To ask what traditions made your childhood special?

[Bubandbump]

Sorry, bit of a thread about a thread but..

Just sat here with sleepy DD in arms reading the cupcake v fairy cake thread. Someone wrote that they do fairy cake Fridays which I would love to steal think is lovely.

So I wanted to ask what made your childhood special, to give me some ideas for when 10 mo DD is growing up?

these are all so nice

We used to have the same dinner ever other Saturday one week burgers and chips and one week chicken korma
Sunday roasts with a 'nice' pudding for afters
watching muppets christmas carroll on xmas eve orange juice xmas morning
cant think of any more atm but i'm sure theres more!

Sunday lunch with all the family at Grandma's house - Grandma and her brother rowed every week about something daft
Saturday afternoon drives - picnic in the car in laybys in the rain
Annual caravan holiday with whole family to Westward Ho

Ah, the 70s!

Saturday nights staying with my Grandpaprents. In the afternoon, we watched old movies, followed by the wrestling. On Saturday night, we would all have tea and toast and watch Dynasty (way to young to be watching that sort of stuff, my mum would've gone nuts) Sunday morning, lying in bed listening to music from the 40s and 50s on the radio, followed by mass and then a quarter of lemon bonbons from the shop afterwards.

My knowledge of music and film from that era is pretty extensive.

My Mum and Dad have their own little routines with my DS, now, when he goes to stay, usually revolving around all the treats that I don't usually let him have. My Dad's also got him into The Who, so the tradition of old music has carried on.

heart to heart (the tv programme, not a heavty chat) on a sunday night after a bath.

muffin- What's Rainbow Cake?

We lived in the middle of nowhere, so my mum had a really ear piercing bell she'd ring when she wanted us to come home. We'd appear from various fields/bits of the garden, usually covered in twigs and cobwebs.
Xmas stockings (old socks) with a clementine in the toe and a bag of chocolate coins
Being allowed to dress the Xmas tree with all the old knackered delicate paper doily fairies
Drop scones with jam for afternoon tea if we had guests round
My Grannie's Shippams paste & cucumber sandwiches on long car journeys
Massive bonfires on fireworks night, where your back was freezing but your face was burning!
I always had to have the skin off the top of the custard, as my sister hated it. Same with the top of the milk. Both fiiiiine by me! :)
Walks after lunch at my grandparents, Grannie would go on ahead so she could fart and Grandad and I would bird spot.

Sweetie day. Every wednesday.

I loved Saturdays with my Mum. We would go shopping in the morning (mainly groceries but she would pick up her magazines, Woman, Woman's Realm and the TV Times from the newsagent) then we would drop into M&S to pick up crusty rolls and some Roast Chicken fillets, cut through BHS and lust after sparkly chandeliers in the lighting section. Home, chicken rolls and frothy coffee in front of the telly, gasfire on full, contentedly flicking through said mags. I miss the gasfire hiss

Shopping days with my mum in the school holidays, to buy me new clothes/uniform. We used to go for lunch but the only place was Littlewoods cafe where you got some kind of meat in gravy with an ice-cream scoop of mashed potato. I loved it.

Friday evenings going to my music lesson with my dad, then he would stop at the shop for sweets on the way home, to start the weekend. In summer he sometimes used to take me to the pub - he would read the paper and drink beer and I would get a coke and a packet of scampi fries.

Proper sparkly advent calendars. I still buy one for my dcs - it helps that we live overseas and they haven't realised there are chocolate ones.

On Christmas Eve my Dad would always get 2 poinsettias delivered to the house from the local flower shop - for my mum and gran. They always used to pretend they were surprised.

Sunday lunch puddings - usually a frozen cheesecake which wasn't quite defrosted. Afterwards we would watch the Eastenders omnibus and the oldies would fall asleep.

These are so lovely!

Going for family walks on Sundays - in the winter we'd go to the beach and would be warned not to get wet - my siblings and I (and the dog) would inevitably end up drenched. We'd get home and after getting dry my Mum would make us toasted sandwiches which we'd eat in front of Little House on the Prairie - only time we could eat in front of the tv.

Going to Dartmoor for a walk and a picnic. The picnic was ALWAYS egg sandwiches (pronounced sang-whiches in our family) and we would always have a picnic as soon as we got there, sometimes in the car if it was cold, and then race up to the tor and back and demand an ice cream!

Picture advent calenders. Took me years to realise my Mum recycled them and we had the same ones every year!

Christmas day walk with new toys - I can visualise my little brother, about 4 one year, in his Robin Hood outfit and bow and arrow and wellies and my sister and I on our new bikes!

I had a rubber Rupert Bear with wires inside so you could bend him. I loved him so much that he started falling to bits and the wire poking out.. Dad suggested I left him out and Father Christmas would mend him.

Christmas morning came and there was Rupert all fixed and looking absolutely brand new. I totally believed he was the same one.

I, like others, would 'play out' all the time, so time with parents was pretty rare. There are some things that became traditions though
*Trip to Flamingo Land every Easter Sunday, without fail, till I was about 14
*A Sunday Tea - like a party buffet tea after our giant roast
*A trip to the Pantomime every christmas (my DMum still goes and takes a random child of her friends/family with her)
*A cadbury caramel as a treat after every parents evening (literally throughout my entire life at school)
*Getting a story read at bedtime, every day. If we had guests round, we were in luck, as we'd get a story off everyone there, one at a time. My little sis cottoned onto the right order in which to demand them too, as she left my dad till last as he has a dull monotone voice which always sends her to sleep.
*Car boot sale, the beach, or trip to some DIY shop or the like on a Sunday. I hated this, actually, as I began to associate whatever we did on a Sunday with "grrrr....school tomorrow". Even now, I feel a bit going to these places as they remind me so much of the "back to school" feeling.

We spent some time in Texas for dad's work as children. After we came home we went to a TexMex restaurant for mum's birthday, then every year for many years. Years later, when we'd all grown up and moved away and dad had died, we took mum for a big birthday. Full of nostalgia. The restaurant has now closed down, sadly or I would have a trip to London (live in Yorkshire now) with my own children. We always have Mexican food for Christmas though, and I go to great extremes to get blueberry iceream.

Mine are food related too. One which we've just started with our children is the "Smartie Bird" pays a visit as spring arrives. She lays smartie eggs around the garden and we had to find them. I was gutted the day I found a tube of smarties in my dad's pocket!! It always meant spring had arrived when the smartie bird paid a visit!!

We always had a roast every sunday and then had crumpets for tea in front of Bullseye!!

My growing up memories and traditions were very much around my family. I always baked with my mum and gran and of course now love to do it with my children.

Sunday afternoons at my grandparents' with the whole family: Songs of Praise with Harry Secombe, Antiques Roadshow and stuff like that on the box, my youngest uncle stretched out in front of it. Tuna sandwiches for tea (I always asked for Skipjack!) No fancy mayo, mind you!

Weekends divided between my mum and dad after they separated - always missed my mum and wished they could just get back together, even though I understood why the wouldn't.

We were short of money so ate lots of mince (a pound a pound!) and beans. My gran always thought she was spoiling us with chips but we enjoyed what we had. Cadbury's Wispa bars once a week.

Lots of time in the tree house across the field - though I wasn't so keen on climbing any other tree.

Reading, reading and more reading. I was not happy to be kicked outside!

Oh, my dad used to magically pull half a pack of Chewits out of our ears (well obviously a full pack wouldn't have fit in there in the first place!)

Thank you OP for starting a lovely thread,

Sunday visits to GPs, with tea , at my Nana's, always including a home made trifle.

Special occasions celebrated by all the family at a Bernies Inn or Beefeater.

Friday night fish and chips watching "Monkey" on TV.

Camping trips through Europe for at least 3 weeks of every summer holiday.

Long walks around the University of East Anglia lake, after Christmas Dinner, with my cousins, aunties, uncles and GPs.

My mum talking french gibberish at us when we were bored waiting for the bus, to make us laugh.

Singing, lots and lots of singing - in the car, at home, in the garden anywhere really. My Dads signature tunes were "ging gang gooli" and "the sun has got his hat on" and my Mums was "close to you" by the Carpenters...we used to sing this to my baby sister while she was in her play pen and I was helping Mum do the washing with a twin tub!!

Playing out - in the street, in the woods, at the rec, anywhere we could run wild and laugh alot for hours and hours at a time.
Oh dreamy days of a carefree time that seems so long ago

I remember playing out lots. Playing in the brook and up the fields building dens and lighting fires. We made jam in an old paint tin. It was back in the 60s so it's a wonder we didn't die of lead poisoning.
Dad used to take us for a walk on a Sunday morning. We would call at grandmas and take her dog along. As we got bigger we took our bikes. While we were out Mum would cook a roast dinner and then DC would change into our best frocks and go to Sunday school. We all met up at grandma's for Sunday tea. Salmon sanwiches or a plate of salad always followed by tined fruit and cream.

Walks featured heavily in my childhood because we never had a car. In the summer we would walk to nearby villages or along the canal. There were 6 different walks but all finished at a pub......bottle of pop and a bag of crisps.

Holidays every year at Mab-le-Thorpe. I tell a lie one year we went to Skegness. All day on the beach and lots more walking to different pubs.

Camping in a tent in the garden and cooking our own breakfast outside.

The wakes week. One of the high points of the year when the fair came to the village. We used to run out of school just to watch them set up.

Watching local football with dad and him carrying me back home on his shoulders.

Fruit picking not from farms but from the hedgerows.

Brownies and Sunday school Christmas parties. We had outings in the summer and a panto trip in the winter.

Mum singing along with the radio and listening to children's request show on Saturdays.

Fish and chips and mushy peas on a Friday. Tiza pop.

Every year from 7 school took us to Derbyshire. Dovedale and Thorp Cloud.

This thread is making me excited for my own DC. We live in town these days, but plenty of time at my mum's in the countryside is going to feature. Love the Sunday food traditions too - tinned red salmon was created for Sunday tea!

DH is arty and I'm a reader, so I want both of those to be special.

Camping trips are a must - we've just bought a new one and will start our adventures in it this summer.

New ones - we never had BBQs or a VCR player as a kid, so outdoor cooking and Saturday night movies will be a treat.

I LOVE this thread! (and it's making me even more grateful to my parents for being so fab)

We had lovely holidays in the summer to Dawlish Warren (always the same place - firstly caravans, then graduating to a maisonette!)

Dressing up in our long dresses for special meals - anniversaries and birthdays!

Enjoying the run up to Christmas even more because both parents have birthdays before Christmas - 20th and 24th!!!

Definitely proper Advent calendars - so glittery and magical

Carshalton Carnival and fair

Toasting crumpets on the open fire

Sunday night bonfires

Weekend country walks from a big AA book.

I treasure EVERY memory, and I hope my boys grow up to view their childhood so warmly!

I loved getting the Bunty too! It used to drop through the door once a week - so exciting. Holidays always seemed to involve sitting in the steamed up car, raing pouring down, eating fish and chips. We still have the sparkly non-chocolate advent calendars, and still do one of my favourite things - hiding Easter eggs. So many of my traditions involve being outside (in the garden and woods) that it makes me feel quite sad we live in a flat.

Twigwidge I could have written most of what you wrote! Wasn't Monkey a strange programme though?! And we thought dinner at the Bernie Inn was the height of sophistication!

Oh Sparkling I am sobbing my Grandad used to sing that to my Nana and did at their 60th wedding anniversary just before she died.
We did not have many traditions but I am making some for our kids, NT for Easter egg hunt every Easter Monday, Xmas tree on first week end in Dec, opening one pressie each on xmas eve.

visits to theatres with Dad, riding down the hill on my bike. Sunday school and in the afternoon watching a musical or film. Saturday dance classes, I loved these, ha, now accompany dd.