Was an ‘80s Christmas the ultimate Christmas in history?

[CoolShoeshine]

Ive been thinking about my childhood Christmases and I may be biased because of my age but they seemed pretty perfect. I make Christmas the best I can for my dc’s but there is something about modern Christmas that just isn’t as good. It’s like we’ve tried too hard to make it better and better and somehow ruined it a bit.
80s Christmas has the most amazing balance of being fun and decadent but not overdone. We had massive tins of quality street but they wouldn’t be cheap as chips so that everyone is eating them from October onwards- we’d just have them once Christmas had properly arrived. Likewise advent calendars didn’t have chocolates, they had the quaintest pictures each day to set the mood as the month went on. I can remember being so excited to open the double size door on Christmas Eve.
We had amazing Christmas songs in the charts but we still knew all the carols. Carol singers sang outside our house in the cold.
We had thin wrapping paper that wasn’t plastic coated and crepe paper crackers. We did send masses of cards though but cut the pictures with pinking shears to use as tags the following year.it was really exciting if we got over 100 cards in our household to stick in the walls with blue tak.
We had a massive spruce tree which was wonky and shed everywhere so mum would be hoovering on a daily basis, but it was the only tree in the house and touched the ceiling. Lights were always multi coloured but not garish and baubles were too. Tinsel was considered pretty not tacky.
School let us bring in board games to play on the last day of term and the teachers drank wine. We had the most amazing school discos where we did the birdie song and agadoo and we knew all the actions. Boys squirted is with silly string. Christmas didn’t properly start until that day when we finished school on a high and had the anticipation of Christmas within grasp.
We had few tv channels and even less other gadgets so it was a major treat to watch the big movie on Christmas Day afternoon. Likewise top of the pops and only fools and horses. Everyone was watching the same things and talking about them the next day.
I could go on and on. Am I just a nostalgic 40 something or was it really the best Christmas time? Please don’t say no and ruin my memories

I may actually have welled up a little reading that!

Sorry I think I’ve overused the word amazing. But it was.
I might be distracting my brain from the election results

the thing is, my kids still have a lot of that. And most of it is down to money. Money is tight so we still do quite a few of those things.
I think you can make Christmas what you will.

I also think that if you have a half decent family who get on, then our childhood Christmases are always amazing, because memory does that.

What a great depiction of xmas!
I'm from the same era. Hopefully xmases now feel as magical to our DC as ours did to us?
But maybe not, expectations are greater now?
I now wish I had a tin of quality streets...

Beautiful post OP

Awwww... You just described my childhood. I feel a bit teary now.

I don’t know if it’s nostalgia as I’m sure there were crap Christmas’s back then. Now it’s Christmas overload so early that by the time Christmas actually comes around everyone’s a bit over it!
I was saying (as i perused the radio times - the only time of year we have a paper TV guide!!) that I remember the films over Xmas being wow and a big event but looking at this years there’s not a single film I either haven’t already watched or am bothered about seeing.

That sounds almost identical to my childhood Christmases.

From mid December the house would slowly fill up with treats - dates, nuts in a bowl with a nutcracker and M&S Belgian biscuits. Dad worked in the fruit industry and would come home with huge boxes of satsumas. Mum would make marzipan fruits and chocolate truffles- which she ate herself as none of us liked them!

Tree went up on around 21st and stayed there till 6th. We didn't get fairly lights until I was about 9. And when we got them we had about 20 for the whole tree. I remember one year the tree kept falling over and had to be supported by a rope tethered to a brick wrapped to look like a present.

Everyone had decorations hanging from the ceiling. Paper chains. Crepe paper, expandable chains and dangle glittery things.

Grandparents arrived on 23rd. My mum used to take them to Sainsburys with her. I bet they caused chaos- grandad used to wear a Russian fur hat and Grandma was almost the width of an aisle.

People would leave either pillowcases or giant plastic sacks for Santa- no personalised stockings.

I could go on

I'm forty and I agree with you!

I'll add... School nativity plays where our parents watched us with their eyes, not their phones.

I feel a bit silly now - I can recall my mum talking about the sugar mice her and her siblings had and how much they loved them so I’m sure it’s the the same for every generation who were lucky enough to have a happy family Christmas. It’s something about this time of year that makes you reminisce fondly but with a bittersweet tinge when you remember the changes and the family members who are no longer here. I do love modern Christmas too!

Yanbu. As a child we were really excited by the window advent calendars. This year I bought one for my kids and they ignored it! Old style Xmas more small scale and magical.

I grew up in the 80s and all my friends had chocolate calendars and we were only ever allowed the picture ones! But I always get my 2 picture calendars and they love them - probably because of the novelty! And I have to say I'd never open a tub of chocolates before Christmas - just wouldn't feel right!

I remember the big padded cards you could buy - if that was your thing.
Lemon and orange jelly slices.
Cadbury selection box - when Cadbury chocolate was edible.
Morecambe and Wise
Wearing your new Christmas dress
A big bowl of nuts with a nut cracker - the Brazil nuts and walnuts were unbreakable.
Buying the radio times - the only time in the year that my parents did.
My father getting a bit tiddly and making us laugh.

@Bigbopboo yes I second so many things you have said! Sacks for presents, tree up the weekend before Christmas, a big bowl of nuts in shells (I must admit to never having bought them in my adult life!).
We also had pickled onions, branston pickle and yellow piccalilli.

I started work in 1987. In my office we used to play “trumpet bingo” with the departmental advent calendar - everyone had to pay in and you would choose what day the trumpet was the picture. There was always a trumpet

Ooh and blue peter having a candle crown thing made from coat hangers covered in tinsel

I do think kids just aren’t as interested in Christmas as they used to be .... they mainly discuss what latest must haves they are demanding. Plus there’s no mention of Christmas Eve carol singers or parties, it’s all about the presents.

I liked the 80’s christmases, cold mornings, bacon for breakfast, paper hats, shiney decorations, everyone helping with the tree, all mucking in to lay the table and get the ‘posh’ glasses. The Christmas Eve parties full of cousins and egg sandwiches and if they remembered the pork pie!

A glass of fresh orange as a starter at my grandparents on Boxing Day. Doilies, everywhere.
Little crepe lanterns on strings. Crepe crackers. The babycham deer.
'Proper' Christmas tree lights, bulbs that had to be changed with tiny coloured flowers around them.
Mum wearing sequins. Woolworths.

My christmasses were like this, right down to the pinking shears! Great times.

We put our tree up just before Christmas. I hung a school sock up on 24th, and on Christmas Day we all sat round two tables pushed together, some of us sat on the arm of a chair!

I try not to buy into all the Christmas hype there is now, after one exhausting year trying.

lametta on the tree
the old style selection box in shape of a stocking with netting over the top
also, christingle service in church

happy days in a simpler era when it used to actually snow!

Can we extend it to 80s and 90s Christmases? All of the childhood Christmases I remember were in the 90s and early 00s and they were amazing and very like the Christmases you describe!

Lametta was lovely- I wonder if you can still get that?
I did buy babycham a few years ago in a nostalgic whirl but didn’t actually like it. Some of my uncles had a ‘bar’ in the corner of their living rooms and serve babycham, Harvey’s Bristol cream, snowballs and cinzano to the ladies, I can’t remember what the men had except my grandad who had a little can of pale ale. I tried them all!

@Elle7rose of course! Glad to know Christmas kept it’s peak position throughout the 90s and beyond!

I agree, OP.

Lovely, I remember all of these things