What does a WORKING class Christmas look like

[KateBain]

Inspired by the thread about middle class Christmases...

Come on - apart from those who aren't able to afford much at all this Christmas there's nowt much between working and middle classes at Christmas.

My DGM was wc. Cooking from early doors. No pub in the village and DGF and their children v helpful us grandchildren less so. Mismatched chairs and too few plates at times. Open house for lonely neighbours or people who couldn't get back to their own countries. More to drink than usual. Midnight mass the day before, Queen's speech.

I still have the mismatched chairs. I still invite elderly neighbours in.

But presents are spread throughout the day so no one gets overloaded - at my DGMs we opened them in the afternoon but it wasn't a thing. Christmas stockings for children but nowt for anyone else until after Queen's speech. It was also a time when no one splashed the cash.

I think it's much more family traditions than class.

It’s a weird split between nasty and nostalgia… I’m enjoying the reminiscing though!

Is there really a difference between WC Christmas and MC except MC has more money for gifts? 🤔

That's what I think too. Our family tends to live within their means.

Up at 4am, rip through opening some amazing non wooden presents, then eat a selection box for breakfast while parents sleep on the sofa or go back to bed.

I'm solidly working class but married someone a bit more middle class so now we have eggs Benedict for breakfast. In my heart I'd still rather be eating a chomp and a curly wurly.

Also, a working class Christmas should feature a feast in the evening of cocktail sausages, a random assortment of cheese from a Tesco Christmas cheeseboard and various jars of pickles. Especially pickled onions. This is eaten around the time the MC families are probably just sitting down for dinner around 7.30 pm

1940s/50s. Pillowcase full of presents at the end of the bed. One big main present. My DM had five brothers and sisters who took it in turns to host three days over Christmas.

If not our turn, arrived Christmas Eve to a big buffet. Christmas Day, women cooked Christmas lunch for children and men and then men cooked it for the women. Bedtime meant as many children who could fit into a bed - top to tail, people brought mattresses which were laid down all round the house.

Drank Babycham, if old enough, played cards, music, danced, played games, charades etc. My DM never drank alcohol and I member once she was given a a Tom Collins cocktail (gin, lemon juice and soda) which she assumed was non alcoholic, after which she collapsed back in her sear with a handkerchief over her face and announced herself to be positively possed. 😃

We got up the next morning, and repeat. Happy days.

Don't want to turn this into a Monty Python sketch but I would in no way consider someone who had a mortgage as working class. Strapped for cash and lacking disposable income yes but not WC. Owning your home was the biggest signifier of transition into the aspirational middle class in 80s Thatcherite Britain.

Same. Like every Sunday!

Ahh this made me very nostalgic for my early 80s Christmases before my mum and dad became more successful 💖
All as above, but my happiest memories were my pretty pissed grandad, who was normally quite grumpy, sat all animated in his wonky paper crown trying to encourage us all to become jockeys (loved horse racing).
And the big metal tin of quality street 😍 we never had anything like that the rest of the year, and always had to save my mum the Big Purple Ones.
And my dad hiding 4 x 20p's in the Christmas pudding for us kids.
And being allowed all the pigs in blankets I could get my sticky hands on, as I wouldn't be allowed any more for another 364 days 😁

For what? Having a sense of humour? Odd you’d report this but not OPs obviously goady thread

ODFOD

There's nowt goady about my thread. The responses on the MC were unintentionally amusing. I thought us WC could be more authentic.

Wish I'd seen the first deleted post but I was having my tea on a tray on my knees whilst watching the Generation Game.

perfect 😆

I think the truth hurts. I know many working class people that are in that situation actually. I can't help it if that is mainly true and people are offended.

You think working class means no mortgage?

Not always. A lot of the mc people I know are skint; mortgaged to the hilt and cars on finance to keep up with the Jones’. It’s pretty sad, actually. Holidays on the credit card or sending them into the overdraft because heaven forbid anyone should assume they aren’t doing well.

I know many financially comfortable wc people, DH and I included. We are still wc despite our lifestyle.

Oh God, really? MN...where the working classes don't have mortgages and all the middle classes go skiing after Christmas? 🤣

Minus the breakfast lager that was us as children. I find some threads on here about when to open presents hilarious. Some peoples lives sound bloody miserable with their inability to just relax.
Only pregnant women got a seat to themselves in my nanas on Christmas Day as it was too busy (there was always at least one woman pregnant). Everyone else had to share a chair

And none of this staying in your PJs all day. My mum would've considered it "common."

Don't be daft. It's a good humoured one but please feel free to hit the hide thread button.

If some of the comments are what you consider good humoured, you have a peculiar sense of humour.

Mortgages aren't the preserve of the MC you know. My grandparents really were and are solidly working class and they had a mortgage in the 70s and possibly 80s. Grandad worked a skilled but still WC job and they had a good lifestyle.

In my heart I'd still rather be eating a chomp and a curly wurly

Me too 🙂

Do people really do this ? My parents would never have allowed this , no one ever considered not getting dressed . My kids always got dressed too .

Those WC can afford frivolous plastic gifts living in their local authority homes unlike the poor responsible MC people paying a big MORTGAGE.
🙄

Don't want to turn this into a Monty Python sketch but I would in no way consider someone who had a mortgage as working class

Disagree. My parents bought their council house (1970s). All my aunties and uncles had mortgages after a period of renting. Back then the WC could afford mortgages. As they can now actually if you don't believe everything you read on MN.

I’m enjoying these threads. They’re nostalgic and feel good. I’m (according to WC DH) upper MC, and my christmases are and always have been a blissful mix of both stereotypes.