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Original poster

If you remember these at Christmas you were a child in the 70s

313 replies

BreakfastAtMilliways · 14/12/2023 15:13

Testing the lights on December 23rd, then having to try out every one on the string to find out which one had blown…

Frantically trying to find a shop that sold spare Christmas tree lightbulbs at 3.25pm on Christmas Eve…

Lugging the tree out to the garden on January 6th, and spending the next 2 weeks hoping it wouldn’t die…

Driving (or rather being driven) into London to see the lights on Oxford Street…

Walking home from school after the carol concert and peeking through the front windows of each house on your road to see if you could spot their Christmas tree…

Arranging all the cards from your schoolmates around your bedroom…

Any more?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
11
Words · 14/12/2023 17:11

Correction New Berry fruits

tokesqueen · 14/12/2023 17:11

Roland Rat's Countdown to Christmas on TVam. Or was that early 80's??

The Poseidon Adventure on Christmas Eve. Or Towering Inferno.

Proper selection boxes with Treets in, or stockings with the chocs in a net bag.

Walnuts in a bowl with nutcrackers. Revolting.

Pinning balloons to the ceiling.

Babycham.

penjil · 14/12/2023 17:12

Ohyoudodoyou · 14/12/2023 17:01

Reading all your annuals in bed in Boxing Day whilst eating your selection box in this order:
Lion bar
Texan
Toffos
Jelly tots
Smarties
Fruit pastilles
Kit Kat
Fruit polos (when you'd eaten all else).

'Coz you could 'coz your mum was having a lie-in and it was your selection box. I sometimes feel like this when everyone is out and I have a whole night to myself with loads of goodies.

My brother would open his selection box on Christmas morning while he was opening his other presents and eat the fruit pastilles first. Every single year. The smell of them made me feel sick. 🤢

I was never into sugary sweets, even as a kid, and would donate my selection box to him too. 😂

Interested in this thread?

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Christmas Events & celebrations
Rickenbackergoodgrief · 14/12/2023 17:12

Ohyoudodoyou · 14/12/2023 16:49

And despite our compete access to every piece of music today whenever and wherever we want it, NOTHING xomoares to the excitement of finding out the Christmas number 1.

I would be on tenterhooks waiting to find out.
Christmas day TOTP was essential viewing.

penjil · 14/12/2023 17:13

Words · 14/12/2023 17:11

Correction New Berry fruits

OMG! They were vile! 🤢

Thank god I haven't seen a packet in years. 👍

May it forever stay that way.

FinallyFinalGirl · 14/12/2023 17:15

I also had a fashion design toy where you had these raised plates that you traced over and then coloured in. You could swap the head, body and legs around. I think it was something to do with Girls World ?

Was it Fashion Wheel?

IClaudine · 14/12/2023 17:15

Milknosugarta · 14/12/2023 16:50

Some favourite presents I got, does anyone remember:

Shaker Maker. Like a pottery making thing that you then painted.
Spirograph. With loads of coloured pens.
Movie maker. THE best boardgame.A bit like Monoply, loads more fun. Nobody else I've asked remembers it.

I remember Movie Maker! It was brilliant. You had to choose a movie to make, Epic, Horror, Musical etc.I loved that game.

EdithStourton · 14/12/2023 17:16

Trifle.
Almost breaking your teeth on homemade royal icing.
Tasteless wrapping paper with stagecoaches etc all over it.

Tiredalwaystired · 14/12/2023 17:16

Chocolate tree decorations

very thin wrapping paper

Ronco products

Woolworths Christmas adverts

Orange and lemon slices

Advent calendars with pictures in

Tea towels on the heads for shepherds in the nativity (oh how PC the 70s were)

Circling the must watch tv in the radio times

Rickenbackergoodgrief · 14/12/2023 17:17

@tokesqueen one Christmas, my dad once showed me that if you put a piece of sellotape over a balloon, then stick a pin in it, it wouldn't go bang.
I tried it but I missed the sellotape.
Unfortunately, I was right behind the chair where my mum was sat.
Mum went one way, her glass of babycham went the other and the cat took refuge under the stairs 😂

Rickenbackergoodgrief · 14/12/2023 17:18

@Tiredalwaystired Ronco was up there with K-tel 😂

stepintochristmas1 · 14/12/2023 17:19

tokesqueen · 14/12/2023 17:11

Roland Rat's Countdown to Christmas on TVam. Or was that early 80's??

The Poseidon Adventure on Christmas Eve. Or Towering Inferno.

Proper selection boxes with Treets in, or stockings with the chocs in a net bag.

Walnuts in a bowl with nutcrackers. Revolting.

Pinning balloons to the ceiling.

Babycham.

Those tiny little pegs for pegging your Christmas cards to the string across the wall .I've bought those small bottles of Babysham and Snowballs .

OhMrDarcy · 14/12/2023 17:19

Yes to all of those, and also nothing electric came with a plug in the early 80s, so Christmas day was spent looking for things that weren't in use that we could take the plug from. Then dad had to change the plug over and then, and only then, could you use your new double tape deck or new hairdryer.

Ohyoudodoyou · 14/12/2023 17:19

Oooh and just remembered!! I LOVED those suchards Liqueurs what tasted like proper strong alcohol when you sucked all the chocolate off and bit into the sugar shell!
I'd love some of them now...Gran used to let me have hers as she got loads and none of the other kids liked them.

Ohyoudodoyou · 14/12/2023 17:21

OhMrDarcy · 14/12/2023 17:19

Yes to all of those, and also nothing electric came with a plug in the early 80s, so Christmas day was spent looking for things that weren't in use that we could take the plug from. Then dad had to change the plug over and then, and only then, could you use your new double tape deck or new hairdryer.

Your tape deck which you'd used to record the Christmas count down to number 1...
Ssssshhhhhh shut up everyone !!!!

Rickenbackergoodgrief · 14/12/2023 17:22

Did anyone else's mum used to make you unwrap a present carefully if it was nice gift wrap, so she could re-use it the following Christmas?

LostandHound · 14/12/2023 17:23

FinallyFinalGirl · 14/12/2023 16:12

We had Marshall Ward. I must have circled Mr Frosty every year through the late seventies and early eighties. Never did get it.

Show quote history

Me too!

Lakeyloo · 14/12/2023 17:23

FinallyFinalGirl · 14/12/2023 17:15

I also had a fashion design toy where you had these raised plates that you traced over and then coloured in. You could swap the head, body and legs around. I think it was something to do with Girls World ?

Was it Fashion Wheel?

Just found it ! (OK, so maybe more 80's but I'm sure it was a 70's Christmas present!)
40+ Things From The '80s That Women Used To Do That Will Give You All The Feels | Childhood toys, Retro pictures, All the feels (pinterest.co.uk)

40+ Things From The '80s That Women Used To Do That Will Give You All The Feels | Childhood toys, Retro pictures, All the feels

Aug 4, 2019 - Take a trip down memory lane with these 40 awesome photos that only girls who grew up in the '80s will understand and remember.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/268527196519236361/

LostandHound · 14/12/2023 17:25

Lakeyloo · 14/12/2023 17:23

Edited
Show quote history

Oh wow, I had one of these! Loved it!

stepintochristmas1 · 14/12/2023 17:26

Why was Christmas paper then so shitty ? It came flat in cellophane .

Words · 14/12/2023 17:28

Paxo stuffing and Bisto gravy Envy

Original poster
BreakfastAtMilliways · 14/12/2023 17:28

Rickenbackergoodgrief · 14/12/2023 17:22

Did anyone else's mum used to make you unwrap a present carefully if it was nice gift wrap, so she could re-use it the following Christmas?

This led to a present mix-up one year when DGM accidentally left last year’s present label on one of my presents (it was only a fancy mirror, nothing very exciting).

Can’t see today’s gift wrap surviving well enough for re-use.

OP posts:
Ohyoudodoyou · 14/12/2023 17:29

Uber fragile wrapping paper.

If you remember these at Christmas you were a child in the 70s
Itsamatteroftime · 14/12/2023 17:31

The Cadbury’s machine that you put 2pm in to get a little chocolate bar - amazing. Only realised recently that it was a chimney.
Brightly coloured paper chain decorations, paper advent calendars which were then upgraded to ones with teeny plastic toys inside.
A sip of my mum’s snowball or babycham
Books and games on the last day of school.

bigTillyMint · 14/12/2023 17:32

@Milknosugarta and @MrsJellybee, wasn’t there a huge Santa in Blacklers too?
The window displays of George Henry Lees were fantastic too IIRC.

Yes to rock hard royal icing on the Christmas cake, crepe paper streamers, Valerie Singleton making and John Noakes lighting the advent crown, TOTP special (my favourite thing!) and an ancient nativity set that was put out ever year. Proper Sherry trifle on Boxing Day.

Going carol singing and actually knocking on doors and singing and collecting money.

And sitting on the polished parquet wood block floor in the hall at school watching the film and then begging the teachers to play it backwards.