In the spirit of the season, what is your favourite Christmas memory?

[LadyBiker]

Mine was as a teenager living in a small village, we were snowed in and had a power cut, most of the villagers congregated in the village pub, pooled food and cooked in the gas ovens. It was a great feeling of community, all mucking in together, making sure everyone was looked after and ending with us all singing carols, warmed by the log fires and cherry brandy.

The Christmas of 1978. I was wearing my long party dress (party dresses were always long in those days) and a silver crown I had made at school, and at that moment, life held no more perfection than to be wearing a silver crown and a long party dress. Boney M's version of Mary's Boy Child, that year's Christmas hit, always brings this back to me.

No Christmas since has ever lived up to that one!

One Christmas, mum made millionaires shortbread, coconut ice and rocky road. The house smelled amazing.

I was talking about this with DH earlier!

When I was about 15, I belonged to a church youth club and we used to sing carols at a local hotel on Christmas Eve to the assembled diners.

It was a fantastic Elizabethan place, traditionally and beautifully decorated, smelt gorgeous, with low plastered ceilings and mullioned windows, candles everywhere. They used to put on a lovely spread afterwards. It was Christmas on a stick!

Aaaah I can't decide. The problem is I struggle to remember specific top memories, they're more a collection of really pleasant experiences/feelings. So I remember vividly what it was like to unwrap the first ferrero rocher of the season as a chocolate obsessed child (back when the chocolate was actually good). I remember the Christmas parties with my extended family and the fun party games we used to play while my siblings and I ran feral. I remember the whole of the festive period was one fun tv-fest, and circling my favourite shows in the Radio Times (the only magazine my parents ever bought was this one at Christmas). The massive excitement of the hamper arriving in late November after my mum had saved £1 every week to buy one over the year, and choosing what one item we could have now from it, then the rest had to go away in the cupboards until Christmas Eve.
Then at uni the events were brilliant, all the dancing and special food and hot chocolate with Bailey's in with my flatmates, and I discovered mulled wine 😁

I grew up in the 80s and always had a lovely Christmas. We had a normal upbringing but at Christmas my gran would bring this enormous bag of chocolate and sweets - she used to buy one or two things every week for MONTHS and bring them round. It was more than we would ever have; walnut whips, marzipan fruits, after eights, toffifee, chocolate covered nuts, stuff from M and S (height of luxury!), it was amazing unpacking all this stuff. Used to last us absolute weeks.

2009. Ds was 5 and we spent Christmas morning building the Duplo fire engine. It was the first Christmas for years that I chose not to go to church and to prioritise my family instead. It felt good.

We used to pack up our cats and go stay at my maternal grandparents house, I’m sure it was only a week but as a child it stretched on forever and felt like a holiday. I was the only grandchild at the time and was spoilt rotten. There was a cupboard full of 80s Christmas snacks and it never emptied; twiglets, candied fruits, marzipan, nuts, after eights. We’d go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve and I’d be allowed a glass of sherry when we got home. Christmas morning I’d get my sack from Santa, was always one of my nans pillowcases absolutely bursting with small presents. Dolls, art stuff, smellies. It was the best bit of Christmas. We’d always have a fry up on Christmas morning whilst the turkey was cooking. Where did we put all this food? 🤣
After Christmas dinner we’d have to watch the queens speech at my grandads insistence, then we’d be allowed our main presents from under the tree. It was all so exciting!

I worked for a small stockbrokers through most of the 1980's where the Christmas party was held just a few days before Christmas. Our offices were in a beautiful 17th century building and overlooked a cobbled street. There would be a copious amount of drink and a sumptuous buffet in the office from around 5pm. We'd then walk across the road to a well known theatre and watch a play (usually Christmas themed) and then back to the office for more drinks and lots of larking around and laughter. The MD would then present everyone with a fresh turkey and drinks vouchers to the tune of £25 as well as a personal gift. It all sounds quite Dickensian but that was almost the beauty of it.

Born in 1960 and treats and sweeties weren't a thing (very hard up as a family). But at Christmas we used to get these little wooden bowls out, and they were kept full of Quality Street, one on the coffee table and one on the mantelpiece and we could help ourselves!

Normally it was three meals a day and nothing in between, so being allowed to eat when it wasn't a mealtime, and these wonderful enticing shiny chocolates made Christmas the best time.

Christmas Eve very late 80's/very early 90's and me, my brother and my dad walked to the chip shop to get chips for tea (a very rare treat for us!) It was already dark and we spent the whole walk looking up into the skies for Santas Sleigh and generally getting excited for the next day.

Looking back, it was a total distraction technique to let my mum sort presents, but it's such a lovely memory of innocent times!

Probably Christmas eve when we were just bubbling with excitement, surrounded by every member of the family, some we only saw a few times a year as they were from another city.

Coming down the stairs and checking that the front door was locked. We didn’t have a fireplace so Father Christmas came through the front door, my wonderful, wonderful mum made a show of making sure we left the latch off so he could get in. Checking the door was locked in the morning just cemented my belief in the magic.

We had an enormous old hair dryer - pink Morphy Richards. We had it when I was at primary school. I was a teenager and drying my hair on Christmas Eve. My Dad came past the open bedroom door, smiled and said “it’s about time we replaced that.” In that second, I knew he’d bought me a new one for Christmas. He passed away this year, grand old age of 94.

I went to a church Christmas party with a friend as a child went we had to sing a Christmas song for Santa I sang

"Good King Wenceslas looked out,
on the feast of Steven,
turned his trousers inside out
'cos his bum was freezing."

Sharp intake of breathe, the mum's were not impressed but the Priest and Santa fell about laughing and the other kids laughed too, so I was the coolest kid at the party after that!

Lots of good memories to choose from. Sitting on my parents brown velvet sofa, wearing a Christmas dress and listening to Stay Another Day by E17 on Top of the Pos. Eating Roses and smelling the best Christmas dinner my mum was making. And all of this with my sister by my side, so wonderful. Happy days.

Aww, how lovely for your dad to have noticed the very thing you needed. I'm sorry for your loss

Thank you ☺️ I’m at peace with it, he reached a good age. We’ve already decided we will have a kir royal aperitif on Christmas and raise a toast to my parents.

Easy for me - the year I was 23 years old at 7.32am my son born❤️ I had toast and a coke (don't like tea or coffee and the nurses had cokes at their Xmas party which they shared with me) and some horrible hospital food. But I had lots of cuddles and an excuse to not have many visitors, just DH and later my parents. Ds got a knitted Santa hat and a special 'my first Xmas' blanket. My mum plated me a Xmas dinner at home that day and I got to reheat it when I went home on boxing day!

😂😂😂 So funny!

Christmas 1994. I got my first pair of brand name trainers (Nike). Had been picked on by the 'cool girls' for wearing Mercury trainers from the market. I nearly cried when I opened them. My best friend lived seven doors away and it was tradition that one of us went to the others to show our gifts. I ran up there but had to keep stopping and pulling my jeans up to check I was actually wearing Nike trainers. My mum saved a couple of quid for months to buy them.