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?

Being with my very lovely grandad in his vegetable garden, with roses and honeysuckle over the gate, picking blackcurrants whilst he watered everything.

Most childhood Christmases, the part in between and new year parties all with family ❤️ Best memories of my life and very lucky to have what I’ve had xxx

Aw such a nice thread

My favourite memory was probably when I was 7 years old, my mum had just left a violent marriage in the UK and we'd moved to California. It was New Year's Eve 2000 and we went to the local open-air shopping centre in the evening. I had these novelty glasses that reflected little sparkly '2000's in the light. There was music playing, I was looking around at all the enormous palm trees in the warm breeze, just in awe of where we'd ended up.

Sassylassy18 I grew up in California. Our cabin was up in a little place called Moonridge in Big Bear and there were woods all around us. And what was always so poignant is that my father and his sister had been refugees and they bought this cabin together in memory of their past, in a way. They definitely missed the mountains where they'd grown up- in the foothills of the Owl Mountains in Poland. I remember my father buying a bunch of Polish farm furniture from his Polish work friend and filling the cabin with it (and my mother was really annoyed! She didn't want a house full of Polish farm furniture. But it stayed. She compromised.).

Anyway, Moonridge was a beautiful place and we spent our entire childhoods into our adulthood there. I remember we spent the whole summer of '85 there to get away from the whole Night Stalker fear gripping us in Los Angeles.
I no longer have my father or my brother. But when they come to me in my dreams, we are always in those mountains and sometimes I am flying with my brother above the ravine where we used to play. I really love dreaming about the place.

And it's so true, it's the simplest of memories; the taste of something or the way the light falls, or the smell of something that can totally take you back to a perfect moment in time and hold you there for a bit.

So many.

simple Christmas traditions - shining up the silverware, hanging holly around the picture frames, making crepe paper streamers, choosing a tree.

learning to swim at school and running around the tiny unheated pool afterwards to warm up again.

going to the library on a Saturday morning and having to narrow things down to three books in exchange for plastic tokens.

coming back home after a rare late night, having been asleep in sleeping bags on the back seat (youngest sib on the parcel shelf), and feigning sleep when we got home so we’d be carried inside and upstairs.

growing peas and rhubarb.

picking blackberries. Carving turnips. Going to the fair.

Driving down through France with parents to great camp sites in south of France and making friends with loads of international and British kids

Also going to Butlins, winning the weekly holiday princess contest at the site twice and getting a free 4 day holiday as part of it

Various Christmas traditions.

Summer on a particular beach in Gower, swimming in the rain at dusk, back to the caravan for Marmite drink and a game of Pit or Newmarket.

Making up dances with my best friend. Usually to Abba.

Meeting my darling first dog.

Sledging on a monster hill on the golf course.

Playing out in fields which are no longer there.

I didn't have a great childhood but this thread made me smile. Such lovely memories. @Sassylassy18 Thank you for this thread :)

My dad used to take me walking in the woods. We would stop and he would say " listen betty what do you hear?" "Nothing?" I'd reply looking at him confused as to me everything was quiet.
"Listen more carefully betty and tell me what you hear?" So I would listen again and suddenly i could hear the leaves rustling in the breeze, the birds in the trees, a distant tractor.
Suddenly the wood wasn't quiet but was alive with sounds. I remember standing there very still amazed that this silent place had so many different sounds.
That was nearly 50 years ago and taught me so much about the importance of listening properly, not just when appreciating nature but also in my interactions with other people

That's so lovely. And you've just reminded me when DS1 was little he loved reocording odd sounds. We used to go for 'sound walks' where we'd walk together silently for a few minutes and then tell each other what we could hear. And when we went on holiday he took a tiny recording device. I'd find him recording motorbikes and waterfalls - all sorts of things. It made him so happy.

Visiting my Aunty Lillian at her guest house in Ramsgate she had a big fat tabby cat called TinTin
Reading and re reading Ballet Shoes with a bag of sherbert lemons beside me
Hiding under a blanket thinking that I was invisible to everyone and my Dad making a big show of wondering where I could be as he couldn't see me

We always had to cross over the road to the sunny side when walking with my Gran, even if it meant crossing back over a few minutes later.

I'm 33 and lucky enough to still have her and she's still very fit and able and we still do it if we're walking somewhere, always makes me smile.

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!

My mum had a circular dish that was in sections called a lazy Susan or carousel dish it had different salad bits in it because we didn't like many vegetables including grated cheese and hardboiled eggs as well as vegetables.

Really heavy snowfall c1964 and helping big sister build an igloo (we really did). I'll always remember the violet/orange/blue colours on the snow as the sun was setting, so so beautiful.

I was freezing cold and my woollen mittens were icey, but those colours stay with me. 60 years later I still see them.

I remember a donkey derby that our church ran which had a competition where you pulled straws out of a pin board and if your straw had a gold end you won a goldfish. I won the last goldfish and everyone cheered. It was a Sunday and nothing was open and my dad had to drive to my grandmas to get an old goldfish bowl out of the shed to use.

And I remember my mum’s bread and jam - both home made - after we came back from swimming lessons. I miss her every day.

Being about 9, we were moving house and my dad took me to have a look at the building site.

Off we went afterwards to find swings for a little play, us singing 'I got you babe' which was in the charts at the time.

He died when I was in my early thirties, whenever I hear the song it takes me back to that special day, it was a rare outing just me and him, I am the eldest of 4 children.

Walking the dogs with my grandad. Visiting local landmarks it's my perfect place.

My mother ran a Lord of Misrule Christmas Day. So normally we would have to ask if we could have chocolate or crisps or lemonade etc. On Christmas Day the rule was the opposite - we could have whatever we wanted. if we asked she'd pretend to get angry at us and tell us we needed to remember the rules. (she also had an Any Time You Like It sweet box for grandchildren)

Either mum or dad - usually dad would get up earlier on Saturday morning and make a big fry up, toast, coffee and bring it up on a tray. We'd all pile into their bed and have breakfast in bed. Of course when we hit about 12 we no longer wanted to do that.

I also remember being on holidays at the seaside and my dad wasn't there and mum said "we'll have cakes for dinner" and we did. not homemade cake but a selection of fancy shop-bought individual cakes. I still remember it.

One of the things I tried to do with my children (youngest is 20) is write down and/or tell stories from their childhood so the funny stories are remembered. They love it because the stories have them in the starring roles.

Christmas day when I was probably 3. We were going to my grandparents house for lunch and my uncle came to collect us. I was the only child in the family. I remember sitting on my uncle's knee waiting for my parents to be ready to go. He was peeling an orange for me and singing "Go Tell it on the Mountain" with silly words about me. I adored my uncle and my two aunts who were still at home with my grandparents. I can just remember the feeling of being surrounded by love - my parents, my uncle - and knowing I would be with my aunts as well.

I had a very happy childhood and was very loved but that moment on my uncle's knee will stay with me forever.

Christmas mornings were always v special.

But being at my grand parents is my favourite every memory, I was adored, cherished, spoiled, they had so much time for me.

This is a nice thread - I love that most people have posted very simple things, not big hitting stuff like trips to Disney (often think there is too much pressure to have a good time with that sort of thing). My childhood was a bit shit - making up for it by having a lovely time with my dc.

Thank you for this. You have just reminded me when we built a proper igloo one winter when the snow was so deep my mum couldn't open the front door. I remember exactly what you said - the sunset on the snow roof and the frozen mittens. Amd crawling inside the igloo to keep warm.