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!

Same😂 but i sometimes buy myself one as a random treat😂

I used to love a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. We used to get a satsuma in our stocking every year and it wasn't until most of my siblings has left home that mum/dad splashed out on Terrys chocolate oranges instead.

Now I just look at them sadly in the supermarket and walk on by. The chocolate is so shit now I refuse to buy them. A little joy ruined.

Increasingly feel the same way about chocolate. I hardly eat it much, but I had an Easter egg a few months ago, just a small plain one, and I was sick that night! Not surprising when the 'chocolate' is now full of oil.

Dancing for a boiled sweet. The best dancers got two sweets!

Oh and I've just remember the Matey Bath Foam stuff that came in aerosol cans! My brother used to get a can in his Christmas stocking every year and we'd have hours of fun squirting the stuff at each other!

I can remember the smell of it even now.

Having fizzy drinks only at Christmas.

Milk. We only got sterilised milk from the milkman and I was desperate to have a drink of the foil topped milk.

Getting to clean the car, inside and out. I would spend hours outside on a Sunday, making sure it was perfect. I particularly enjoyed applying the wax and buffing it off.
I think my parents were onto something!

Absolutely 10p to spend on penny sweets. My and my brother used to get 10p from my granny when we stayed at her house and spend ages choosing which 10 sweets to get with it.

Also my friend and I used to eat raw jelly cubes as part of our midnight feasts because there were no sweets or biscuits in her house. If she's reading this she'll absolutely know it's me. 🙋‍♀️

I've occasionally seen a raspberry one in Poundland.

Tins of cream was the only sort of cream we ever had (and even that was a rarity). I don't remember the brand but it probably was the one you describe.

Some sweets were 1/2 a penny or even 1/4, which made choosing even harder!

Going with my dad to get petrol. Literally just a few miles down the road, by car; just me, my sister, and my dad. It was the BIGGEST treat. We called this, or similar short drives like driving down the high street to see the Xmas lights, ‘Tat tats’. Some of my friends still use the term as they loved the joy we referred to them with 😄

Going to the dump with dad early Saturday morning
we used to fight over who would go !
(his disappointment when as teens we were less keen and wanted to lay in lol meant we then fought over who ‘had’ to go !

Oh yes, going to the tip was a total treat. And as we had an old school land-rover, dad took us there via the ford so splashy excitement on the way! Simple pleasures....

Or going to the carwash, which was better than a fairground ride imo.

Blackjacks and Fruit Salad were 4 for a penny. My sister used to get a bagful.

I see those in my local supermarket in the International aisle in Australia. Just the blue ones and occasionally the 5 flavour fruity ones. It’s ages since I’ve seen them in the UK, or maybe I don’t notice them when I’m there.

I remember being allowed to stick the Green Shield stamps in the savings book. My sister and I had to take it in turns when Mum had filled the car up. I can still taste the glue!

Some of the sweet treats we had once a year at Christmas were outrageously expensive back in the 1970s and really meant for adults, not us, though we managed to eat a few anyway: crystalised fruits in a wooden box, marrons glaces, Turkish delight in the box full of icing sugar, a huge box with drawers of Terry's extremely dark and bitter chocolates without any fillings - very grown up and frankly a bit boring so we only ate them to make a stand - and Neapolitan chocolates. These were genuine treats then, and still would be now, in my view anyway.

Chocolate at Easter. Satsumas/clementines (they came in wooden crates, with leaves) at Christmas.

More regularly, a "quarter" of sweets (always sherbert lemons for me) in a paper bag once a week - either eke them out for a week or eat them in one go on a Saturday morning and live with it.

Fizzy pop about once a month, yet we had (one glass of) fresh orange juice every morning at home.

A small packet of crisps was an occasional treat. If only I could remember nowadays that crisps are a treat not an actual food-group, I would definitely be less barrel-shaped.

Eating at a restaurant was a big treat, and so was a trip to the cinema. Once or twice a year (over a certain age) we'd go to the theatre at Stratford.

At boarding school an apple or an orange once a week was a treat. It's lucky none of us got scurvy.

Wow didn't know Ice Magic was still being sold.

Me either, but if it's 'just a sad chocolate splodge' as a pp says I don't think I want it! The whole point was that you watched it set and then cracked it with a spoon.
I used to love the mint one.

Wow, every single one of these was my childhood too - cleaning the brass was a top treat, although the model spitfire had awkward bits that I never quite got. Thank you, reading that made me so happy 😊

A bowl of custard and digestive biscuits crushed up in it lol

On a summers evening we would drive to near the airport and watch the planes sometimes. Huge treat!!

That and a Snowball at Christmas! 😂

@BobbysDazzler Seeing the planes at Gatwick was a treat, in 1983. And that was before the light rail linking the terminals was built, otherwise we would have wanted to keep riding on it.

Funnily enough, I recently decided to give myself the sane treat, at Stansted: there’s a road that gives you a good view of the runway. It was enormously crowded, with lots of people looking up, and no planes taking off or landing.

It was the day that bloody Trump was departing. He has to spoil everything! I saw the twin rotor helicopters land there. Perhaps people were making sure he went.