Traditions we have lost?

[Lydara22]

Brought on by family circumstance currently, I remembered that when I was a child, my mother always closed all of the curtains in the house as a respectful sign of mourning.
We don't do that anymore do we?

What other respectful traditions have we lost?

@Lydara22

We did this at a recent family funeral. We're in central Scotland. I know lots of people do it here

Still do many of those things! Carol singing, and we lit candles for candlemas today.

I live in a tiny village in rural Wales. Not long back I left the house - for work in a black suit (random chance) and found the whole street out, heads bowed, with a hearse in the road. I stood and bowed my head (couldn't have gone anywhere anyway as hearse blocking my car in). This took twenty minutes to clear- and four of my then new neighbours approached me to thank me for "stepping out on behalf of x (x being the fella that passed for me to buy the house). A few days later the chief mourners came to thank me too. And in that inadvertent moment (at the time of which I was slightly pissed off) I made a communal bond with a whole street of friends.

I think what I'm saying is- I'm hardly a tradition type, and that day taught me what it means, and what we lose in forgetting it.

I'm from NE England. We used to call it a Hoy Oot.

I bless myself and pray for the deceased if I pass a hearse & my DC do too.

Thank you letters are still a thing for me and my DC.

Had a priest come and bless our house when we moved.

Otherwise… what everyone else said.

I lit a candle today for Imbolc which is the old English/Irish/Pagan tradition that preceded Candlemas.
It’s a celebration of the midway point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox and the return of the light.

As with all of these Christian ‘traditions’ (Yule/Xmas, Imbolc/Candlemas, Ostara/Easter etc) they have their roots in much older history and were appropriated by Christianity and tweaked a bit to make them more, well Christian.

I think we should bring back our true old English traditions such as Imbolc, Beltane (May Day) Yule etc. (for anyone interested look up The Wheel of The Year, it’s a lovely, non-religious way to celebrate different points of the year and the seasons).

All the children used to have new clothes to wear on Whit Sunday. We would call on our neighbours to 'show' our clothes off, and the neighbours would give us a few pennies!
Whit Monday meant another new outfit to wear on the 'Whit Walk' up to the local park, there was the Salvation Army Band playing hymns and it was a really big deal, there would be hundreds there!
This was in a working class area of Yorkshire in the 60's, and although not poverty stricken, parents had to save to buy their children the Whitsun clothes.
We were lucky as our Mum was a fantastic dress maker, and made all of mine and my sister's clothes.

Still every summer here.

Some things are welcome to go

Now xBILs decorated the car at my first one in the 90s, used shaving cream and wrecked the paint. Someone also put toothpaste under my door handle but not the grooms. Didn’t ever feel like I belonged in that family.

I was told never to eat in the street
Eating in the street, when wearing uniform was against the rules at my school.

Wearing hats

That’s lovely @Oldandcobwebby

Not sure if this one counts but Mischievous Night seems to have disappeared. As an 80s child we loved this.

Mistletoe
The obligatory Sunday roast

On thank you cards, me too. And I still do, and brought up DC to do the same, they are in 20s now and carry on with this. It's lovely !

Barn dances. I grew up attending several barn dances a year when I was growing up - often church social events. I can’t remember the last time I heard on one happening, other than on Gavin & Stacey.

The milkman. The rattle of the bottles on the milk van in the early hours!

A very interesting thread. Haven't heard of some of these before.

It would be great if some came back!

I'll have a think of some more ...

Are penpals still a thing? Used to love writing and sending letters.

Saturday morning pictures!

We still have wedding scramble here in the village- the children tie the church gates with ribbons and the groom has to pay them with handfuls of pennies to untie the gates.
Thank you cards/bread and butter letters still come when anyone has stayed with us.
It's at least a generation since babies here were given 'luck money' though.

Jumble sales!
They all seem to have disappeared and I miss having a good rummage.

Crossing a new babies pram with silver/money

I was told about when I was younger and maybe seen some relatives do it and had held it vaguely in my memory but had forgotten until I had taken me DD (who is now 12) out in her pram and on a bus and got into a lovely conversation with an elderly gentleman who had smiled at DD and had made some conversation with me about how old she was etc…

When he got off the bus he, what I thought was, patted the bottom of her pram but it wasn’t until I got to me destination and took her out, realised he had put £10 in.

Looking back now there were a few things that people might take to be quite strange, man taking interest in baby, giving me money but he was so lovely and I was so touched with the reminder of a nice tradition that I’ve never forgotten.