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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Does anyone really remember Christmas younger than 7yo?

95 replies

3partypics · 28/11/2022 21:56

DH &I were talking about our fave things from Christmas as a child, so we could carry on some traditions for our 2yo...

But I explained I couldn't really remember of any Christmas' before 7yo, he thought I was mad!

The first one I can remember was the last with my Gran, as we tried to make it quite special because of this, so I'm sure of what age I was. I then remember Christmas after that as I have vivid memories of visiting the cemetery every Christmas day etc.

I have no memories of opening presents with my DM before that as a little kid. Can't think of any particular presents from when I was little, but I know I did have some. I also can't really remember any feelings about the magic of Santa etc, although I did have an older brother who told me quite young. Aibu thinking that's fairly normal to not remember your early Christmases?

For reference, I'm 31/ a 90s kid.

OP posts:
FelizNavicrab · 30/11/2022 08:46

I don't remember anything before about 7 either. I had a lovely childhood and I know my mum put lots of effort into Christmas but darned if I can remember any of the early years!

It's possible some snippets of memories I have do predate 7 and I am just 'lumping' into the later years because I have stronger other memories of them but I don't think I am, due to lots of moving house (RAF baby) and them all being of the house we moved to when I was about 6 or 7.

However, as soon as a certain type of TV drama comes on (e.g. the 80s Narnia series or anything filmed in a similar manner) I am transported right back to my childhood Christmasses of 7+.

Dinosauratemydaffodils · 30/11/2022 08:52

Yes but not for ideal reasons. My paternal grandfather died the Christmas I was 4. My mum who hated my dad's family had somehow convinced my dad to lie about his leave situation. So his mum thought he was still in Germany and phoned the military base only to be told that we were all in the UK for Christmas. The ensuing fall out was memorable.

User38899953 · 30/11/2022 09:01

I remember very clearly a particular Christmas. Getting the most beautiful dolls house. I remember everything about coming down the stairs and seeing it.

I assumed I must have been about 6/7. However my mum and dad say it was actually only 3

RockyOfTheRovers · 30/11/2022 09:12

I remember moments of Christmas Day when I was 2, but there were extenuating circumstances. What I actually remember is getting up to find my parents had vanished overnight (emergency hospital visit) and my sister was telling me who was in charge and what we were having for breakfast, rather than anything relating specifically to Christmas.

I do remember opening some specific presents (Christmas and birthday) from age 3.

cobblers123 · 30/11/2022 12:58

One thing I remember well is going over to Portsmouth to the big department store with my mum and nan to see Santa. At the time the store was called LDB, they had a sleigh ride against a moving backdrop of a night sky with stars etc on it. The sleigh bit also moved.

I must have been somewhere about 5 or 6 and I truly believed we were on a real sleigh going to see Santa, it was so realistic to me.

When I see what passes for seeing Santa today, I think how lucky we were to have something so magical for kids back then.

Mercy1968 · 06/12/2022 15:01

Just remembered another Christmas play one.
When I was 6 we did 12 days of Christmas as a school play and I wanted to be the 5 gold rings (prettiest costume) but ended up as the geese and swans (standing in a box with one painted on each side). We had to twirl round when the geese became the swans and I wasn't paying attention because I was waving at my dad in the audience.

Terrifying teacher shouted MERCY STOP BEING SILLY AND PAY ATTENTION !!!
right in the middle of the play!

PearlAlice · 06/12/2022 15:06

I remember everything from when I was about 3, and nothing at all about my 20s, 30s and 40s!! It's all just a blur now I'm an adult, but I have very very distinctive memories from being little. I was also showing my kids some photos the other night of when they were really little, around 3yo or even back to 2yo, and they commented on where we were at the time or just other details that could only come from memory.

PearlAlice · 06/12/2022 15:07

Oh, the whole point of what I was going to say was that we had Boney M on over and over again the Christmas I was 3, and then again for my birthday which was a few weeks later 😄

GeneratedRandomly · 06/12/2022 15:27

I remember a flatbed lorry that came along our road, decorated for Christmas with Santa waving to everyone from a chimney. We stood outside to watch, I was small so was on my Dad's shoulders.

I remember other things too but it will make me look incredibly old when a lot of it was just because we didn't have much money so had a lot of old things. Very old decorations, paper ones, dingy colours, the tree being put back in the garden every year and dug up again. It was still there, fully grown when the house was sold. I looked at it and remembered being little.

The only time we had chicken was Christmas day. My mother saved up to pay for our Christmas out of the housekeeping money. My presents were in a pillowcase, and usually secondhand, I didn't know that because I was too young.

We sat in front of the coal fire to open presents, and for our tea. No heating elsewhere so we sat close to keep warm, and the butter was in the fireplace otherwise it would have been rock hard.

We had moved to the house when I was 2 and those are my earliest memories.

WiddlinDiddlin · 06/12/2022 15:54

Oh definitely.

My earliest memories are around 18 months, just pre my sister being born (they may be earlier than that even but certainly aren't later).

One is of visiting my Grandma in a hospice/nursing home type thing, she was dying, we took her a tin of biscuits and i wasn't allowed a pink wafer. We saw a 'steam' roller (not steam) on the way there.

Another is of climbing down the steps from our kitchen, to our garage (two steps) backwards on my hands and knees and the muddy light green cupboard doors in the kitchen, a horrible shade of green v popular in the 60s/70s (this would have been 80/81).

Christmasses - tree with twinkly lights up in friends living room, huge acreage of presents as they had 9 kids, we only spent one christmas there, 1983.

Play school in the cricket club buildings, weak orange squash and NICE or Morning Coffee biscuits - that must have been 82ish.

Santa visiting and giving out sweets at nursery, I recall two of those so that would be 83/84 as i went to a totally different primary in a different village in 85. I remember quite a lot from there, kid with an awful snotty nose that made me gag and retch, awful dinners despite being sent in with a packed lunch, they'd still serve me vile battered fish and dried up liver. Going home with friends for tea.

Christmas at primary was lovely, on the last day the dinner ladies would have us sing a song and then we'd all get a massive (to me) bag of sweets of the kind I absolutely was not allowed any other time of the year. We'd stay a bit late at school and have a christmas tea as well, all in our class rooms, tables laid out in a loop round the room.

Christmas in our cottage in wales, various friends would be there, we'd go up a mountain or for a long walk whilst the turkey cooked and someone would have an argument my dad would get drunk and throw up, I got my BMX the first year there which was 85, as we'd bought it in the summer of that year from friends.

WiddlinDiddlin · 06/12/2022 16:00

Oooh apparently the cottage Christmas was 86, as we didnt have a roof on it properly in 85, hence staying at friends! (Just asked my Dad, though his memory for short term stuff is worse than mine, long term is pretty good!)

alloalloallo · 06/12/2022 16:01

We moved house when I was around 6 I think and I don’t remember Christmas in our old house. I was 5 and a half when my brother was born and we moved into a bigger house when he was about 6 months old.

I remember my brother being born, I remember our family dog who died when I was around 4, and lots of other stuff, but I don’t specifically remember any Christmasses

xogossipgirlxo · 06/12/2022 16:04

TBF, I don't remember earlier than 7. I just realised that 😵

zippygeorgebungle · 06/12/2022 16:08

I definitely remember Christmases from being under 5 as my grandad died then and I absolutely recall some details. Going to bed and getting up again for midnight mass was so exciting, and I recall being in his arms snoozing as a toddler while Val Doonican was on the TV on Christmas Eve. I have a Christmassy birthday too and fully recall some details of my 3rd birthday cake and can remember the table cloth at my grandparents house and the tree, the swirly carpet. I remember some dolls and toy cots from Santa and hearing years later he had painted the cots (still have the doll!. Fills me with joy and a warm feeling, 40 years later.

Spanielsarepainless · 06/12/2022 16:46

I remember Christmas when I was 3 and my DS a baby. And I remember Christmases without her...

sueelleker · 06/12/2022 16:56

NosyNeighbour22 · 28/11/2022 22:10

I can definitely remember christmases younger then 7. The years aren’t distinct though, they are just an assortment of jumbled xmas memories but we moved house when I was 7 so I know that some are from the old house.

Same here. I remember one year my sister got a baby doll, and it was white. She said she'd wanted a black one, so Mum told her to leave it by the fireplace for Santa to exchange. He did-don't know how she managed it over Christmas! I must have been 5 or 6. I also remember my sister won the draw to bring home the class Christmas tree, and Dad had to cut about 4 feet off it to get it in the room; she was only 3 then, so I was four. (Started primary school early in the 50's)

WestwardHo1 · 06/12/2022 17:01

I have the vaguest if memories of pushing a truck I got in my stocking into my parents' room. must have been younger than six because it was in our first house. That's literally it until I was 8 or so. And I can't ever remember believing in Father Christmas though I must have done at some point.

Which is one reason I think the mad excesses and pretence are so pointless.

KrystynaZ · 06/12/2022 17:07

Yes. I remember my 5th Christmas; we were in our new house. I got Chrissy and Velvet dolls, a Teddy and a large toy box from Santa. I found those dolls in my mum's attic the last time I was home, with their faces all melted — had to reluctantly take them to the tip as they were hideous and quite disturbing!
Prior to that I remembr Chrismas-related things (such as certain decorations) but not the actual day.

mewkins · 06/12/2022 17:14

I can remember clearly being 3/4 and being at nursery and living in my old house. I remember quite a lot of Christmas and birthday stuff from then (getting new bike and riding in the snow etc). 7 is quite old.

AugustSchumann · 06/12/2022 17:45

I definitely don't remember Christmas before I was five (as I don't remember my mum at Christmas). I remember very little though really.

Key Christmas memories for me are:

  • Dad sneaking into my room and piling up presents (I pretended to be asleep)
  • Getting a commodore 64 - and then my dad and brother playing it most of the day and into the night...
  • Some presents (not all in same year): a large bar of Milka chocolate from a great aunt (it was the most amazing thing I had ever tasted and my absolute favourite gift that year); a sindy shower; a sindy horse and carriage; a sewing box (still cherished now).
  • A family friend making loads of Christmas cakes and going round to her house to collect ours
  • The Father Christmas float that came round - and then an ambulance as there was an accident with it
  • Untangling the coloured Christmas tree lights

I don't remember any Christmas dinners!

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