Nostalgic/favourite Christmas memories

[Vebrithien]

In a funny mood this morning waiting for the in-laws to arrive and been thinking about how lovely Christmas was a a child. Things like being given first pick of a tin of Roses, going with my Nanna to see Father Christmas in the local department store, Dad putting on Christmas music, whilst we did the decorations. Small things, but ones that have stuck on my memory.
Are there any small things like these that you look back on fondly, and do you try to recreate them for your family now?

Always wondering why my dad insisted on having a glass of brandy for Father Christmas and not milk

We always had a picnic on the living room floor on Xmas eve instead of a normal dinner. Always my favourite part of Xmas.

Every Christmas day morning receiving stockings on our beds. I have 4 dbs so we would all congregate on ones bed and open our stocking fillers and see what we got. Even though there were only daft lottle presents in the stockings it was still mega exciting. We often got party poppers too which were our parents wake up call.

We all had to creep down the stairs behind dps and every single year, even when i was late 20s the conversation would go - i wonder if he's been and df would open the door and say he hasn't been yet back to bed. Then open the door and the living room would be full of presents.

With 5 kids we never got a lot throughout the year but wow did they go all out at Christmas. It was really magical and for a long time i really believed in father christmas as i knew my dps could never afford all that.

They and we all still love christmas now. Dps decorate their house like santas grotto. Amazing!

Putting the Christmas music on while we decorate the tree.

My parents making us wait until after church and until they'd had a cup of tea before letting us open our presents (we were allowed stockings before church). We used to be so impatient but I secretly loved the build-up. Though I felt sorry for my cousins who had to wait until after the Queen's speech for theirs.

I'm living back with my parents now (illness) and we started a new tradition of reading a little Christmas poem each night while we burn our Advent candle. If I were to have a family of my own in future I would definitely continue that.

Such lovely memories! I like the idea of a Christmas Eve indoor picnic.

GF recording a Christmas message on a tape for me. I found one recently and sat in floods, listening to his voice again.

Making spiced apple juice with DM.

DF hauling a real Christmas tree onto the top of our porch, with outside lights. The joy of coming home from school in the dark and seeing that the lights had come on.

As a child, we weren’t allowed downstairs on Christmas morning until we were up, dressed and had eaten breakfast. We often just got those multipack of Kellogg’s cereal just for Christmas morning. Breakfast upstairs was a lovely treat as well.

The magic of looking behind the door of Christmas morning.
My parents never bought us proper Christmas stockings, we used my dads football socks instead. My mum was an actual genius as to how much stuff she could cram into a football sock.

Some of my memories, we still do with my kids....
Coming down to the lounge door shut and finding a note on the door off Santa saying all the good things you have done in the last year, before you get to go in and open presents. And... all watching Top of the pops and singing along whilst eating Xmas dinner. 🤣🤣🤣
Things I don’t do anymore but really remind me of being small.... Brandy snaps (that my mum squirted cream into), A big bowl of nuts and a nutcracker (that my Dad cracked and the bits went everywhere!) and having a box of Orange and Lemons jellies on the go.

We used to have a small silver Christmas tree on our bay window when i was a kid and my Mum used to tie small mars bars and milky ways to it with wool. She was strict about treats so seeing them all used to push my brother and I into a frenzy😂 We all loved Christmas (Mum most of all) and had our stockings all together on Mum and Dad's bed, when we were little and they were too heavy my brother and I would drag them one at a time to their room. Have such magical memories and so love having my own children to celebrate with now

I have so many happy memories of Christmas traditions as a child. My parents weren’t well-off, but my dad always took extra shifts during the Autumn to make Christmas special.

We always used the same decorations, year-after-year, even though many were held together with layers of sticky tape. It would take a whole afternoon to pin all the garlands to the ceiling, and my dad was always lose his temper trying to find the loose bulb in the tree lights, but I look back on he ritual with such warmth.

Like others, I opened my stocking on my parent’s bed, then we crept downstairs to see if he had been. My dad would always go in the check first, and he always put all the lights on, so the room looked extra magical when we saw it. I should add, it was always dark at the time, as I always woke up extra early.

My parents didn't Drink, but about half an hour before lunch was ready, my dad would pour everyone a Christmas drink. I always got a little bit of cider in a Sherry glass.

Dinner was always prawn cocktail, served in a stainless steel sundae dish, followed by a turkey dinner, served on the ‘best crockery’, which only emerged from the sideboard at Christmas. Dessert was always Sara Lee chocolate gateaux. After lunch, my mum would cover the sideboard with treats - always pick’n’mix, glacé orange and lemon segments, dates, a bowl of nuts, a savoury snack selection box and a big bowl of fruit.

We still our traditions now, nothing’s changed, I wanted my kids to experience Christmas in the 90’s.
Takeaway on Christmas Eve, trip out walking or driving (weather depending ) to look at Christmas lights, bacon sandwich on Christmas morning, dinner then snacks and playing cards whilst having Christmas eastenders on in the background. Many more but we didn’t wanna change it as my grandad was a misarable soul at times but h3 loved Christmas. It was one of the few times he’d let himself go 😊

I have so many happy memories around Christmas.

Making my sister play Frustration and Monopoly on Christmas morning because we were both awake at half 4 but weren't allowed to go downstairs until 7 Then when we eventually caved and went to ask our mum if Santa had been at 6.30 we had to wait on the stairs for her to go and check. If I close my eyes I can see myself walking into the dark living room where you could just make out the wrapping paper and all the foil decorations hanging from the ceiling.

Having Christmas dinner and trying to get my grandad to show me how to play Subbuteo properly. Prawn cocktail and sara lee chocolate gateaux is the ultimate taste of Christmas for me.

Getting dropped off at my grandparents on the Sundays in the run up to Christmas where we would get taken to Mass, and then spend the day with them while our parents were "seeing Santa" in the city. Their town had Christmas lights and I loved the drive home in the dark looking at them. My poor sister hated it because my gran couldn't cook for toffee, so we always ended up with soggy cornflakes and sausages and beans for our lunch - she'd refuse to eat them.

Going Christmas shopping with a uni flatmate and then sitting in Starbucks with a hot chocolate at the bar seats by the window when it was dark and the fairy lights were on in the street.

I loved going to my Nans house. She had less money than anyone in the family but would always have boxes of sweets and nuts everywhere and would be encouraging everyone to eat some. Her living room was quite small but she always had a huge tree and her ceiling was full of foil decorations. She used to light candles and the (3 bar gas) fire so the light would flicker off all the decorations.

Nan would also take us grandchildren (about 8 of us!) on the bus to town to watch the Christmas light switch on. Town is small so it was nothing fancy but as parents drove, going on the bus was exciting and there would be other children we knew, Christmas carols and free hot chocolates. Love going to that town at Christmas even now although it's grown and changed beyond all recognition.

My parents would let us open a present on Christmas Eve (like a Christmas Eve box before they were a thing). DM would make a big thing about randomly selecting a present from the small stash of 'parent presents' under the tree but they were always new pjs. She still does this - I'm 34, Dsis is 31.

DSis used to go to bed as instructed on Christmas Eve then sneak into my bed so we could use both our ears to listen out for Santa. I can still remember whispering to her about all the times we had been good so he was definitely going to come, and her being so excited "really, Crazy? Do you think he knows we never fight like most sisters"

Christmas morning always started with Dad going to check if he'd been. He would be in the living room for ages before we were allowed in and we would be beside ourselves at the bottom of the stairs (I realise now he was switching on lights and setting up a video camera).

At some point in the run up to Christmas my dad would always take us on some errand or other (mum never came). He would always get 'lost' on the way home and we'd spend ages driving around looking for the house at the bottom of our road that had a lit up tree outside. It meant we looked at a lot of decorated houses. I loved it. Dsis mentioned it a few years ago and DM explained it was her time at home to wrap the presents without us walking in!

Last one (and I've mentioned it previously). Dad would, at some point on Christmas Eve, look out of the window the shout excitedly "I can see him. Come quick" or something similar. We would race to the window and stare and stare before he would say "you must have missed him. Keep looking, he might show up again" and we would look so hard for ages. He kept this going while we were teens and we thought he was nuts but now he does it for my nephews and they love it too, especially as he tells them "you need to be quick, Auntie Crazy saw him once but she was very fast."

Funny when I think of it now. DPs have explained most of the things were traditions but were also practical but I can still remember the magical feeling when I remember it. Love seeing it now with nieces and nephews.

@CrazyBaubles your stories have really made me smile, your dad sounds awesome!

Ohhhhh. I love this thread.

My Dad reading The Night Before Christmas to me and barely being able to sit still.

Radio Times and a highlighter.

Lying on my bed with the weight of my stocking next to me, squeezing it occasionally to hear the rustle of paper. Proper 1980s paper btw, thin and garish and so of its time.

Holly Hobbie and Victoria Plum gifts, including soaps and knick knacks.

The presents under the tree from mid December and my Mum banning us from touching but Dad letting us have a sneaky squeeze.

The 6 week run of Sunday evening drama. Narnia and The Borrowers were favourites.

Selection boxes which were stocking shaped, covered in net and contained opal fruits.

Buying and giving a gift to my sibling with whom I rowed 80% of the time but for one day we just shared the magic and even liked each other (adore him now btw).

Opening our stockings in our parents' bed and then rushing downstairs to see if "he's been". That first glimpse of the sack full of gifts (always modest actually and mostly homemade and stuff we needed but GOD it was brilliant).

The year I got a boglin.

Tea and toast while opening presents.

Mum moaning about the paper everywhere but Dad joining in throwing it around the room.

Bowls of nuts and Eat Me dates.

Traditional card advent calendars with tiny windows. I still buy them now.

Going to see the lights switch on and feeling deliciously cold and unbearably happy.

New clothes on Christmas day (made by my Mum).

Little packets of portioned up pretzels and nibbles.

Mum decorating the house while we were at school and coming home to foil garlands, honeycomb paper decs, tinsel and all the things we'd made over the years.

The lights and shop windows.

Mince pies and sausage rolls, warm from the oven.

Ohhhhhhhh Christmas.

@ShowOfHands my 3 year old is currently playing with a boglin as we speak!

For the kids I still always buy the really thin paper - it’s the best for ripping open!

My DC have my boglin in their toy box. He's well loved!

I have so many. We were pretty poor but somehow my parents went all out at Christmas and I loved it. I always remember watching a new film from the video shop on Christmas eve and having mini sausage rolls and cocktail sausages. The smell of them cooking in the oven reminds me of Christmas. I also loved being woken up at 5am in the morning by my parents shouting its Christmas and running downstairs to see if Santa had been, I do this for my ds now My mum always made the best Christmas dinners. I remember the time she fell of her chair when sitting down for dinner it was bloody hilarious and she hadn't been drinking either. I'm hoping my ds has some fab Christmas memories when he's older.

@christmasgeek I'm glad they made you smile. My dad is like a big kid at Christmas, he's determined to keep the fun and magic going

When I was a kid, crawling down the bed to feel the filled stocking in the dark. The unbelievable excitement of Christmas Eve. The same well loved decorations every year for the small tree - never had a big one. I still have some of them many decades later.

When dds were young, both of them excitedly bringing their stockings to open on our bed, with dog and cat (RIP both) on the bed, too.

I forgot carols! Used to love singing carols every morning in school assembly. At the beginning of Advent we always sang O Come O Come Emmanuel, and it still brings back the feeling of excitement that Christmas was coming.

I still love traditional carols but won't let myself listen to any at home until 1st December - they usually go on while I'm making the first batch of mince pies.

Also, when living abroad in the 70s and 80s (in not especially Christmassy countries) I always had to,listen to Carols from Kings on the BBC World Service. It just wasn't Christmas without it.

What a fantastic thread!

@BBTHREE76 I love the idea of Santa leaving a list of the good things you've done that year. Probly too late for us to start as DS is 9 and belief in Santa a bit shaky.

My dad worked for Royal Mail. He used to come home on Christmas Eve with a huge tin of chocolates so we would snuggle on the sofa and watch Mary Poppins.

It made up for not seeing him the week before on my birthday as he would work around 18 hours a day then.