What are your best Christmas memories/traditions as a child?

[Freco010]

So many great ideas out there these days. I'm looking for simple traditions that wouldn't take a lot of time or money!

My one is helping my mum clean the house of Christmas Eve so that she could have a rest and it was ready for Father Christmas visit and then after lunch we settled down with films and treats. She was very surprised when I told her!

[Chillywhippet]

My Nan's front room. It was always the same. Cotton wool on the mantelpiece with glitter and some coloured fairy lights. Like this pic.

Roaring fire. She always had those lovely Cadbury tree chocs. Mmm

We played charades with my cousins and aunties and uncles. They played 3 little words. I didn't play but always had the task of choosing from the dictionary and writing the words on pieces of paper.

Yes interesting.nothing to do with presents

[Loungingbutnotforlong]

We used to take soup in a flask to collect our Christmas tree from a forest. Our hallway was always decorated like a grotto and the front door bell played Christmas tunes. My mum would put cardboard santa and reindeer up the stairs hallway.
Just all the excitement and happiness around the decorations and the quality street in bowls around the house

[wowwee123]

material things im afraid but i remember and always associate it with christmas, i got a keyboard and the demo button plaued wham - wake me up before you go go.

i also remember one christmas asking for branded jogging bottoms, adidas tracksuit bottoms and a leather jacket with fur collar from geordie jeans thinking one would be my main present (we werent that well off) and i got them all. i was in disbelief!

[MrsFezziwig]

Had totally forgotten about Pretty Peach! Thanks Finneganscake!

[OSETmum]

I had pretty peach toiletries too!

[FinnegansCake]

The Pretty Peach I used to get was in a plastic container with a top in the shape of a peach.

We used to have dishes of sugared almonds on the sideboard, and always a large bowl of mixed nuts in their shells and a packet of dates with a plastic fork in. I used to be given the job of unwrapping the satsumas from their tissue paper and polishing the apples.

[FinnegansCake]

Purplebluebird I love your snow light, that's brilliant!

[PamDooveOrangeJoof]

Finnergan had totally forgot about pretty peach talc for Xmas! Thanks for the memory can remember it so well now. What a Christmas scent

[AmyAmoeba]

I remember looking at the light reflecting off the shiny baubles on the Christmas tree and the way the house was transformed by the shiny foil chains mum hung on the ceiling.
I loved travelling by car to school on winters morning and seeing the traffic lights in the dark and knowing Christmas was coming closer and soon there would be lights everywhere.
Lighting a candle in the window on Christmas Eve- we had the same huge candle for years and I loved the shape of it and the smell of the wax and way the flame reflected on the window pane.
Creeping downstairs on Christmas morning to see if Santa had come and later as a teenager getting up early with my brother to open the presents.
Throwing sweet wrappers onto the fire and watching the flames change colour and holding chocolate biscuits (from a USA tin of biscuits) to the flames to melt the choc and then licking it off.
Christmas mass with the church packed out and the beautiful hymns - and edging through the crowds afterwards to see the baby Jesus in the manger.
We had so little money growing up but it was magical. I don't think I've come close to giving my kids what I had even though I can afford to give them so much more stuff than I ever had.

[Natsku]

We celebrated on Christmas eve and we always invited another family to eat with us and afterwards us kids would perform a play for them (finnish classic called star boys). I loved that so much, the whole night was full of excitement and end with midnight mass.

[Wayfarersonbaby]

The smell of Christmas! For me the quintessentially Christmassy smells were:

• the scent of the tree: my parents used to get those spruces that dropped all their needles by about 26 December...
  
• Christingles - there's something unique about the smell of burning wax on oranges with an edge of lightly singed raisins...
  
• the smell of tinsel, stored in a box all year...
  
• when I was younger, my stocking always smelt of Body Shop fruit soaps - a mixture of different soaps mingling together (usually banana and strawberry)...
  
• when I was a teenager, I always used Neutrogena shampoo at Christmas, and the smell of that is such a Christmassy association for me. Last year I even ordered some on Ebay from the US so that I could smell it again (same smell as their Rain Bath but they don't sell in the UK any more...)

[Freco010]

I love all these posts. I've just remembered that my Dad would always have to go downstairs first and we would always creep behind him so he could check that FC hadn't fallen asleep down there.

[Citizenerased123]

Does anyone remember "Christmas Storyteller"? It was an audio tape with christmas stories with a booklet with the words and pictures and was my absolute favourite thing at christmas. I think I was given it when I was about 5/6 and had to read/listen every year even in my early teens (secretly I wish I could find it so I can read it again!)

My other prominent memory was sitting at the top of the stairs with my sister (who was older and led me astray) watching our parents wrap the christmas presents in the living room. I hope to keep the Father Christmas belief going for a little longer for my dc...

[Muskateersmummy]

We were always allowed to open 1 present after midnight mass before we went to bed. My dad always bought mum a box of chocolates every year, so her Christmas Eve present was always that one, and we all got one of the Christmas chocolates before bed

[MadameCholetsDirtySecret]

I remember waking up on Christmas morning, stretching my leg to the bottom of the bed to feel my pillow case full of presents. I can still hear the sound of the wrapping paper being poked by my toes.

[troubleinstore]

This sums up my childhood Christmasses - uk.pinterest.com/nochismas/remember-when-avon/

[MsMermaid]

My best Christmas memory was the Christmas when the power went off just as we sat down to lunch. We had lunch by candlelight with all the elderly relatives complaining that they couldn't see their dinner, how were they going to watch the queen's speech, etc. It was fun. Then we played board games by candlelight for the rest of the afternoon while the older relatives napped.

That was the best Christmas ever. We played board games by candlelight every Christmas after that.

[Cel982]

Yes Madame, I don't think anything can beat feeling the heaviness of the full Christmas stocking on your toes as you lie in bed! Magical.

[Polkadot1974]

Seeing my cousins and being upstairs with them. Never saw them all year. Weird but loved it
Presents didn't matter but the fact that nothing appeared until Christmas morning ever was magical

[FeelingSmurfy]

A neighbour a few doors down always got my sisters a big bar of (random) chocolate each and I always got jelly fruits, I immediately think of them now when I see that box. When I was really young I felt grown up having a box of sweets like adults had boxes of chocolate, as I got older I appreciated the thought behind them because I was allergic to milk. Plus I really liked them!

We moved away 17 years ago, we were the young family who moved in to a street of older couples, we still exchange Christmas cards with the ones that are still with us, the lady from above sadly isn't but her husband is. I saw her about 5 years ago and I told her what I wrote above, I'm glad I got to do that

[FeelingSmurfy]

We always went to the pantomime on Christmas Eve, always in the same place. We would have lunch out (pizza Hut type place) then go to woolworths and go mad on the pick and mix, it was amazing just going for it with no limits. We would go in during day time and come out and it was really dark (probably 4:30-5pm) so that kind of felt magical to me. Then it was home where we got new pj's and matey bubble bath, one year we all got new toothbrushes too. It made going to bed better because the normal routine was jazzed up with the new stuff.

The change in light and the year we got toothbrushes as well, it's odd the things you remember isn't it

[WiltingTulip]

MadameCholetsDirtySecret agree!

Also remember the Avon products.

Isn't it lovely how most of these don't involve spending money? It's a good reminder.

My gran used to make a steamed honey pudding (we kids didn't like fruit cake) and hid coins in it. I might see if my mum has that recipe...

[buttercup15]

finneganscake I had completely forgotten about pretty peach and the bath cubes. BATHCUBES! Where did those go? I think we can all agree that bath bombs nowadays are a bit excessive. A cube was perfect.

My Nan used to get me these kind of Avon 'smellies' every xmas. They bring back memories of her.

I loved our christmas stockings the most. It would be in our bedrooms when we woke up and it seemed so magical. We were allowed to open them on our own and play with our stocking presents until it was light. But me or my brother would always sneak into each others rooms to compare presents. We would each get a bag of chocolate coins and every year we would eat them all before 8am without fail :-) My mum still does me a stocking every year even though I'm 29, and she still uses the same stocking from when I was little!

[justgivemeamo]

way adore your christmas smell list!

They dont smell the same now - christingles its a smell I try and get back by going to them!

Oh yes the tinsel - its why I have re instated it now. I had one year without but missed it too much for look and smell.

[ThanksForAllTheFish]

Oh the Avon smellies qhas reminded me of something else. Did anyone else get those little bath oil balls from the body shop in their stocking? I would roll them around in my fingers and squish them till they went all soft and occasionally burst over my hands.

Also yes to the smell of tinsel. I love that smell.