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

Great thread, you're describing late 70's Christmas too.
Top of the Pops, was very shiny and foily wasn't it.
Loved those stocking shaped selection packs with the white mesh.
That feeling of Christmas starting when school ended, taking home school made paper lanterns covered in glitter.
They always got squashed!
I adore picture advent calendars, I saw one the other day with the nativety on it and it really made me feel nostalgic.
The coloured tree lights you used to get were so twinkly and cosy.
Managed to find some non led ones last year, I love them.

@AuntSpiker those baubles! 😍
We were lucky to experience a time when austerity had finished so there were lots of treats, but things weren’t over commercialised - supermarkets weren’t open all night, everything was closed on sundays and there was no amazon. So no pressure to go it with spending. The main stresses for parents were defrosting the turkey (I don’t think crowns were a thing then?) and finding the one light bulb on the string which was causing the whole lot not to work. The turkey took hours to cook so mum got up at the crack of dawn to put it in the oven so you could smell it cooking when you got up in the morning.

What a lovely post OP. You’ve really cheered me up this morning and I completely agree with you!

I genuinely can’t remember snow at Christmas during my childhood though! I do remember it very frosty. One year my gp’s had to leave their car at our house and walk home as it was so iced up they couldn’t get in it. They literally lived about 100m away!

To all those who mentioned lametta, we had to stop putting it on the tree as my cat would eat it.

What about those foil decorations that start flat then you unfold them into a long garland or a spherical shape and hang then from the ceiling?! They were proper christmas decorations!

I hate chocolate advent calendars. I want Baby Jesus on mine

Our cat ate lametta too!

You've just described my Christmases. Gosh I'm tearing up. It was wonderful times. The excitement was amazing. My parents didn't have much but they really did put on a big spread and we all got what was on our Christmas list.

I find Christmas now very 'scripted' (for want of a better word). Yes, I done some of the popular things over the years. Only because everyone did it, and I thought it was how it should be done.

I think money plays a big part now a days. Years ago people just didn't have it to waste. Toys lasted longer and they weren't crazy prices.

I'm glad I'm not part of the elf on a shelf a Christmas eve boxes era, watching my nieces and nephews with their children now I find it very draining. Yes I'm getting old.

Something someone mentioned above about top of the pops for the number one, god that was fantastic, mom would be calling us for dinner and we'd be like, oh no the number one is about to be announced lol not like now it's xfactor Simon Cowell who has ruled the charts.

Walnuts WERE unbreakable. Flying across the room regularly from the medieval nutcrackers! And doilies. Everywhere. Angels made out of them. Snowflakes made out of them. Ahhhh 80s Christmas was lovely. Twinkle lights rather than flashing nightmares, picture advent calendars, fancy glasses, candied orange, making christingles at school ..... love it all

You've described my Christmas and I was only thinking about this the other day.

We didn't have much and my parents struggled, which is why the extravagance of After Eights, Vienetta and squirty cream at Christmas waa so exciting.

I remember Unwrapping 'Now 8?'or whatever number it was, the year 'A Fairytale of New York' was on there.

Hope those Dairy Milk vending machines have been mentioned?

I disagree about there not being austerity, it was the Thatcher era!

The country was poorer then and treats were fewer so it was just so much more exciting. I think people worked less hours, it all felt less frantic as we bought less and there was more time to attend school activities and just be together. We all watched the same tv and could look forward to the Christmas Only Fools, TOTP and the Big Film. I remember the lovely twinkling lights, reflecting off the foil, none of this flashing blue light rubbish. I remember the smell from the box of decorations. The cardboard advents with glittery pictures. So exciting to get a couple of annuals and a bit of choc in the xmas stocking.

And cost was a huge issue for my family: v large extended family and lots of gift/money giving.

I remember great house parties as well. Dozens of people in tiny houses with all the beer and chintzy drinks (cinzano, snowball, babycham etc), huge uncrackable nuts, bowls of sweets lined up on the sideboard. My Nan and her sisters tucking their skirts into their roll ons and doing the conga into the street. All the men drinking pale ale from tins. Us kids watching from our ‘tent’ under the table. Ahh, happy days.

This is all so true and I've struggled to articulate it myself. I remember being allowed coke once a year, and how unbelievably amazing it tasted with the roast dinner.

My DS doesn't like coke but all his other faves he has whenever he wants, pretty much. He doesn't like roast dinner. He doesn't watch TV and doesn't care about the Radio Times.

I love doing Christmas for him but I know that no matter what I do, it can't match the wonder and excitement of an 80s Christmas. And it's not just me. Who could ever have predicted that Stop the Cavalry would become an enduring classic?

It's the 80s. They were a very special time and we'll never have that innocence back.

It was exciting just to drive or walk around and see the beautiful lights, I think that’s still fun nowadays but there are so many more of them.
Thanks to whoever mentioned Val Doonican, he was the original Christmas jumper guy! Always on the tv over Christmas in his rocking chair crooning. I guess Michael Buble is just a better looking equivalent for the modern day!
How I loved George Michael in that video! Still do! I had hope then though that I may one day grow up and be his next Christmas love. Gorgeous man!!

The kids programmes seemed amazing in the school holidays too - I remember Christmas versions of Snoopy and the Racoons. Always set in snowy USA towns. They were so special as you couldn’t watch constant kids tv then.

OP your Christmas description is perfect and lovely ...awww, doing the old dances at the school disco, we could really be kids then couldn't we? Our own kids now just wouldn't do all that ...

You've made me smile on this horrible, horrible morning. Thank you

Oooh yes, padded cards!

I know this is sad but a bit of me has always wanted to work in an office where they have an actual Christmas party IN THE OFFICE! I don't know why! The tv programme The Office makes it look ace.

OP, I reckon you must be around my age - 46?

Young and sprightly you mean, Handsoff?

Absolutely!

Yes yes! Loved Snoopy and Peanuts festive cartoons!

There was always some kind of strongest man challenge competition on TV around new years.

I remember those baubles, @AuntSpiker. I, too was a child in the 70s. We always had a giant tin of Quality Street, when the chocolate was proper chocolate, not the greasy, palm oil-filled shit of today. We all had our particular favourites; mine was the green triangle, and the tin would last right into January, as they were 'rationed'.

Our stockings were Dad's football socks, which Santy (I'm from the NE) would leave on the ends of our beds. It was magical, waking early on Christmas morning, moving your foot and feeling it hit the full stocking, which had an apple and orange in the toe and a Christmas cracker sticking out the top.

For the last couple of years I’ve been buying the traditional picture advent calendar. I really love all the little festive pictures. It’s so nostalgic. At first my son was like “but there’s no chocolate” but now he likes to see the newest picture too (he also still has a chocolate calendar).