It’s Christmas Eve in the last 80’s, tell me about your day..

[TheChristmasElf]

I wanted to do this on Christmas Eve but don’t think I’ll be doing much Mumsnetting so thought I’d bring it forward.

I, like a lot of other think about the Christmas’s of our childhood, the ones without the Elf and Christmas Eve boxes, where decorations weren’t carefully curated and while everything was so much simpler still felt like pure magic.

Tell me about your childhood Christmas Eve, your traditions, the food, & of course the memories, I’ll start.

Its 1989 I’m 10, I’m the eldest of 3 siblings and still a believer but on the cusp, I feel a little sad as know there is something about getting older that the magic of Santa fading.

i wake on Christmas Eve and decide to go on special road trip with my Dad we get the the bus to Waverley station to pick up the box of presents from the RM train, the box seems enormous and the wait back home long.

We are allowed to take the presents out of the box and put hems round the tree and of course one feel of each. Harry Secombe Christmas vinyl is playing, there is the smell of fresh coffee and orange and cinnamon potpourri that my mum makes every year.
There is a bowl of nuts on the table wire the silver nut cracker sitting on the top…I love the tradition of the bowl coming out but much prefer the quality street tin.

I am restless, and no the night won’t bring any sleep so Christmas morning seems years away, I watch the BBC film, the smell of Christmas prep coming from the kitchen.

Im excited for the evening my Aunty, Uncle and cousins come and we get a Chinese, we have one once a year and it’s part of of our Christmas…

My mum is out the bath a covering herself in opium talk, getting ready for our guests, the night is coming alive, candles are lit, beer opened, there are Carols on and the Chinese menu is getting passed around, an orange and black toastie machine is put on the table, it keeps ehe the dishes warm, like a big hot plate, everyone is merry.

We hang out stockings (my dads kilt socks) and pick a pillow case, mine is the Victoria Plum one, we write Santa a letter and lay out the usual whisky, carrot and mince meat pies and then it’s up to bed.

I can’t sleep but hide under the covers as not ready to question what the noises are, very happy being on the cusp and I read Alison Uttley’s Christmas short stories to the small hours.

Tell me yours

Oooh yes, how could I forget the Advent Calendars? Three of them, all nativity scenes. Characters feature in my head as reminiscent of Mabel Lucie Attwell but I don't know how accurate that is. There was also a Mr Greedy one, a radical departure for us, which didn't have a crib scene on 24.

Get dressed up for the lunchtime Xmas party at my dad's work. There will be a spread including pringles, mince pies, wotsits, pineapple and cheese on a stick etc. The boss will let everyone go early because it's Xmas eve an then we head off in the car to drive up to gran's (and sit in the inevitable jams) and tea at a happy eater on the way.

Christmas 1989 I was 14 I'd lost my dad in the April. Me and mum Christmas shopping in town, Woolworth's !! My older brothers tear away friend seeing us waiting at the bus stop freezing cold, stopping to pick us up and whizzing us through town in his old banger with all the Christmas lights to home. Loved the 80's!!

my granny used to clamp me between her knees so she could put my curlers in for me.

How can people remember this stuff?

Because it was epic in the 1980s!

1988 2 year old and a tiny baby who cried non stop but managed to invite pil for Christmas on the understanding it would be chaos still managed a real tree and Christmas dinner. Probably the first stocking since I was a child and the start of the sherry and mince pie routine. Later we added a christingle service everyone dressed as Mary or a king or shepherd and of course silence at 3pm when carols from kings heralds the start of Christmas.

MrsThimbles

my granny used to clamp me between her knees so she could put my curlers in for me.

Min used to do that to brush my sisters' hair and to cut it for them.

On high alert, treading a line wondering what I’ll do today to receive the beating my ‘mother’ will likely hand out, she is quite good now and knowing where to hit which doesn’t leave bruises, social services now have my brother in care, hoping to get through the holidays back to the safety of school and some food. But weirdly will receive lots of presents, must show extreme gratitude.

Sad but true on the plus side she taught me how to be a good mother, just do the opposite of what she did. Christmas is now lovely and safe.

A lot of them fade into one now but from the 80s I remember those paper decorations that you’d stretch around the rooms- they sort of concertina’d out. Also Christmas tree chocolates that don’t seem to exist as much anymore. If the tree lights didn’t work you had to randomly change bulbs until they did as they were all on a single circuit. Got a Pac-Man game console and a BBC computer one year with a tape drive you loaded the games with. Also one of those reversible padded Disney jumpers. I used to steal after eights and leave the wrappers to disguise my crimes. We got coke and lemonade that we literally never got any other time if the year.

Haha I was born 86. But even in the 90's I don't really remember even one particular Christmas. I can remember very small snippets of a few christmasses but not like these stories.
I do wonder if a lot are humbled together.

@RoseBucket blessings of the season to you and yours

Parents prepared for the next day whilst me and my family did crafts.
Had a lay down and a bath
Then in the evening a big family and friends disco maybe 150 people then home to bed

I was late teens, I had just moved into my own flat with my baby. I remember buying some quality streets and putting them out in small bowls around my flat. I had a little tree but no lights on it. I played Christmas music which my one year old enjoyed. My best friend popped over in the evening with an absolutely huge sack of presents for us.

illiterato

I used to steal after eights and leave the wrappers to disguise my crimes.

My sisters did that and one or both of them hid a few empties under my bed. They did that with biscuits, too, carefully sprinkling crumbs on my bed. They did that as a team, they confessed when we were older.

That's two older sisters and two older female cousins, 1,2,3, & 4 years older than me. God, the things they used to get me to do, so I could play with them... My oldest cousin said to be, on my 21st birthday,

"Eeh, it's a wonder you turned out normal, what we used to do to you!"

I sort of looked myself up and down, raggy jeans, army surplus boots, studded leather jacket and a green mohican, then looked at her. She burst out laughing.

I can remember very small snippets of a few christmasses but not like these stories.

As I get older I value memories of things I never thought twice about at the time. When you dwell on one memory other memories fill themselves out around it, and then you remember details like the silver board that came out every year for the cake, and the lantern fairy lights on an elderly relative's tree, and then the fact that this same relative always offered you a juicy jelly which you would eat sitting in a footstool that opened into a sewing box...etc. If you don't enjoy actively remembering these details, and the feelings that accompanied them, it is easy to let a lot drift away.

Also to be fair I think our memories are shaped by photos and stories from relatives more than we are conscious of.

Isn't this thread evocative - lovely for most...

@illiterato that sounds tough, well done for taking a positive from that

Mid 1980s, living at home in south London, at sixth form college. Lots of house parties, felt very grown up. But Christmas Eve was family time. Still loved the magic of my stocking on Christmas morning. As a small family, usually me, DB & DM, we had croissants for breakfast then roast chicken for lunch. Usually a walk in the afternoon. Still made paper chains & decorated the tree with very old baubles (I still have these). I made a complicated Buche de Noel before chocolate logs were loss leaders in supermarkets. We never had mince pies or Christmas cake as no one liked them!

I left home to go to uni in 1986. Came home for Christmas a few days before Christmas Day that year & was horrified that DM hadn't got a Christmas tree as 'it wasn't worth it' - me & DB went out & bought one. I now understand that DM found Christmas hard post-divorce, to her it magnified her failure to stay married...so sad as me & DB loved it anyway & her cooking was great & we had a lovely time.

1988. I'm 15. Woke up, read, drew,listened to music on my walkman because my elderly aunt was staying and was still asleep Walked the dog. Played patience. Picked up a present from under the tree. Felt it. Told my parents my wild guess. Got shouted at for ruining Christmas. Relieved I was working next day.

@illiterato apologies meant to tag @RoseBucket

How can people remember this stuff?

Because life was boring and simple.

Pump up the Jam!

I have one memory of Christmas 1990. I'm sitting with my dad and looking at this quality Street tin and marvelling that it's shaped like a house and it's named Street. That seemed like total magic to me at the time. I can smell what it was like when the lid was opened and feel the squeak of the cellophane. All those magical colours reflecting off the silver inside of the tin. I would have been two and a half which is why I don't have any other memories.

www.ebay.co.uk/p/9012671016

i would have come home, on the train, with gifts, to the family home, as would my dsis.
dm's family friend always had a Do, with their neighbours and family.
trying a variety of their alcholic drinks, from their drinks cabinet
i was 24 so perhaps Baileys, or a Snowball
no children in the family for a few years,
other relatives may have come for christmas day and boxing day.

oh my dm did the sprouts and the veggies
she is shocked that i dont prep in advance

correciton
if i am 24, of course I was doing the sprouts!
putting a cross in them

The excitement is almost at fever pitch for me and my siblings - we've barely slept, but my parents don't mind on the night of the 23rd, because they'll have so much to do this evening, Christmas eve, they need us tired out and asleep.

With great excitement, we open the big double door on our (picture) advent calendar. It's the nativity - how boring!

Christmas eve is geared to tire us out completely. We'll probably walk a few errands (dropping off cards and the like) in the morning, then go round to my cousins. We might be allowed to watch a video to calm us down, as we don't have a videoplayer at home yet. Everyone smokes so their house is thick with smoke because all the windows are shut with the cold. I quite like the smell of cigarettes.

Maybe we'll have lunch there, or else we'll go home - lots of solid, thick, homemade food. Mum might cut the back of her homemade Christmas cake so we can have a small piece. Then we'll drive to a park, and our parents will yell at us to explore rather than walk with them.

Back at home, and now very tired, the neighbours will pop round for a drink - usually a sherry or liqueur served in tiny thimble sized glasses. There is a dish of Bombay mix on the coffee table, which we've been told we can't eat. They might have two or three glasses, and everyone has red cheeks and laughs a lot. If the sherry runs out, our neighbour will go home and bring back a bottle of home brewed wine. We get ready for bed, and are allowed back downstairs for a little while - we have a snowball (probably to help us sleep!) and feel very grown-up.

We pour a sherry for Father Christmas, leave the biggest homemade mince pie and a carrot in front of the gas fire, then it's bed for us. We don't think we can sleep, but we do.