Then and now - Christmas things you don't see any more

[housemum]

I was buying some Christmas cards in Sainsbury's and for some reason remembered how we bought cards in my childhood (1970s). I remember going into Woolworths, where you bought a selection box of 20/40 different cards. Mum would spend ages looking through the boxes, but whichever you chose there would always be a couple of really naff kitten-looking-at-a-bauble cards and that dismal brown-tinted sheep-in-the-snow painting. Everywhere now sells a couple of designs only in a pack. Also whatever happened to:

Paper chain garlands, like a honeycomb that stretched out and you pinned to the ceiling

foil garlands - the expensive version of the paper ones

matt wrapping paper by the sheet, usually with the print a little off-centre on each colour. Up until a few years ago I bought this from the local cheap market, and used it to differentiate Father Christmas presents.

Peanuts and cashews in ring pull cans (usually given as gifts - whoopee! )

Christmas tree lights shaped like Victorian lanterns

Christmas may have been tacky back then but it seemed cosier when everything was less "tasteful" :)

I'm searching hard online for kitsch/retro xmas decorations and struggling I think I see a gap in the market! [lightbulb moment]

Really am desperate to find some honeycomb style decorations.

housemum soap with pictures! I had flower fairies I think :)

And this HAS to be the QUOTE OF THE WEEK
pinkytheshrunkenhead Sun 20-Nov-11 22:18:43

Oh and lametta hanging out of the cats bum is a favourite childhood memory too

oooooh hang on, found some!

www.partypacks.co.uk/christmas-honeycomb-decorations-cid22235.html

Go to Wilkinsons Avada - all the retro you could ever want!!

These are the bad boys I remember hanging all the way down the hall, couldn't go for a pee in the night without bagning into them and scaring yourself shitless
www.partystuffonline.co.uk/Description.asp?ProductID=18330

Yes I mentioned earlier about the cats eating the falling lametta, never got so unlucky as to pull it out of their bum though. We used to have to pull it out of their throats all warm and sticky when we noticed one of them had an extra sparkly whisker.

They used to climb inside the tree and scrap too! Much to mums annoyance and the tree shaking, needles and baubles falling everywhere.

I had Holly Hobbie Picture soaps. The same year I had her secret house and a book about her South American Adventure.

I think I had a Holly Hobbie tea set too. Well I was never into Pierrot so a girls got to have a vice eh?

Pierrot - my cousin had these freaky things hanging about the place www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-CERAMIC-PIERROT-DOLL-WITH-RUFFLE-POMANDER-NO-MAKER-/370551976579

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Royal-Guard-Pink-floral-single-duvet-cover-and-vintage-Pierrot-pillowcase-/220849952258?_trksid=p4340.m185&_trkparms=algo%3DDLSL%252BSIC.NPJS%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%252BUA%26otn%3D10%26pmod%3D270798708462%252B270798708462%26po%3D%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D4351806391647231667 my best mate had the whole bedroom collection for Christmas in our first year of secondary school!

Ha Ha Ha! Love these ebay links.

I would keep the picture soaps untouched too! It was far more fun to look at them, touch them and smell them than it ever would have been to actually use them!

On that ebay link to the spoaps theres a rather spiffing A Team soap that I might bid on!

I had a Muppetts Show talc that was also left mostly unused.

To this day I still have some reams of Paddington Bear Stationary, that I couldnt bear to use. bear to use... see what I did there...Anyway it was too precious, too special to use every sheet.

Well done to Avada finding the honeycomb bells and balls. I fear though that the one in my memory, a graduating in colour pastel coloured one will never be reproduced! However knowing my mum, I am sure she still has it!!! I will ask her and I will travel down memoery lane and have a good feel of it in December! I may even brush my face against it.......

Thanks to inthemoonlight, for your kind words. I had another look at the cini film it this morning and I can see myself on my shinny new bike! Gonna save my pennies and have it converted to dvd asap! Its very off seeing an old photo or film you didnt know excisted.

I remember, instead of being in every department store, Father Christmas toured the residential streets on a Round Table float. All the children would gather in the doorways to get a glimpse, or if really lucky, a wave!

Ooh I had the Paddington Bear Stationary - it was in a cardboard version of his little suitcase. Every year I would get some stationary or "notelets" for my thank you letters in my stocking. For some reason the envelopes always had a Jack in the Box printed on the inside.

I had talc with a big pink puff one year, I felt so sophisticated having my Christmas morning bath. Dad used to moan about it all over the carpet though.

Did anyone get a nice vanity set with a matching print on the back? (Usually floral) A mirror with a handle, a soft bristle brush etc. I would line them up with my soaps and talcs and bathcubes on my kidney shaped dressing table pmsl.

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=sarah+kay&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1270&bih=626&tbm=isch&prmd=imvnso&tbnid=5byGyHRwb_V58M:&imgrefurl=www.babylonpuzzles.com/en/7966-500-pcs---sarah-kay---sarah-kay-by-nathan.html&docid=VVUACc-E83FoqM&imgurl=www.babylonpuzzles.com/7966-2227-thickbox/500-pcs---sarah-kay---sarah-kay-by-nathan.jpg&w=900&h=900&ei=XpLKTun8A8Gk8gPGsO1m&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1004&vpy=130&dur=2120&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=143&ty=152&sig=104032461954376089872&page=1&tbnh=126&tbnw=126&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I had lots of Sarah Kay stuff - duvet cover, pictures etc

I also had some Snoopy stationery in a little cardboard drawer box, that was ace.

Getting the Christmas Radio Times was so exciting and it was so deflating to get to the end of it. We used to go through and mark the things we wanted to watch and squabble over clashes.

Someone else mentioned the Blue Peter advent crown. Do you remember the table centre piece made by sticking a candle to a flammable polystyrene tile, surrounding it with flammable tinsel and pine cones then spraying it with gold paint to make it extra flammable? I used to make lots of those as gifts.

The local rotary used to come round with Father Christmas on a float.

I used to be allowed a tiny glass of ginger wine or cinzano- v sophisticated, while Granny always got slightly pissed on brandy and babycham.

Lots of Avon "pretty peach" hand cream and bubble bath and soap on a rope, annuals and outfits for Pippa and Sindy. One year my grandmother made me a whole hamper full of really beautiful dolls clothes, just like in "A Little Princess". Lots of giggling at really bad presents too.

I haven't really changed things that much: it remains my grandmother's format. Stockings in the morning. Mince pies, little sausage rolls, drinks, lunch at about 2, big presents after lunch. We have a lot more booze, and most of it is wine and "tea" has vanished, to be replaced by some turkey sandwiches, cheese etc at about 8. Christmas tree is and always has been real with a motley assortment of decorations accumulated over the years.

Oh dear, feel so nostalgic!

Making an icosahedron out of the year befores Xmas cards. DH and his dad used to do them every year and now DH makes them with DD and they look amazing. DD made them as presents for her friends last year.

I am only half way through this thread but it is bringing back some lovely memories.

I was born in 1969 in a council house in Central Scotland. Christmas really stood out as the rest of the year was just so ordinary and a bit grim. We were no better or worse off than anyone else in our area. All the dads worked but there was not a lot of spare money about and life was hard.

Christmas is the only time we had a selection of alcohol. Ginger wine, Martini and Drambuie for Hogmanay. The fridge and cupboards were full to bursting thanks to the hamper my mum paid up weekly throughout the year. The house was always really clean and warm. The TV was always brilliant

It didn't really matter what presents you got. It was just lovely to have something new to play with or wear.

I dont think Christmas holds the same magic for my children because compared to my childhood they lead a very privilaged life. We always have nice food and the heating is always on. TV on demand and almost monthly trips to the cinema. Don't get me wrong I think that is a good thing but it does mean they don't look forward to Christmas the way that I did when I was a child.

I used to go and see Father Christmas at the Co-op. In the homeware section, you had to cross an internal bridge in the Coop to get to him, as the store was built on two sides of a main road. This just added to the excitement.

They had a ride with "blacklights" so you felt like you were riding a sleigh but you just got out the other side I guess! I have a collection of pictures with some very dubious looking Santas! It was a flat moment when you came out of the grotto back into electricals.

good lord there is still one going on these days

Aww.... this thread is still dredging up long-forgotten Christmas memories.

Holly Hobby picture soap!

Icosahedrons out of cards (can't remember how to do them, but they always looked lovely)!

Rotary Santa driving round the housing estates on the back of a truck shouting "Ho Ho Ho"!

binful I still have that Pierrot duvet cover and pillowcase! DD1 still used it until she got all grown up and sophisticated recently

I had Victoria Plum stationary. And i had a Holly Hobbie diary which we got on holiday in Italy when i was ten so it had Holly Hobbie il diario di written on the front. And we used to have Santa come down on his float. In those days the end of the close where we lived had a narrow dead end so the float took ages to turn around to come back up the road again,so us kids had time to run up and say hello.ah happy days. I remember one christmas mum put a milk terrys choc orange in bros stocking and a plain one in mine. I nagged him all crimbo day to swop with me as i couldnt stand dark chocolate. Would he? Would he hell lol!

I loved Victoria Plum, Holly Hobbie and Sarah Kay. I collected the stickers for the Sarah Kay book and had dozens of spares but never completed it!

We still have the Rotary Santa going round the villages in my area. When I was little I was an Austrian girl helping him! Very exciting as everyone waved to us!

Btw ages ago it was mentioned about the gorgeous Mon Cheri liquer chocolates disappearing. I read about this recently - Ferrero still make them but they proved very unpopular in the UK as we "bite into our chocolates" and they had complaints from people as the cherry liqueur spilt down people's fronts! So they stopped stocking them generally in the UK.

I wondered what had happened to them :( Until a couple of years ago they were still available but only in a selection of 3 Ferrero chocolate types for Christmas, Ferrero Rocher, Mon Cheri and the dark choc things.

The Marks & Spencer chocolate liqueur cherries are very very similar to Mon Cheri - they often have them on offer 2 boxes for £3 as well.

ooo yes, m&s cherry liquers are really nice! proper liquer chocs that give you a bit of throat burn, not like the cheap ones i got at morrisons last month 4 boxes- all eaten

Oh such a lovely thread...bringing back loads of memories. carernotasaint I loved the Mandy and Bunty annuals.I remember Valda, I dug them out a few months back and I found myself rereading the stories with a massive smile on my face. And the 2 stories called "The Who" and "The Portraits" scared me so much.

Crystal Barbie...