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" :)

The Brownie Annual full of worthy stories of helping old ladies and being thrifty with old tights

I so want an After Eight carriage.

horsemadgal Step away from the carriage! MINE! MINE!! MINE!!!

So do I!!!!

Are paper garlands the same as the paper strips you link together?

Misty annual!

www.20th-century-collectables.com/judy1982.jpg

www.20th-century-collectables.com/PENNY1980.JPG

I forgot these two aswell!

I used to have the Mandy and Bunty annuals. OMG i had misty as well. Id forgotten all about that.
Slightly off topic who remembers Valda the super heroine from the Mandy comics with her Fire of Life and then her Crystal of Life. I used to get the comic every week as well. Every Monday on the way to school my mum would buy me a copy and take it home and leave it on my bed waiting for me late on a Monday afternoon after school.

This thread is a wondeful read.

I was in Heals last week floating around thinking about getting tasteful decorations, white lights FOR THE 1ST TIME!, nordic style white tree decs and then all of a sudden I notice the Heals shop decorations. Honeycombe fold out paper bells and balls. They werent selling them (the fools) but then thats all I wanted, my christmas from my childhood, 70's and 80's.

I have been thinking A LOT about Christmas past, happy memories and toys I liked and wondering if I can get the same stuff for my DS who is 3 years old. Then I found this thread this morning! Its reminded me of things I had forgotten. We didnt have the fox hunting glasses but there was something similar and I remember the feel of the picture on the glass, and the styling of the picture. The colouring book and posters I had been looking up on the internet for future ref. So thanks to the poster who said they were called "Altair". Thats the ones!

I did have a funny "memory moment" a couple of months ago. I made sure I asked for the old family cini films when my Gran moved and was having a big clear out. There were quite a few and as you know it costs £££ to get them copied well, so I only got 7 or so done.

There were lots I didnt get done as based on the labeling they didnt seem to be of personal interest to me. I held one of these to the light and unravelled it, and there I was and my brother too, christmas day 1980 at my grandparents house. Lots of tiny frames of the very things and memories I had been going over in my mind for years. The white christmas tree in the living room. It was so odd to see it all without warning, I was so shocked I put it away in a hurry. I felt like I had actually time travelled!

I think I have recovered enough now to have another look and then get it transfered.
Goes to show though, all our happy and vivid memories all these years later, how important christmas is. All the hard work we put in for our kids must be well worth it!

The OP's thread-starter has made me feel so accutely nostalgic that I've gone all misty.

yy 'Victorian' lantern tree lights. With the little plastic panels all bobbly and textured.

"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."

I was going to post about that! My mum would buy a sheaf of this on the street and use it for stocking presents. The colours were garish and clashing - lots of hot pink, cobalt blue and acid yellow - and yes, prints always a bit off-centre. It had a tissue-like texture and tore easily. Can still remember the bliss of ripping my fingers through a single layer of badly-printed lurid orange kittens. We shall never see its like again.

Those clear plastic baubles filled with lime and orange tictacs - another 70's stocking-filler favourite. Every time I eat a whole packet a tictac, I feel slightly Christmassy.

(still reading lovely thread)

Lametta is NOT angel hair! Angel hair was banned in our household after one year when dad brought it back and wound it round the tree light bulbs. Made me very itchy (it's fibreglass). Vv pretty though. You can't EVER get it off the bristles of an artificial tree, either. Lametta is still going strong in PIL's household - MIL loves the stuff.

Newberry Fruits were bought for my grandma and I was allowed the odd one. Always expected the black one to be nicest but the best one is, in fact, lime.

We also used to have boxes of coffee Matchmakers (for mum) and mint (for everyone else), back in the days before Eviiiil Nestle. And a box of After Eights.

My grandparents would get me and my brother those stocking selection boxes from Mars a few days before Christmas, which would always make my mother grrrr a bit. I never got excited about them though, because aside from the Opal Fruits, it was all milk chocolate and I didn't like it. Suspect my dad ate up the rest. What I looked forward to was the long tube of Jelly Tots in my stocking, and I still have to get one every christmas!

Ooh, Terry's Neopolitans! DH has just gone 'oooh' so I'll try and track some down.

early 70's tree decorations - little boots made of polystyrene covered in red and gold flock. Silky thread baubles - gold, red and pink. Aw. And my mum made these fab crappy birds out of silver foil and balled-up chocolate foils - with tinsel wings! Apparently they were on Blue Peter one year. She still has them.

I see your Bunty annuals and raise up www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Yardley-Lavender-Bath-Cubes-/320755798345

Wonder if people still give the boxed hankie sets nowadays? Also remember getting a decorative pomander or two for the wardrobe from some "auntie" or other. One was porcelain with a flower pattern and had holes in it. It smelt like the devils armpit.

Hee hee found the actual one.....can still smell it now.

www.etsy.com/listing/69494413/vintage-ceramic-light-green-pomander?ref=sr_gallery_30&ga_includes%5B0%5D=tags&ga_search_query=pomander&ga_noautofacet=1&ga_search_type=vintage&ga_facet=vintage

Link (hopefully!) to my collection of annuals (didn't realise I had so many still :) ), and a classy Father Christmas from Woolworths in the 1970s

housemum's pics

Wow, I'd forgotten those ceramic pomanders! My mum had one of those!

Collection of delightful Avon Pomanders also here

Yep housemum i had that Mandy annual.

Can i come round and play at yours one afternoon please? I'll bring my Girls World? (I had the girls world fashion designer set too )

What were those little games called -Spears Games? There was always one of those for Christmas, or something MB with a "Pop-o-matic"thing (dice in a plastic dome). Dicey Dunces springs to mind.

I'll find my Pippa dolls and Tressy!

YY to annuals. I always had Mandy and Bunty. Judy and Jackie made an occasional appearance. I always thought Jackie was slightly raunchier than the others . housemum - I recognise the 1983 Jackie one from your collection and I also had that Mandy. I'd love to get mine down from mum's loft and see what's there. I used to buy the older ones from car boot sales or book shops.

Love this thread :o
I still have paper garlands, twisty crepe paper ones and concertina ones (sellotaped a few times but still going strong!) They still have old Woolworths stickers on them saying 25p or somesuch.
I always put a satsuma and a handful of quality street in the toe of the stocking- it's not a stocking otherwise!
Our tree is always the most tasteless creation and I LOVE it. We have every colour of tinsel (including orange and purple!) and a huge collection of old and new tree decorations. I bought a bigger tree last year to accommodate them all.
I was looking online through the 1985 Argos catalogue and realised that between my brother and I, we had nearly all of the toys! My parents really saved hard to make Christmas special for us and we didn't get any toys through the rest of the year (apart from birthdays obv). I remember my 80s christmases as being utterly magical, the Christmas tree lights reflecting off the Quality Street set out in bowls along with dry roasted peanuts and Twiglets. The selection of alcohols and mixers lined up on the sideboard for the grownups to help themselves- always Cinzano and Advocaat there!

I enjoyed reading this thread so much!!

I grew up in Germany so we had a German Christmas. I do remember that my aunt from England used to send a really lovely parcel each year. And the big prize in it was the Giles Annual! We loved getting that Annual, so much so that my parents made an exception and my mother and I extracted it from the parcel when it arrived instead of waiting for Christmas.
I have now lived in England for years, but each year I still "have" to buy the Giles Annual even though all they can now is reprint a selection of old cartoons. Some of these date from the early 50's but those don't speak to me: what I like are the cartoons from the 1970 and early 1980's, especially the ones about Christmas!

Come to think of it, some of the stories told on this thread remind me of the Giles family - especially the battles with the decorations!

I also remember being sent a huge yellow picture dictionary in English one year and those big flat Cadburys chocolate selection boxes. 1960's Germany was still pretty austere and, to me, aged about 6 or 7, those chocolate boxes represented riches!

All this is GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!......last year tried making paper chains and already planned to this year[hobby horse i'm told may do the paper squares you need?????]
SHINY GARLANDS: HAVE DONE FOR YEARS[PLUS CEILING FOIL LANTERN(S)]..TRY POUNDSTRETCHERS
Also have rubbishy old artificial tree: multi-reused approx 11 times so far so less wasteful

Still have the old crepe paper garlands.

Also... a very long string of 'tinsel / bunting' made of milk-bottle tops shaped into starry cones with a lemon juicer, alternating with cut up drinking straws (we did one with macaroni too), made when I was about six. I wrap it around the bannister.

Pine cones sprayed gold / silver / red, with wires attached to hang on the tree (I think these look good without the 'childhood nostalgia' explanation).

We had a cardboard wall decoration that was naffness extraordinaire.

It was Santa in his sleigh, being pulled along by 3/4 reindeer, which you arranged on the wall, flying duck style.

I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, it had red ribbons for the reindeer's reins and had proper little jingle bells on it. One of my earlies memories is watching my dad pin it on the dining room wall whilst my mum directed him "up a bit Jim, left a bit Jim".

SingingSands, I saw those and wished we had one!

Just remembered, we didn't have a chimney so my mum bought a poster of Father Christmas (possibly a single sheet of wrapping paper, it just had one big Santa picture) and stuck it on the wall. I used to tuck my letter behind it and it would magically disappear. Though I wasn't exactly sure, from a very early age I remember my mum coming up to bed and hanging my (full) stocking on the door handle . She never has been one for late nights

Love love love this thread. And I am so getting some of those B&Q flower lights. We already have a multicoloured clashing tree with stuff from years back on it. I think the flower lights would set it off a treat!