What did you/your family consider a treat growing up that really wasn’t?

[ClassicStripe]

I’ve just randomly remembered that when I was younger me and my sister thought it was the most amazing treat to have our mum’s bath water after she was finished with it. She didn’t even use bubble bath so it was literally just lukewarm water but we absolutely loved it. This was in the early 90’s and we had regular hot warm bubble baths which makes it even stranger that we were so pleased by using mum’s old water!

Cheese and onion toasties - in front of the telly! Saturday night treat.

Someone told me ages ago that in a very poor part of Sweden, I guess in the 1950s or so, a treat was 'silver tea', which was milk in a cup of tea!

When I was pre-school - early 1960’s - my mum used to let me iron the hankies and tea towels 🥹🥹 i thought it was a huge treat!! 😁

I love the poster who’s treat was cutting up lambs heart 🥰

A mug of Horlicks after swimming at the swimming pool's cafe followed by a trip to the sweet shop next door for some chocolate limes.
We had a full dinner all week, meat and veg but on a Saturday we watched the Generation Game and had sandwiches for tea with crisps and I had a can of shandy. Utter bliss. A copy of Twinkle Magazine on a Saturday.
Babysham in a Babysham glass at christmas. A snowball at christmas I still love snowball. Being allowed cordial but with soda water from the Soda Stream - rare because the gas things were expensive.

The Alpine lorry came round to my Nan's house and left a crate of bottles of pop for us grandchildren when we visited. I liked cream soda best. 😋

Arctic roll was definitely a treat. Plus those little individual rectangles of ice cream that you unwrapped and put in the appropriately shaped cones.
When the van stopped in our street, Mum would take a large pudding bowl out to it, to be filled with whippy ice cream, which was doled out into individual bowls for the four of us to enjoy.

Mr. Kipling cakes on Sunday evening... the Manor House fruitcake was my favourite. We'd also argue over who got the "chocolate" fondant fancy.
Mum would get cream cakes from the corner shop for us. Fresh cream for all bar me; I preferred Chantilly cream which was yellow and sweeter.

We were the same, but Mum would buy a dozen individual bottles. Years later when those individual bottles of coke were in the supermarkets, would buy them at Xmas for my kids and they loved them too.
i think as kids we enjoyed the treats so much more as they were truly a rare treat.
Also as kids we had a fire in the best front room and moved in there for a week only at Christmas. Madness really in a small house to keep a room for best lol

Sitting in front of the coal fire roasting chestnuts or toasting bread on the special fork. I remember eating pomegranate seeds with a pin too. But the biggest luxury food growing up was chicken. It wasn't mass produced like it is now so was very expensive - we only had it at Christmas and Easter and loved pulling the wishbone.

My mother and my friend Simon's mother had a good idea when we were 10/11, letting us take all the dirty clothes and household linen up the road to the new launderette, using Simon's little brother's pram.

Everything to be brought back clean, dry and folded.

Fabulous treat for all concerned.

The small hovis loaves, made into fairy sandwiches.
Occasionally going into the cafe and having Horlicks or Ovaltine in the mug that had no hole in the handle.
A rare treat kunzel cup cake - chocolate shell with a piece of sponge covered in synthetic lurid pink or yellow butter cream

Birds trifle at my friend's nan's house on a Sunday afternoon.

I always had the chicken heart to eat, along with the roast (we kept chickens).
And the wishbone thing.

Mr Kipling's Cakes.

In the 1980s, would a duffle coat have been a luxury, or were they quite cheap? Our mum would speak earnestly about how great they were, My brother and I had them, and we were aware that they were certainly not what the popular kids wore. But it had uses: mine was so long I could sit on a rain-soaked bench without getting wet.

Fresh Orange Juice

We didn’t have a car until I was 8 or 9 but once a year we borrowed my grandads car and went to north Wales for a weeks holiday. How posh I thought we were going in a car instead of walking. Mum on holiday taking a flask of boiling water and pot noodles out for lunch, only time we would get them.

Another treat would be going around the lockers after getting out and changing at the swimming pool looking for any 10p coins that had been left in the lock, finding a 10p was amazing

Being given the sugar lump to eat from my grandmother's coffee.

I love this thread. It makes me realise that a lot of people probably feel misery because things that were once luxury have now become the norm. Finding happiness in the small things is what is missing from society these days. We live in a world of instant gratification and I think I’d like to go back to some of what we once had.

Snacks.

Leftovers night. Anything that had been sitting in the fridge for ages in a Tupperware would be set out and we’d fill up a plate to then microwave.

To this day I have a very strong stomach and no food aversions at all and I think that’s why.

This is actually a good one. I think most of the posts on this thread are (or definitely were) treats, they’re just things that the poster would now look down on or not consider a treat anymore. But I think the OP’s was like - it was never actually a treat, she just thought it was 😂

Mine was similar to yours, thinking it was such a treat to eat my dad’s cold plain pasta that he’d left on his plate 😂

I was thinking the same reading the comments!

Proper orange juice. We had it as a holiday treat for breakfast ( self catering) It was so long ago it came in large tins not bottles.
It probably wasn't that " proper" thinking about it now.

I’ve remembered another. A fresh cream bun. Often I would have to share one, they did seem massive though and were quite expensive when I was a child.

Sugar cubes in a little box. My granny bought her sugar like that, and it was really exciting to be able to sneak one out and feel it dissolve in your mouth. It is a wonder I have any teeth left.

Getting the top off dads boiled egg
going to the chemist and being allowed one of the oblong ‘ healthy ‘ lollipops
getting lowcocks lemonade with the heavy ceramic stopper from the local shop and being allowed to choose some different flavours on birthdays and Christmas.
getting salmon sandwiches and shop bought cakes at aunties for Sunday tea
being made to have a slice of buttered bread with our tinned fruit and evaporated milk, i hated that, couldn't understand why i had to.
shaking the tin of sterilised cream for ages to make it thick
Sunday dinner was at lunchtime listening to jimmy clitheroe on the wireless and Sunday tea was sandwiches and cakes.
getting dressed up to go into town with my mum and brothers.