Charming old traditions

[esterwin]

I have been talking to my Aunt today and we have been having a nostalgiafest about the past. Remembering fetes, maypole dancing and being given a piece of hot cross bun at church on Easter Sunday.
Does anyone have charming old traditions from their childhood that have either died out or are far less common these days?

Carnival with floats that the whole community joined in with.

Country dancing at school.

May Queen

I live near a village that does the scarecrow thing. Love it!
I'm not in Wales though

I loved going to church and getting the Christingle orange. I don't know if this orange is still a thing?
I also loved the school harvest festival and decorating a basket with all colours of crepe paper, filling with fruit and handing the baskets out to the local elderly people.
Decorating the Christmas cake was also a favourite thing to do. Adding the plastic reindeer and sledding children to the top.

Yes to new babies being given silver coins.
It was normal when I was a child, and also when I had my own babies.In the days when it was safe to leave a baby outside a shop in the pram I would come out of the shop to find a pile of silver coins inside the pram, my two sons were great little earners in their first few weeks!.
Also the christening pieces.My MIL was great on these.On their christening day she would make up a small parcel consisting of a piece of cake and of course the obligatory silver coin.In those days we carried the baby to church to be baptised and the christening piece was given to the first person of the opposite gender to the baby on the way to church, it was suppose to bring good luck to that person.

Gift for someone's new house, a champagne cork with a silver coin stuck in it, wishing them health wealth and happiness. They should keep it in a drawer to keep the wish active.

Pace eggs, that's eggs hard- boiled with onion skins then rubbed with a little olive oil to enhance the mottled patina, made at easter time.

Putting a 'silver' coin in a baby's pram out of its reach.

Silver old threppeny bit in the Xmas pud.

Bringing bread and salt to a new home, that there should always be food and welcome.

Jewish tradition is to give a child alphabet cookies when they start school, because learning is sweet.

I loved going to church and getting the Christingle orange. I don't know if this orange is still a thing?

It is here. The kids walk from school to the local church for a Christine service and parents are invited. Dd2 set fire to her hair when she was in reception (thankfully this was put out very quickly by her wonderful TA and no major harm was done beyond a dreadful smell and an interesting hair do for a few months - they use battery candles for the younger dc now).

I thought of another one - carol singing around people's doors at Christmas.

@spied lots of churches still do christingle.

We resurrected a whit walk in our village recently.

When I was growing up in Cornwall we started up a tradition that had been lost around the war years that on may day a boat was taken through the villages, with people dancing behind it, and then put out to sea.

There's been a revival of interest in wassailing, I think - well, I don't know if it ever died out altogether, probably not. But in my inner London borough, fruit trees in community orchards are wassailed every year.

When someone got married we would all gather outside the church as children and the groom and best man would throw coins onto the ground, it was called a scramble.

Yes to the village show, we still have exactly that, the primary school lead up week is making the entires for children's classes.

Knock down ginger.

I believe public hanging was a popular event some time ago...
... and in France the only way you could get a Traditional Breton jumper knitted quickly was if there were a sufficient number of people being guillotined.

Our local brass band used to go door to door through the nearby villages in December and play a carol or two. It was a huge fundraiser for them and really special for those who answered the door.

@iklboo

Yes to Bonfire Night. All the dads would build a big 'bonny' on the waste ground (croft). The mums would make treacle toffee, toffee apples, tater ash & jacket potatoes. Each house would buy a box of fireworks and we'd all gather together for a community display.

We still do this on my mums street as we have a big field at the end of it.

Nothing dangerous on there. I think the young lads who organised it have all done penny for the guy, got their pounds and built a sort of fire guard around the fire with trolleys from the aldi.

Aldi probably are not pleased but I think they are being responsible in a way. I mean they are going to do it anyway so at least they are attempting to put their own health and safety in place which is nice.

Penny for the guy.

Some one with dark hair bringing coal and bread into a house just after midnight at New Year.

I was often given "luck money" at the local agricultural sales, forty or so years ago.

Sixpence put into the Christmas pudding, I used to secretly add it to the youngest child's bowl.

Showing wedding gifts. For the benefit of ladies too genteel to join the bride-to-be on her hen night, mother of the bride would host an evening where her daughter would display all the gifts she and the groom had been given (customary then in Scotland to send a gift on receipt of the wedding invitation around six weeks before the big day).

The bride-to-be described each gift and stated who it was from ("and this lovely toaster is from Aunty Margaret"), offering grateful thanks for each item.
Then tea, maybe a small sherry, sandwiches and cake.

Petty shoplifting. Sorry

Basic good manners, such as please and thank you.
Writing thank you letter for presents (including wedding presents).
Holding doors open.
Responding to invitations in good time.
Introducing people, who have not met before, in a polite manner, younger to older and including some information about each to facilitate initial conversation.
Speaking clearly.

Gala Day - like a May Day with a queen and races and the shows (fair) and a bit of working class edge. Still going strong all over Scotland.

Silver for the baby - my mum was dirt poor when she had me and still talks about getting me all dressed up in my best frock to go out hoping the auld yins would give me some silver. Not as common, but I've been known to do it.

A scramble for pennies at a wedding - that one has died a death though.

@Kathunk - no we're just outside Manchester. This is Ziggy Scaredust from this year.

Classica
isn't this called hanseling?

My grandma had barely two pennies to rub together but she left each of us grandchildren £5 each (in coins) in a well sellotaped envelope with Hansel written across it ❤

When I was a kid in the 1940s all the local children would dress up and form a May Procession and go around the houses collecting. We would share out the money and spend it on sweets and crisps.

Another tradition was "penny for the guy" when we would take around a dummy in a pram and collect money for fireworks.

Having a dark haired man out on New Years Eve to knock on your door to "let the New Year in". They would carry a coin and a lump of coal to symbolize that you would have money and fuel for the coming year. You would greet him with a glass of whisky or strong drink and all kiss one another.

Yes, loved the village shows...bash the rat...three legged races in the rectory garden etc. Around age 12, a friend and I both had baby siblings. We'd kindly volunteer to push them round the show...then whizz them off to the Bonny Baby competition, pop them on a blanket to be judged and hopefully earn a bit of spending money! Ghastly idea of course, I wonder when that tradition died out?