To ask what's your favourite childhood memory?

[Sassylassy18]

I am in my happy bubble with my 2 boys under 2 and dreaming about making fun childhood memories with them in the future. Looking for inspiration! When I think back to my favourite childhood memories it is things like day trips out or eating salad in summer on the doorstep (my mums salads were served with crisps). What's your favourite childhood memory?

Christmas traditions. Family holidays. Going swimming with my dad. Basically any quality family time. And music.. that triggers lots of happy memories. Sunday mornings, radio 2 & the smell of a roast cooking!

I have so many good ones! Like you they feature days out or Christmas time or just really random things like when we had a power cut and sat and played Monopoly with torches

Christmas Eve traditions visiting family.
Long summer days spending all day in a nearby wood and having a picnic. The day s felt neverending in summer and we had nowhere to go and no constraints on time- felt like we could have stayed in nature forever laying in the grass watching the white clouds.

Playing finger puppets in my mums bed.
picking raspberries in the garden and then making jam with them.

Staying up till 10 with my dad making a paper mache viking villiage scape because I forgot my history homework was due the next day.

Waking up with a fully painted masterpiece as we didn't finish it in time when I went to sleep (I was 8 at the time) knowing my dad went to work at 5am having stayed up most of the night to help finish it.

Saturday mornings shopping with my mum, walking around sainsburys being allowed to use the 'zapper'

'Fairy' rides with my Nan, which was just my brother and I say on a run in the kitchen being dragged around by 'fairies' whilst she narrated our journey

@alphapie , they're lovely, especially the first one ( made me 😢).
Definitely Christmas morning for me. We didn't receive a great amount, but the excitement and the day itself was just so special.
We also had , quite regularly, mad half hours, when my dm would put records on and we'd all dance and laugh. I do this now with my granddaughter and great nieces.

We used to take the bus to the beach, swim in the sea until we were blue with cold, explore the rock pools, have sandwiches on the beach, a ride on the swing boats, bury my dad up to the neck in sand, get ice creams and go home as sun was going down. Loved those days.

Scraping new potatoes from dgm's garden.
Popping peas from her garden for Sunday dinner.
My beautiful ddog. Our relationship was very special as I am an only dc..
I remember she loved being in the paddling pool with me!
I remember school voicing concerns that she slept on my bed! Not hygienic apparently!

Running towards my Dad, aged four, as he came home from work, being scooped up in his arms, and saying 'Daddy, you got whiskers!'.

I still remember that vikings built villiages around mounds, as we never lived down using one of mums favourite orange plastic picnic bowls to use as the mould!!

One of the few things I remember from Primary school

We’ve always lived by the sea. We used to have a blow up yellow and blue dinghy and my dad would take me and my sister down the beach and pump up this dinghy with a foot pump tie a bit of rope to the front. We would both climb in. My dad would drag us out till the sea was around his knees and he would walk back and forth, Dragging me and my sister behind him in the dinghy. He would do it for ages as we loved it. My dad has dementia now so these memories are even more precious.

Waking up really early on christmas morning (like 6am or so) and my grandmother already being awake and her encouraging me to go peep round the sitting room door to see if father christmas had been.

My other grandmother singing to my sister and I at bedtime when we were little.

Having lots of energy and doing kid stuff.
Playing in our local park with 1970's equipment so it was brilliant.
The excitement of going to the seaside.

Christmas morning.

I remember bike rides with DM, trips to air shows(day trips out were very rare as DC), playing out every day during the school holidays. Kite flying at family picnic

We had a cabin in the mountains and hands down, my favourite memories are pulling the bark off the pines (the bark looked like jigsaw pieces) and rubbing the tree sap onto my fingers to smell it. The other one is eating snow from the banks of our local ravine. It had a taste of pine to it. And the water was so beautiful to drink. Our cat Meeper would follow us everywhere! He’d even sledge with us! When he died, my uncle made a postcard using a photo of our cat sitting up in the trees, sent to us (from our cat, of course!) in Kitty Heaven. I’ll never forget that.
There were always blue jays calling out from the woods in spring and summer and you could always hear a chainsaw running somewhere in the distance (lots of wood cutting going on).
I get seriously misty eyed if I stand among pines of any kind and smell them. There’s a pine copse on my local meadow and whenever I miss my brother, which is pretty much all the time, I sometimes go there just to smell our childhood and remember our lives as they once were.

What lovely memories & happy childhoods had. We were all very lucky. I'm sure you'll create the same for your boys OP without even noticing/trying. Enjoy xx

@TheVanguardSix where did you grow up? Wonderful memories.

I'm loving all these memories. It's always the simple ones that stick.

One that always sticks with me is when I was feeling poorly and had a day nap in bed, my mum would make me an "apple pie bed".

I'd lie on top of the duvet and she would pull up the bottom half and tuck it around me. I remember feeling really safe and cosy 🥰

Making dens under the bushes in our back garden, playing on my swing and talking to the neighbouring children through the hedge.

Last day of term at primary school when my mum would always take me to a cafe - I'd choose a chicken salad sandwich and a vanilla slice to follow.

I used to love fireworks night. My dad would sit me on his shoulders to get a better view and I can remember the smell of his hair.

Summer holidays on the coast in West Somerset and looking for fossils on the beaches. In fact just got back from a weekend doing this with my 2 year old DS for the first time 😍

Long hot summers in the 70s when I’d rush home from school, change into my bugs bunny vest top and flares and head off on my Raleigh chopper 🤣

Playing on playground in a pub garden on warm a summer evening while my parents had their meal in the pub garden. It was a rare thing for us to do (eat out as a family in the evening) so we were in good clothes and it felt like a special occasion but I think it was just a random spontaneous idea of my parents.

Also cuddling up with my mum on the sofa to watch the lunchtime showing of neighbours after watching playbus /playdays.

Being taken to folk festivals by my dad when he was on leave from the middle east. Only saw him every few months (divorced) and had a very unhappy home life with mum and stepfather. I have some very vivid memories of being in beer gardens, fields and pubs surrounded by hippies and folkies, a wall of music, Dad playing banjo and me learning fiddle and being allowed to join in, no rules/routine, just glorious freedom and laughter and music. Pure happiness.

Our salads too. My mom always used to do the salad as a buffet and lay it out on the table so we could make our own salads up!

Christmas traditions which I've carried on with my own family

UK holiday traditions which I've also carried on (dry martini and lemonade in the caravan with board games and taking flasks of tea and bacon sandwiches to the beach, along with a beach tent, windbreak and blankets)

The smell of creosote (from the 80s) it doesnt smell the same now though

And the taste of my Moms Sunday dinner that she made for my Dad which was then left over a hot pan of water to keep warm whilst he was at the pub. He then used to eat it when he got back from the pub, with pepper on and would sit me on his lap while he at it.

Funny really, all the things I remember were the simple things yet I stressed about the simple things not being enough for my own child!

Leaving home to move 450 miles away to attend medical school, and hoping I never had to go back to my narcissistic violent parents.