I decided I was ok with my boyfriend feeling up my boobs. It was all very enjoyable until he started trying to get his hand up my top and I realised that he'd have to round third in order to get back to second. That was a total panic!

Oh this totally, such a high-wire defense strategy!

I was born in the mid 60s so my intense teen memories are more lat 70s/early 80s. Going to the pub with mates on Christmas Eve wearing my brown fake suede dress with the fringed sleeves and white pixie boots with little crystals on them. (The dress was sort of Adam and the Ants influenced and if you wore something like that today you would be getting clobbered all round the pub for 'cultural appropriation') Always getting albums for Christmas (War of The Worlds, Michael Schenker Group, Rainbow...) My grandad ran a chemists' shop and I worked there on Saturdays, so my make up and perfume were always Outdoor Girl or Coty or Yardley as those were the main brands he stocked (I remember feeling terribly disloyal when I bought a Miners eyeliner in Boots once.)

This year is my first Christmas in my new house so I've gone all 70s/80s retro and decorated it with crepe paper streamers twisted across the ceiling, tissue paper hanging snowflakes and loads of tinsel. Tackytastic but I'm loving it!

I was late teens during the mid 90s - I remember going to my in laws on Boxing Day dressed in tartan. Thought I looked the bees knees!

Love this thread - thank you all! I can't believe I had forgotten about the existence of bath pearls!

I am a 76 baby and a White Musk girl (my best friend was Dewberry). I love Heather Shimmer, floral slip dresses and jewellery from Argos. I also have eleventy billion nail varnishes.

There are still things on this thread I do at Christmas - Toffifee and highlighting the Radio Times being the standout ones!

After dinner I settle down to watch the Top of the Pops special and eat my Chocolate Orange.

And they tasted so much nicer then!

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!

Oh yes! And the Smash Hits annual was under the tree.

In the late eighties, Susan Chalmers in my biology class got a carriage clock as her main present.

Wtf was that all about?

Pot porri was a big thing then, as was buying candles at Wax Lyrical. Bedroom decor was either sunflowers (yellow walls) or sun and moon from Staks. Might abandon the Christmas shopping and read The Face in the Canadian Muffin shop.

I was born in 1975. I miss the 90's music, food and high street so much it hurts.

I really miss being a young teenager at Christmas!

All the kiddy fun and excitement of opening your presents, but you might also be allowed a glass of bubbly (well, maybe Lambrusco).

And not having to cook! The bliss! I remember watching TOTP in the evening and ordering asking my mum to make me a Christmas sandwich.

This thread has made me so happy.

On Christmas Day I 'm trying to decide whether to wear my new black watch tartan pinafore mini dress with ribbed white top underneath, black tights and clumpy black platforms or my massively baggy jeans with cropped top.

Blue hair mascara because I'm a rebel and I'm already looking forward to going back to school so I can show off my new pair of genuine Kickers (evidenced by the one red, one green sole) and my new Naf Naf rucksack.

My best friend has bought me a Friendship necklace (silver heart that splits in half with "best Friends" above 2 forever friends bears) so we can wear half each.

My dad is chuffed with his Thornton's Toffee and my mum with her bottle of Fenjal shower creme (I'm so good at buying gifts!)
Boxing day is the annual family christmas party at my Auntie and Uncles house with all of my cousins (I'm going to wear my new Sweater Shop jumper to make them all jealous)

Oh and I also a new duvet cover set that is Dark Blue with gold Suns and Moons on it. It's wicked!

I still have a Heather Shimmer lipstick

Hmmm...
Some nostalgia for me. Maybe it was different being a boy - or more likely living abroad in the early 90s.

Born '80. By the 90s, xmas prezzies was all Sony Discman playing Nirvana, Metallica Black Album, Pearl Jam, Skid Row, Soundgarden; mixed in with Reebok Pumps / Nike Air Max/Jordan; and +ahem+ Casio G-shock watches.

TV - well, aboard and utterly unmemorable.

Born 1978, I remember drenching myself in Exclamation or white musk and trying on heather feather lipstick in Woolworths. Wearing crushed velvet leggings and platform shoes or velvet purple wallaby shoes or palladiums. Getting a Saga Megadrive for Christmas and playing Sonic the Hedgehog. Getting a Dina Caroll and Mariah Carey tape for my sony walkman. I also remember wearing half bangles on the tops of my arms.
Receiving phone calls (not texts!) from family members such as my grandparents on Christmas morning and telling them excitedly about what I'd got and thanking them for the presents they'd given me! I love the idea of going back to not having social media where people are posting their xmas day on Facebook the minute they open their eyes rather than just embracing the moments with their family!

Oh Sweater Shop

This thread is brilliant. Am I the only one with this Jingle stuck in my head?
Ex-clam-a-tion... make a statement...without saying a word...

I wonder if Santa will get me a new scrunchie?

I feel nostalgic for the feeling more than the things.

Back then, not nearly as many places (supermarkets etc) sold toys so getting toys was always more exciting. To get a Cabbage Patch Kid doll you had to go to a proper toyshop, you wouldn't pick one up in your local superstore alongside the milk.

Also the decorations were better back then. Unashamedly tacky but nobody knew it. White lights were occasionally seen but they were usually upper-class or older people. Coloured lights, paper chains, those concertina paper decorations, tinsel (coloured of course and somehow nicer, it was finer grade than today's), glass NOT plastic baubles were all the rage in the late 70's and 80's (and the early part of the 90s).

We had Pifco "Cinderella's Carriages" fairy lights. My gosh, the colours. I know you can still get them on auction sites for £102020,4020,201.79 but it's not the same as having them everywhere. Modern coloured lights are not the same.

I remember being allowed to eat CHOCOLATE BEFORE BREAKFAST on one memorable Christmas.

Things were somehow simpler but more exciting, mainly because life was a bit more humdrum compared to today's dazzling excess- fairy lights all year round if you want, the latest movies online instead of waiting for "the big Christmas Day film" on TV (usually Mary Poppins or Star Wars or Indiana Jones or something like that) - so when Christmas happened, it really felt special.

Also my parents worked hard and didn't really treat themselves like modern parents do, it's hard to explain but basically a takeaway was big news. Getting a new lawnmower was big news. Getting a new sofa was big news. So at Christmas with all the food, treats, and presents it felt amazing for two days (Christmas and Boxing Day).

Totally agree, SundayGirls. We had less, so it all meant more.

JemSynergy....is totally forgotten about Dina Caroll !!! Her big Christmas tune .

m.youtube.com/watch?v=DL_M55BjuAA

adidas outfit.so blue adidas jumper with matching bottom and then adidas puffa coat! oh kill me now.
miss selfridge.
beanie babies.
blow up chairs or beanbag huge chairs.
Nintendo 64
"heyyyy macarana"
will a be getting a Walkman
destinys child cds or Britney
sweaters tied around the waist
wanting Rachel greens hair.
the movies on tv TitanicHome Alone, Space Jam, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Saving Private Ryan, Mrs. Doubtfire, Mission: Impossible, Men In Black, Independence Day, and oh yeah, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Thanks nineties
less guilt around food and fun.
velvet tops.skirts,everything

My early 90s Christmas was getting ready to get married😂💞😂💝

I agree SundayGirls, it was the feeling not the stuff that we miss. I know that I could pop into my local seaside town and - almost - think I’m back in the nineties again. I could buy a load of crap make up, animal soaps and bath pearls in Poundland. I could even stock up on nineties CDs in there too! The food mentioned can all still be bought, and if we ate it now would find it bland compared to what we’re used to... I mean who would have a bowl of nuts in their shells when you can pick up a tub of Heston salted caramel and Chipotle flavoured cashews? Why would we now want to drink Southern Comfort and lemonade when you can buy gin that changes colour?! We’re so blinded by excess and luxury today, and so easily bored because we’ve forgotten the art of being bored, that we all seem to have lost the feeling of pure joy that comes from having less. I frequently find myself nostalgic for a time when life was simpler and small things were appreciated more. There must be a lesson in this somewhere!

Was only born in 88 but i have older sisters and by 2000 they had pretty much left home the 90s were the best us all together and my late grandad who was probably the best person I've ever met. Aww the 90s :-(

Christmas 1996 I would have been wearing an ankle-length satin skirt with big faded flowers and a frayed hem, teamed with either a body or a huge cricket jumper, a vintage Levi’s denim jacket, and 16-hole DMs. I also had much velvet: a Zara green velvet blazer, a huge velvet sack I used as a school bag, and a black velour skater dress.

A couple of years later I had moved onto “utility chic”: sporty combats, chunky trainers, tops with shiny reflective panels, and my hair either in Bjork knots or clipped back with lots of mini plastic butterfly claw clips.

A couple of years later again (c.1999/2000) it was back to velvet and cords, this time in the form of absolutely vast coloured corduroy hipster flares.

We spent a long time preening and getting ready, yet I still feel there was so much less pressure on us then than now in terms of grooming.