I'm dreaming of a 1970s Xmas

[brizzledrizzle]

A single hazelnut in the bottom of my stocking, chocolate coins,
lovely paisley/flowery ankle length dress to wear on the day,
putting up the tree with glass (!) decorations.

No Whamageddon!

How did you have xmas in the 1970s?

I loved my Tippy Tumbles, never heard anyone else mention her before.

Selection boxes for breakfast, eating Christmas lunch as fast as you could then 'pleasemayIleavethetable' so you could watch Christmas Top of the Pops sorry mum, we did appreciate the lunch really

I remember the baubles that shattered frequently, could never decorate the tree without breaking some.

Yes to the snowball as well. We dreamed of Babycham

Happy days.

We had a tiny tree as we didn't have room for anything else. We called it Twiggy as it was so threadbare. I was so envious of big trees but I now look back and love memories of lying on the floor looking at Twiggy.

Christmas Eve we are gathered at my grandparents house where all the family exchanged presents. This was after all the family had to go to the train station on Christmas Eve to meet my great aunt off the train. She HAD to come on Christmas Eve and we all HAD to meet her, then she would then bicker with my grandparents for the next ten days. We went to my grandparents where my grandmother had made rum truffles (😱), and listened to the '78s, 'Sway', and 'She wears red feathers' .

God I sound so old, which I am now I suppose. I have a lovely Christmas every year with DH and DS. I have my longed for big tree. But there are times when I wish on Christmas Eve I was waiting at the station, going back to a house where everyone was still here, snaffling rum truffle, listening to Guy Mitchell, and waiting for Santa.

Sorry, that was terribly maudlin, in short I always have a lovely Christmas now and how some lovely memories.

Tippy (I always remembered her as Tipsy) Tumbles was a very early 70s thing. She was my Christmas present when I was 4. She had a remote control on a wire, which I suspect was air controlled. She did forward rolls and, I think, wore a striped top.

Another great memory.

The memories on this thread are giving me so much joy!

I must show my dad

Chocolates that tasted of chocolate, Roses, Quality Street etc.
Evil Kenevil stunt bike
Sindy doll
Pippa doll
Teeny Tiny Tears doll
Auntie Edith getting Tipsy on sherry and her teeth falling out.
Chopper bike
Budgie bike....
Lovely memories

1970s were the best Christmases! In fact, I try to re-create them every year with my decorations (a white tree and a silver tree crammed with coloured lights and decorations my parents gave me they no longer use). Traditional advent calendars for the DC. I loved all the tacky stocking fillers (made in Hong Kong, of course!).

I remember walking on cold lino floor and condensation running down the windows. I still remember exactly how I felt when I got my first Tiny Tears and a much longed-for Etch-a-Sketch (and wondering why I couldn’t re-create the house drawing on the box). Good times!

The handbag was the control unit (I say control, I think it had two buttons) for Tippy. Top technology for the time!

Neapolitans were fab, also the plainer Cadbury Dairy milk versions - I always wanted a machine and never had one I may have bought a niece one in the 90's

Parties at people's houses where you take your records - James Last, Bert Kaempfert (not sure about the spelling there).

In the early seventies, I was introduced to the idea of leaving out food and alcoholic drink for Santa. Before that, my non-drinking mum, a lone parent, had not suggested the mince pie and carrot routine. We are always reindeer ready nowadays.

carol singing and spending the proceeds on fish & chips. buying my mum bubble bath from the local chemist. Xmas tree lights shaped like fruits, bananas, grapes, strawberries, how I pine for those lights. Cadbury's chocolate dispensing machines (with the square chocs). A pair of tights stuffed full of presents with a tangerine at the bottom

Just one more Christmas.... , to go back in time..., to live through it all again. I might just start a new thread.

I was born in the middle 60’s so most of my Christmas memories are of 70’s christmases.
We were pretty poor so no tiny tears but a market Knock off version. Mum did pillow cases at the bottom of the bed in which we got pants and socks, a selection box, gloves and maybe a comic.
Mum would knit me some clothes for my knock off doll. One year I got a pippa doll and I thought we must be rich for mum to have managed that. Diner was always a turkey and then you spent everyday until new year eating the left overs.
Boxing Day I was collected by my dad and taken to my grandparents where we would always have roast beef and the men would watch the racing on the tv. My grandad would go to Surrey street market and buy what seemed to be massive Jaffa oranges and he would always peel me one after lunch and when we left he would give me a small bag of chocolate bars from the sweetie cuboard and a bag with a pair of tights in to take home for mum.
We might have been pretty skint, only a black and white tv with 3 channels and no internet but I still remember them fondly.

On TV....
a ‘celebrity’ visit to a Children’s hospital
London Palladium Christmas Special variety show ( With Tiller Girls!)
Black and White Minstrels
James Bond
Billy Smart’s Circus
Morecambe and Wise
Schweppes ssssh you know who advert

Presents....
Selection box
Frustration game, with popomatic dice
Mousetrap game
Guinness book of records
Sindy (with duffel coat)
Pyjama case shaped like a dog
Goya Aqua Manda
Yardley Sea Jade
Avon Topaz

Soap on a rope
Aqua Manda
Leslie Crowther visiting children in hospital
A circus on TV
Lots of ‘posh’ food that we couldn’t afford during the year
Aaaahh those were the days

Sorr, hadn’t read full thread and have doubled up on some!
Presents: Tressy whose hair grew
Spirograph and the art one where you squirted paint into a bowl and switched it on
A board game called Masterpiece
Henry Cooper advertising Brut aftershave

I'm a child of the 80s but some of these ring true for me too. Most particularly the smell as you took the lid off the (enormous) roses or quality street tin. Along with pine needles and mince pies that smell was Christmas for me. Never to be recreated sadly.....

Tippy’s wire went in her ankle IIRC, the plug was a little two-pronged thing.

Does anyone remember the furry worm thing on a bit of fishing line that was supposed to do ‘tricks’? It was called something like Squirble. I remember the ads and my male cousin getting one and being really disappointed. Years later we found a modern equivalent in a gift shop. It was still terrible.

We had a greengrocers shop so got the pick of the trees left on Christmas eve that we would put up after the shop had shut. One year there wad a really cool expensive one with blue green needles left. I was though my parents were .

Oooh 😍 at the stocking shaped / netting selection boxes. I'd completely forgotten them.

Fairy lights were better. Ours were soft, glowy coloured ones and blue Christmas lights were NOT A THING.

One year we had a present of plastercasts / moulds so you could make classic Disney cartoon characters and paint them when they had set. I can still smell that stuff but have no idea what they were called 😶

Shaker Maker! That'll teach me to RTFT.

At school in late 60's/early 70's there was a hidden sixpence in the Christmas pudding tray at lunchtime.

It was wrapped in a tiny envelope of white paper. It was hugely exciting to see who was the lucky person who got it and didn't choke on it.

Health and safety? Pah, not in our day.

If you had a brother or brothers, then Action Man was sure to feature in your 70's Christmas. They kept making new versions of the dolls themselves (Eagle eye, beardy) and lots of combat clothes, tanks, other vehicles, weapons.
Also remember that Mastermind game,? DB and I variously received the traditional version (a few times) the deluxe version and the travel version!

So funny, I was born in '71 so this should be my thread. But I don't remember most of what's been said. The '80s seem to have been my years. Definitely remember Sindy dolls and the Blue Peter advent crown though!

Born in 1973 so the 1970s were when I was a proper child.

The tree was covered in miles of bright coloured tinsel- no-one had ever heard of a decorating theme so anything went. The baubles were much smaller than modern ones and brightly coloured glass with handprinted designs on and the top had a tall glass spire!

My presents were Pippa dolls, tiny tears, Frustration, a pop up tree house, and a Silver Cross dolls pram. My little brother got Weebles, a fisher price clockwork television and a shape sorter.

Christmas dinner was eaten with a bottle of Black Tower and we had coffee in the percolator afterwards.

The 1980s were better though!

Penny Puppy Walker
Etch a sketch
Toy post office
Christmas was the only time we had thick orange and grapefruit juice and kitchen towel
We had one of my dads socks with satsuma and walnuts in
Cherry B, creme de menthe, snowballs (ready made in bottles) advocaat
Family do's with tumblers full of cigarettes on each table

My dad shouting every night just before bed, I can hear him, quick outside and we could see FC and his sleigh flying above our house (I later realised the sleigh and it’s lights were a plane😂).
When we went to get ready for bed, Elves would have left brand new PJs under our pillow.
We’d wake up and run downstairs, it was always freezing, but no one cared.
We all had a pillow case for our present. (yes we were working class, no Stockings for us).

We’d always go and visit my gran in the afternoon for Xmas tea. My favourite present form her was a little doll which you pulled the head and it spoke to you. I think there was a Casper The Clown version too.
I was allowed a SnowBall at Grandmas and sometimes a sherry!

I remember Jelly fruits and figs (which no one ate). Also a bowl of nuts and a nutcracker which provided hours of entertainment!

Great Tv, everyone crammed in to watch Morecome and Wise.
Plus I always remember watching The Little Match Girl. I can still remember how sad it made me feel!