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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
SantaExpress · 14/12/2023 18:45

Ah, yes, the 2p Cadburys chocolate machine❤️ loved it!

My fave presents ever - a Casdon cash register and a toy post office and sweet shop, must have spent so much time playing with these! Also a new set of Crayola crayons, colouring books and pencils.
We had a blow- up Santa that was the same size as me when I was little (still got the photos) and when he came out and got blown up , I knew Christmas was on its way. Sadly when he started to deflate, his time was up and the decs came down just as we went back to school.

i spent many a happy hour with my Ddads Kay' Catalogue, choosing all the magical Christmas stuff, including bizarrely the food hampers!

WickedSerious · 14/12/2023 18:50

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.

Babycham and little bottles of Snowball.

Supersimkin2 · 14/12/2023 18:52

Making an advent crown with tinsel and coat hangers.

Interested in this thread?

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Christmas Events & celebrations
Makinglists · 14/12/2023 18:53

Meltus Newberry fruits...sugar rush, sticky and a bit grim.

Christmas Chicken - we were a small family so no turkey but chicken.

Birds Trifle - the best!!

Babycham for my mum, but when I was about 12 I was allowed one.

Nuts, always a tray of nuts - no other time of the year did the nutcracker see light.

WellThisIsFun1 · 14/12/2023 18:54

Chocolate brazils and liqueur chocolates.

Dad smoking cigars.

Lifeomars · 14/12/2023 18:55

Pizdietz · 14/12/2023 17:49

Very fragile glass baubles on the tree
Matchmakers
Aqua Manda bath sets
Blue Peter annual
Slinky toy

I remember my sister getting a slinky, I was eaten up with jealousy

WellThisIsFun1 · 14/12/2023 18:55

Oh, and adverts for holiday companies on Boxing Day.

It felt very 'right, that's all done with. Now, BEACHES!!!'

Raspberrymoon49 · 14/12/2023 18:57

Newberry Fruits!

BlindTipsy · 14/12/2023 18:58

This is such a lovely thread!

Curling that thin ribbon on your Christmas presents and feeling really posh!

Bath cubes as a present for every adult female relative

Decorate a wire coat hanger competitions at school

Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain · 14/12/2023 18:59

tobee · 14/12/2023 18:32

"Arding and Hobbs, Arding and Hobbs, Arding, Arding, Arding and Hobbs"

Show quote history

Grin. I have a photo of me and DB on Santa’s knee there. No I’m not posting that photo!

Lifeomars · 14/12/2023 18:59

Does anyone remember a decoration called angel hair, it was like a spun cotton wool and you pulled away at it to make it thin and then you wrapped it around individual fairy lights and it diffused their glow with a halo effect. It was probably made out of some sort of dangerous stuff and would not be allowed to be sold today.

WickedSerious · 14/12/2023 19:01

My grandmother filling half pint glasses with sherry.

LlestriBranwen · 14/12/2023 19:05

My sister and I made the Blue Peter advent crown which was a couple of wire coat hangers covered with tinsel we'd stripped from the Christmas tree. We couldn't understand why we weren't allowed to attach candles to it and light them at the same time as they did on the programme. What could possibly go wrong? 😂

Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain · 14/12/2023 19:07

The thing for me and DB is my DM and some of her friends were poor when I was young so DM actually made some of my presents (hand made cloth dolls with clothes). I got some bought presents too but I loved all the presents (Baby Alive anyone?!) and the handmade ones all the more so. Yes there was envy over other presents people got but it seemed far less commercialised than it is now. We had a church at the back of our house next to the school and i was in the school choir and we practised in the church and went to church services over Christmas. Proper Carol singing. The excitement of waiting for Father Christmas.

Decorhate · 14/12/2023 19:08

@Lifeomars We had something like that. I’m pretty sure we got it from a relative who worked in a factory, making who knows what. Something to do with mica? I seem to remember it really itched if you brushed against it.

Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain · 14/12/2023 19:10

WickedSerious · 14/12/2023 19:01

My grandmother filling half pint glasses with sherry.

All my relatives got drunk but my nana (DM’s DM) could drink a lot (brandy was her favourite) and not get a hangover and didn’t seem to get too drunk (she was!).

In fact nana one winter before Christmas went to Butlins and slipped on the ice and broke both her wrists, she was drunk (that’s not funny, just an anecdote).

Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain · 14/12/2023 19:11

Cotton wool as snow on decorations?

ChocolateCinderToffee · 14/12/2023 19:13

bubble bath that was always pine scented whatever colour it was and came in glass bottles shaped like four large bubbles stacked in a pyramid

Raspberrymoon49 · 14/12/2023 19:23

Boxes of Turkish delight and satsumas were a luxury, you could only get them at this time of year
Posting cards in school letterbox

bloodyeffinnora · 14/12/2023 19:31

The Mandy and the Jackie annual
kerplunk
fake snow sprayed on stencils on the windows
paper chains and decorations
crackers on the xmas tree
babycham and snowballs
nuts and dates
a Capon instead of turkey.
tin of quality street or roses
slade on totp

AddictedToBooks · 14/12/2023 19:31

My Nanna and Grandad both worked at a Cadburys Factory and Cadburys used to host Christmas parties for the children and grandchildren of employees and we'd always get a selection box, one of those fruit lollipops in a clear square plastic cover (that you could never open) and one of those little toys on springs that you'd lick and they'd stick down and then suddenly leap up.

Crepe paper crackers with plastic frogs inside that you'd flick to make them jump, or fortune teller fish or a plastic paperclip

The smell of tinsel and the fake snow in a can that you'd spend ages trying to scrape off after Christmas.

My other Nanna's huge white tree with its gorgeous jewel coloured glass baubles and coloured lights (Mum wouldn't have them on our tree as she was always convinced they'd catch fire)

That excited wait at the bedroom window as I waited to see Father Christmas fly overhead and then in the morning going downstairs to a literal grotto (like many other parents, my mum didn't have a lot but she used to buy presents all through the year and hide them until Christmas morning)

quirkychick · 14/12/2023 19:32

We used to go up to London on a coach from my dad's work. See the Oxford Street lights and the trains in Hamley's.

CandyflossKid · 14/12/2023 19:38

Chewbecca · 14/12/2023 15:52

Advent calendars - same ones each year, pictures only. One was blue, one was red, my sibling and I alternated which one we had each year.

Thank you! Thought I was the only person who had a recycled Advent calendar every year in the 70's

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 14/12/2023 19:54

Giving the women also “posh” Bronnley or other bath foam/soaps if you could afford it

Bronnley lemon soaps shaped like lemons. In my stocking every year. The funny thing is I never remember actually using them

thegreylady · 14/12/2023 19:58

I was born in 1944. My stocking was one of mum’s laddered nylons. I am an only child and mum and dad each had one of dad’s socks and the gog had one of mine! I was allowed to fill the dog’s sock and to help my parents with each other’s. Santa filled mine of course. Mum would tell me to listen at my bedroom window and I would hear sleigh bells. I always did. It was a long time before I knew it was dad with an old bell in the garden. Other children in our street would look out of their windows. My dad developed MS when I was 11 and no more was said about sleigh bells but I still believed in Santa!