What was Christmas like when you were a child?

[ScrabbledLeggsAndToes]

I like hearing / reading about all the different ways people celebrate Christmas. I like hearing about all the seemingly insignificant things that happen, and end up becoming treasured memories, or special traditions

So, what was Christmas like when you were a child?....

Such lovely stories. Thanks very much for sharing, everybody.

YY Darvany We had the advent calandars too with the pictures behind the doors not chocolates.

I prefer it the way we had it.

And the door for Christmas Eve was almost always a double door.

I still buy those sorts of advent calendars. They just remind me of being 'little'

I have very happy Christmas memories.
Preparation used to begin in early December, my siblings and I would spend hours riding our horses around the bush identifying the perfect Christmas tree. Always an Australian she oak. On Christmas eve we would jump in the 4wd with dad and direct him to the chosen tree and he would chop it down.
It was then installed in a large bucket of water and stones and decorated in a strict order.
Mum would usually look at the weather forecast and decide if it was going to be cold turkey and salad or the full monty roast. The cut off point was 32 degrees centigrade. If a hot day was predicted the Turkey was cooked on Christmas eve. We had prawns and oysters to start.
We always had a big box of Mangoes from Bowen in QLD- Mango and Christmas are totally connected as are Cherries from Young in Southern NSW.
On Christmas eve we would leave a can of beer on the front gate for Santa.
Christmas day dawned early and my sisters and I would all sit on one bed and open our Santa bags or one memorable year we all crammed into the loo as it was 4am and we didn't want to wake mum and dad.
Breakfast was always Ham and Eggs on the verandah, then the presents under the tree (only after the washing up was done) Presents were never lavish but we loved it.
The Jehovahs witnesses always came between breakfast and lunch- no mean feat given how far we were from town and how bad the track into the property was.
Christmas lunch mid afternoon when the day was at it hottest! Then we would lie about like slugs or go swimming in the river.
Happy days

I love Christmas. My parents always made a big deal of it (I think this is a result of them both growing up with almost nothing).

Christmas for us always started with being given an advent calendar before school on December 1st. From then on I just remember the anticipation of it.

The first Sunday in December we would put up the tree - my dad would set it up and check the lights, me and dsis would decorate and my mum would cook dinner with a christmas album on. The only rule was that Mistletoe and Wine couldn't be played until we were putting the angel on the top of the tree.

Christmas also meant that at some point in december my parents would leave me and dsis with my nan and spend the day shopping. On this day, my nan would bake cookies with us and let us play outside in the cold for hours (something my mum was never a fan of) so we loved it. She would take us caroling along her street. Her house was always full of homemade jam and picked onions - I still love that smell. I miss her.

On christmas eve, my sister would always sleep in with me and we'd try and stay up as late as possible to hear santa. We heard rustling downstairs one year and were convinced it was him - we were just sneaking out to look but my mum came out of their bedroom and told us not to peek. I can only presume we almost disrupted the whole putting presents under the tree thing.

On Christmas morning, my dad always had to 'check that he'd been' which i realised years later was actually him setting up a video camera so he could record all the excitement.
The whole day was always relaxed - toys were played with and there was alway lots and lots of food.
Boxing day was the day we went to visit what felt like 20 million relatives but I loved it, especially boxing day night because my aunties and uncles would have a party and all us cousins were allowed to play with toys and stay up late. It always felt magical.

Place marking so I can read and enjoy later ??

Tense. The worst one was when my mum was missing on Christmas Eve and had tried to kill herself.

Oh timely I'm so sorry you've had bad Christmases. I hope you've been able to have some good ones, too.

for timely. I hope your family got some support, and you were alot able to find some peace.

were all*, not were alot

Sorry to hear you had such a horrible, difficult time of it timelytess.

Just giving this a little bump in case anyone wants to add their memories.

We would put up all the shiney trimmings on the ceiling and then decorate the tree. The tree had coloured lights on that had strange prickly coloured attachments on.. If you stood on one of those you knew about it!

My Mum always did a giant food shop and went all out on everything. We had a Christmas cupboard in the kitchen full of treats!

Christmas morning we would wake up to a sock stuffed with sweets, a satsuma and a £1 coin.

Downstairs the living room would be packed with presents, no expense spared!

I had a bit of a rough childhood at times but christmas was always amazing!!

Love, love LOVE this thread. I will contribute when sober!

An Aussie here ... I have a question ... I have heard it mentioned many times ....SATSUMA = plum, right? What is the significance of it? Never heard of it. Many thanks, and enjoy your Satsumas.

I am imagining a squash, squishy plum at the bottom of stocking, when you stick your hand in.

A satsuma is a small easy to peel orange, I wish it was plum like though.

No satsuma is a small orange

I just loved Christmas when I was young. We didn't have a lot of money but it was special and I always felt like we had loads of presents to open.

The thing I remember most was my DNan having all the family sleepover at her house (for about 3 days). There were camp beds, top and tailing etc. It was great fun for all the kids - and the adults. She had a big party in the evening with a huge buffet and drinks flowing.

Its great looking back on it now. She made everyone feel so welcome (until we attempted to touch the Christmas tree, decorations or chocolate, then she was a bit tetchy! I think i've inherited this )

I love this thread & hope to read lots more stories on the run up to Christmas

I always had a satsuma in my stocking but didn't know why, so I've googled it. A few explanations......

1. Oranges were once a scarce treat

1. December is the season of giving, and the orange segments represent the ability to share what you have with others.

1. According to the story, St. Nicholas learned of a poor man who wasn't able to find suitors for his three daughters because he didn't have money for a dowry. St. Nicholas traveled to the house, and tossed three sacks of gold down the chimney for each of the dowries. The gold happened to land in each of the girls' stockings which were hanging by the fire to dry. The oranges we receive today are a symbol of the gold that was left in the stockings.

my mother would wake us at five am very excited and we would go down stairs to the best presents, we really would get spoiled. mother would be cooking a feast. Gradually through out the day (after lunch) mother would get more and more irritable then go to bed.

Boxing Day she would be in a shocking mood. Bully every one and then demand all the Xmas decorations be taken down because the house was a mess (it wasn't) so myself brother and step dad would do it in silence.

Horrible woman

Lovely thread! I love Christmas and always had what I thought was a 'normal' Christmas as a child. But I guess there's no such thing as normal! It's lovely to read about people's traditions and memories. Reading about the hard times some of you had as children at Christmas makes me feel very grateful for my 'normal' ones.

One of my favourite things was always listening to the (slightly scratched) record of King's College choir carols while we decorated the tree.

The other thing I always remembered vividly was The Box of Delights being televised as a series in the run-up to Christmas one year when I was a child. Years later (as an adult) I realised it was available on dvd and bought it, and have watched it at the beginning of the Christmas holidays every year since. Now my dc love it too!

Like a depressing number on here, I had an alcoholic parent and a pretty miserable home life a lot of the time...BUT Christmas was made special by my Mums annual 'stand up for herself' and take us to her parents house. I think that is the only thing she didn't roll on. My most precious childhood memories are the absolute certainty that I was safe and loved with my Grandma and Grandad. Grandma had all the family to stay and we had a get together on Xmas eve..she always found a box of pressies in the porch with a note from Santa explaining that these were early due to an elvish oversight. Christmas day always saw us playing games, singing karaoke and general family fun time. No TV or screen stuff on Xmas day, I didn't know the Queens speech existed until I was almost grown!

I miss my grandparents every single day and when I do secret santa for our Xmas party or Christmas eve pressies for anyone staying with a note from Santa and DP outside ringing a bell then running back round to the front door before the kids see, I don't do it due to peer pressure or conspicuous consumption or for FB props.. I do it for them who made my childhood bearable and even good despite the horrors.

The town I grew up in had Santa in a fire engine going round on Christmas morning. They brought out all the fire engines and one of the firemen dressed up as Santa and they handed out bags with peanuts, oranges, & a few pieces of penny candy. The firemen spent their Christmas mornings going up and down every single street in town giving out the bags. It started in 1925 when my mother was a little girl by my grandfather & some of his cronies. Granddad was fire chief that year. It's still going on today even though the town has grown from 5000 (when Mum was a girl) to 33000 people.

We'd open gifts and then wait impatiently, running outside repeatedly trying to hear the engine sirens blaring. Once we sighted them we'd be jumping up and down on the kerb waiting for them to get to us.