Retro Christmases

[Grinchycrinchy]

I was born late 70’s, so an 80’s kid, 90’s teen.

The things I remember from childhood Christmases were..selection boxes, Jackie annual, Wizard, huge gatherings with relatives drinking and smoking in the houses, a Father Christmas float that came down the street, a feeling of complete excitement and magic

Anyone else?

I know of one person, who had a mr frosty, my male friend who quite frankly has every toy known to man for Christmas, spoiled to the max.

Re. The PP's Babycham granny. My granny considered Snowball to be a completely appropriate Christmas drink for children - when we grew up (from age 12) we just drank sherry

We'd also go around parties sipping from the adults drinks, noone noticed as they were too busy gossiping or playing dominoes

It really was a different world back then.

I've just been watching Call the Midwife (okay set in the 60s but...). They opened a tin of Quality Street they'd been given. A proper tin, that was properly deep, and the contents had coffee creams and other yummy one in it.

and a big box of Newberry Fruits

Were they the weird fruit jelly sweets with liquid centres? God they were vile.
Why did they only turn up at xmas?

My mum always bought a box of dates which no one ate and always had nuts that needed a nutcracker to get in to.

I’d forgotten about the unshelled nuts. My Dad and Grandpa loved them, but it used to drive my Mum mad finding bits of nut shells all over the living room.

@WhereDoMyBluebirdsFly

Can we just do a quick straw poll? Did anyone get a Mr Frosty for Christmas? I have lots of siblings and cousins and we all asked for a Mr Frosty every year for over a decade, but never got one.

Never got a Mr Frosty (or a Sodastream!).

Got a Sondy house after a few years of begging, but my mum then made all the furniture Blue Peter-style, which kind of killed the effect I was going for. Loo roll sofas and matchbox coffee tables weren’t 80s chic.

Sindy

Oh yes annuals. Do they even exist still?

And foil streamers pinned across the ceiling - what a pain, trying to get four at the same height ("Up a bit, down a bit, that left one's too short...").

Never got a Mr Frosty but in fairness, I never wanted one. What I wanted more than anything was a wooden dolls' house, like the one in 'Tottie' but I never got one.

60s child here. I remember making paper chains and those streamers where you had two different coloured strips of crepe paper stuck at the end at right angles and folded repeatedly over each other, so that when you open it up it was like a load of little boxes. Princess Annual and, later Beatles and Monkees albums were top of my list. I'm quite nostalgic for those foil lanterns, I must look for some for next year.

Meanwhile,we're going back a few centuries in our house at the moment with the lights off and candles everywhere.

My parents had a fake tree, one of those silver or gold ones I can't remember, but somewhere I have a pic of my brother and I standing in front of it. He's in plaid trousers, I'm in mustard yellow thick polyester trousers. I wish I had a living memory of that Christmas but i only have the pic.

I got a Mr Frosty! Only cos dm took a catalogue out one year and it was something like 50p a week for 50 weeks 😁. It was crap though, but I did find myself wondering the other day of you could use it to make crushed ice for cocktails.

We alsi had the ceiling decorations and adults smoking in the house, I bet they reeked of fag smoke come January.

Also had snowballs at Christmas, I looked at some of the ready made bottles the other day and nearly bought them for nostalgia and for dd who is the most unteenagey teenager and refuses all alcohol offered except 20ml of baileys in a hot chocolate!

Christmas cards were always rectangular, square ones were unheard of. Cheap ones were made of paper with verses printed in red inside and came with grey, fuzzy envelopes. Often the picture on the front would be a photo rather than a drawing.

This reminds me i need lemonade for my snowball.
Cheese and pineapple hedgehogs.
Getting out all the records and having a dance.
Eastenders being great tv.

Them foil decorations in shapes of like snowflakes etc that opened out and filled your ceiling!!!

[quote Grinchycrinchy]@Eloradannin Yes! I much preferred Sindy to Barbie
I really really wanted a dairy milk or Bourbon mini dispenser, but was never allowed one 🤷🏻‍♀️Same with a Mr Frosty 😂[/quote]
Snap to the Mr Frosty. An ex boyfriend bought me one in my 20's to make up for my disappointment as a kid & by christ that handle was so hard to turn, 45 mins for a mini vodka slush, i was kinda glad i never got one after that as my 12 year old self would literally have never had slush!

Streamers, streamers and more streamers. I would climb on sofas and chairs to pin them into the ceiling. I miss those days.

Late 70s child.

I never got a mr frosty either!

But I did get a load of my little ponies and Care Bears.

The only fools and horses Xmas specials
The two Ronnies
After eight mints- which I still love
It actually snowing over Xmas.
Sigh. I miss the days of the magic. Xmas as an adult is nice but not the same!

Just on annuals- I still have the rainbow annual 1986 😁

Nope. Not me. Born early 80s. Pissed up stepfather either a smashed up Xmas tree or piss riddled carpet or sofa. Most often both.

It dampened any and all sense of nostalgia around Xmas.

As such I’ve spent the last few years with DC creating new traditions and such.

Die hard Xmas eve with some junk food without a mince pie in sight.
Xmas dinner is turkey free. Dessert has to have winter berries in it. Yule log is basically a Black Forest gateaux in Swiss roll form.
We take a walk Xmas day when it’s really quiet and mes about on the zip line.

Make our wreath with stuff from the garden and DC ‘grows’ stuff specifically for it over the summer.
We decorate doorways with paper chains and there isn’t a bit of tinsel anywhere. The smell, reminds me of my childhood where mother would hang it over the fireplace and it would melt and smell of metallic burning.
We always have fresh Xmas flowers and hyacinths in pots.
Gingerbread and hot chocolate.
Cheesy hallmark films and bets placed on what the plot will be. Loser loads the dishwasher.
Boxing Day is always about ghostbusters, goodie, cheese and meats and chutneys and leftovers and doing nothing much at all. Trivial pursuit comes out, last year we upgraded to the stranger things edition.
Never shared a Xmas at home with anyone other than DC tbf.

Maybe next year it will be different.

Kid of the 70's

I remember trips to London to look at the lights and the Hamley's window.

Making a birthday card for baby Jesus and leaving it on the alter in church.

Quality Street and Roses tasting like real chocolate.

The whiff of gin on Uncle Tony's moustache.

Velvet party dress (no Christmas jumpers or PJs).

Ice Magic! Such a treat. Viennetta! Height of sophistication.
Those magic writing pads (like a Poundland version of etch a sketch...) you had a plastic 'pen' and drew on a plastic sheet.. lifted up the sheet and voila! it all disappeared --unless you'd pressed too hard then ruined the sheet of film forever...)
Bath oil beads. Even before Body Shop . The totally round ones from Boots , Medicare etc. There was never a Christmas when I didn't receive about 10 tubes of them... all had the same weird sickly stale smell.
Bath cubes! Used so many one year the skin started peeling off my chest.
Bath salts! As above.
Morny gift sets.. sandalwood talc and soap etc. I'd smell like a great grandma at 7 yrs old. The sets for little girls were called things like Heavens Sent... (I have some childhood diaries and did list my presents)
Going to bed Christmas Day night feeling sick as a pig from all the sweets (mum was a former dental nurse so the rest of the year sugar was hugely rationed..) and feeling a huge sense of anti climax
(but there was usually a small tree present left for Boxing Day... it was usually disappointing though!)
Writing paper sets.. I'd get about 12! Scented ones were great, eg Strawberry Shortcake
Scented pencils too.. eg Coca Cola. Also being actually ALLOWED a glass of Coca Cola at next door neighbours on Christmas morning while sitting on their scratchy green 1930s chairs. Brother and me would receive a one pound note in a card each from them. I'd love to go back in time and see these NDN again...they were like grandparents to us.
Being told to save our sweets for N Y Eve.. we usually did have some left but were sick of them by then...
Getting Christmas money and buying Smurfs or yet more Pierrot stuff.Usually meant a trip to Watford or the Luton Arndale for sales. There was no actual mall in Watford then though. Luton was usually the choice, occasionally Brent Cross.
My nan would smooth out all the wrapping paper and take it home to iron it.. then we'd see it again the next year. And so on...
All Christmas cards were cut into gift tags with pinking shears to use for the next year..
We also had all these gift label stickers with The Spastics Society written on them...actually not stickers as you had to lick them..they always curled up...decades later I went to work managing Scope shops, they had changed their name from TSS...
We never EVER bought new tree decorations. We had an electic mix of 60s/70s/80s deccies and both gran's vintage ones. Everything went on, nothing was missed off and there were literally several hundred ;)

Love this.
Memories flooding back. We had the mushroom vol au vents, pop from the milkman, foil ornaments on the ceiling, octagonal boxes of Turkish delight.
There was always a bath set with soap on a rope. Cinzanno and lemonade with a bowl of salted peanuts still seems like glamour to me. A blue indoor fug of smoke was a given !

I wanted a Mr Frosty, a big Yellow Teapot and an A La Carte kitchen but never scored!

@RickJames

Re. The PP's Babycham granny. My granny considered Snowball to be a completely appropriate Christmas drink for children - when we grew up (from age 12) we just drank sherry

We'd also go around parties sipping from the adults drinks, noone noticed as they were too busy gossiping or playing dominoes

It really was a different world back then.

This is so true. Somebody mentioned after eights and I have a memory of sitting under a table with some other kids eating them and listening to adults behaving badly! It was some kind of house party. We all had a taste for babycham and snowballs. The 70s were another world.