" old fashioned Christmas "

[Allhallowseve]

So it looks like Christmas this year may be a simpler affair . I am in a high risk area and not allowed to visit others houses currently and anticipate it going on for a while.
I usually put quite a lot of pressure on myself to make Christmas perfect , trips to Santa , shows etc while the kids are young enough to enjoy it . However this year with things being slightly different I really want to embrace a simpler "old fashioned Christmas" which I am certain were just as wonderful.
I was 4 in the 80s but my memories of Christmas were , the excitement of visiting a department store in town and seeing all the toys . The multicoloured fairy lights on the tree. My nans sherry trifle . My favourite gift and to be honest the only one I can really remember was a hand me down talking doll I loved it!
I was hoping you might share some of your memories from Christmas past to inspire me. It feels quite nice in a way to take a year off and just enjoy the little things this year.

There's a thread you might like, will try to find the link.

Here you go. some good ideas here

@Twilightstarbright Thankyou!

If you want something to do at home, Baker Ross have some nice Christmas crafts. I recently ordered some of the gummed paper chain strips for small Gdcs - they have the trad ones and some brighter ones with little pictures.

Thanks I'm really most interested in people's memories of christmas gone by .

I have loads of Christmas memories but they all involve loads of people in the house, all sitting round a big table, games of charades, trivia pursuit and watching the big Christmas movie.
We have always tried to make it about people, not gifts, so will definitely be missing the people this year. Our "presents" to our friends are normally family experiences. So we go ice skating, off to see Santa, go to the panto, although randomly one "present" with one set is a camping trip in the summer. We missed out on that this year.

My memory of Xmas decorations is those metallic string-type decorations with a dangly metallic decoration in the middle. Along with paper chains it was very OTT !

At christmas we bake together and we go long walks. We eat an extravagant breakfast (smoked salmon, pain au chocolat).

Oh yes the shiny dangly ceiling decorations of off the 80s. They had some in The Range last year haha.

Also we went to the town Christmas parade at the start of December - People on the floats threw sweets out to us, marching band, pearly kings and queens, father Christmas at the end. The best float won. Obviously not something you can recreate on your own but it marked the start of Christmas along with FC coming round with the rotary club men late one night in December.

I remember lots of glitter glue and holographic tape, not sure what I actually did with them but it was shiny and I liked it. Paper chains of course. I also remember helping to make mince pies on Christmas Eve and doing the fruit salad, chopping a whole pineapple and melon with apples, pears, tangerines, kiwi, grapes and banana added in upon serving. I remember being excited about the bottles of fizzy pop lined up ( cherryade!) alongside stronger stuff of course.

Apart from that a lot of my memories stem from school activities - school panto, Christmas concert, carol service on last day of term, sending cards to class mates, making more shiny stuff.

I've just looked out my mum's recipes for hand made sweets - crystallised ginger, coconut ice, chocolate orange peel, marzipan fruits.

Midnight service on Xmas eve, then home to peel potatoes, parsnips and sprouts into the early hours with gossip & a bottle of wine.

Decorating the stair banisters with ribbons and ivy (took ages but looked stunning). Walks in the woods after too-big meals, noise, log fires, card games, Carols from Kings playing in the kitchen.
Plenty of left overs for snacking on (teens). Cold meat & chips on Boxing Day.

Oh my mum's sherry trifle was Not Suitable for Children (but we ate it anyway).

I remember lots of Christmas crafts and driving around on the way home from my Nana's house looking out at all of the Christmas decorations in peoples houses.

We still get the rotary club Father Christmas coming down our road I wonder if they will still do it this year .
I remember being whisked out of the bath as a little girl wrapped in a towel and outside we went to see Santa coming down the street!
My nans xmas sherry trifle was probably not suitable for children either

My memories are mostly of visiting family and having a massive feast Christmas eve at my grandparents, they had a massive dining room table with big Edwardian style chairs, the table would be full of food.

We didn’t put the tree up until school broke up and the excitement of getting the tin of roses out and being told not to eat them all at once 🤣.

I can only remember a couple of my presents, one of my favourites was a hungry hippo type toy from chad valley (dogs instead of hippos).

My parents knew a lot of people in our village so the run up to Christmas involved a lot of socialising and we would get a lot of gifts from people we hardly knew.

Other than going out to get a Christmas tree we didn’t really do many Christmas activities, mum always wanted to go to church for the carol service but as we got older we didn’t want to go.

You could make mince pies, coconut ice, and mint creams . Go for a walk in your area to see other people's decorations , and come home and roast marshmallows.
Put something outside for the reindeers , and a mince pie and a sherry (!) indoors for Father Christmas ( note not Santa ).
Christmas lunch fairly early , and then a walk to help for lunch go down for tea which will be Turkey sandwiches , sherry trifle , and Christmas cake. In the evening you start on the nuts.

I was born in 1979 so my early Christmas memories are definitely from the 80s. On Christmas Day it was always just myself, my brother, Mum, Dad, paternal Grandmother and paternal Aunt and it was always absolutely magical.

Memories of coloured lights, jars of Quality Street, lots of tinsel, paper chains, Christmas carols, Yule log, crackers, party poppers, and paper umbrellas in drinks.

We always saw Santa at the Co-op store in the city which was wonderful as we travelled on a sleigh to see him (my Mum tells me that in fact it was the background that moved not the sleigh. I remain unconvinced).

Christmas Eve was the main event for us as kids and remains my favourite day of the year, filled with wonder. We always visited extended family and came away with enough sugar mice and chocolate coins to ensure we weren’t falling asleep much before midnight.

Christmas Day we always had a long leisurely breakfast which included fresh orange juice (unheard of in our house any other time of year) then spent the day just being together, no high expectations and no stress (well none that as a child I ever picked up on although looking back my Mum’s increased consumption of Malibu from the time my Nan arrived might suggest otherwise). Christmas Day always felt like a long lovely exhale after the build up and excitement of Christmas Eve. Looking back Christmas felt so much simpler and all the better for it.

For us Christmas arrived mid December and left the day after Boxing Day and was magic. Mind you, I say that as I’m sitting here in my Christmas pjs, drinking coffee in my Christmas mug, about to feed my Christmas cake and knowing full well my decs will go up in November, go figure 🤷🏻‍♀️

Advent calendars, putting up decorations gradually thru December, getting the tree just before Christmas and making an event of trimming it up as a family, Christmas baking, Carols from Kings on the radio, Christmas Radio Times and planning our viewing, watching Christmassy stuff in the twinkling Christmas lights of home, lighting a fire, going for a walk along the river in the bright hours between 11 and 2 or through the houses in the twilight as the lights start to come on, playing board games together with a big tin of Quality Street to hand, cracking our own nuts with a nutcracker and opening boxes of dates, long lunches in the dining room with crackers and games charades, buffet “teas” in front of the tv laid out on the coffee table - everyone being together, eating together, playing games together, watching tv together. We did go to carol concerts and to see Santa in a grotto somewhere, but our real Winter Wonderland was in our home and it felt like a magical time - crucially decorations didn’t go up too early and were there for the full 12 days - so we loved to be there to soak it all up.

I work really hard to make our Christmases feel as simple but magical as my childhood Christmases. I was born in 1980 so my memories are definitely the 80s brand of Christmas.

I remember:

More food in the house than we needed which only happened at Christmas. Little bowls of nuts, Eat Me dates, tins of chocolate etc. Actual snacks, food was only just enough the rest of the year. The huge old Quality St tins had home baking in them. Mince pies, sausage rolls, a very heavy fruit cake.

Traditional cake decorations. The cake itself had rough snowy icing and then bristly little trees, plastic reindeer, a squat little Santa, fake holly, a silver "Merry Christmas" and a gaudy ribbon.

Food we only had at Christmas. Fresh orange juice with breakfast, prawn cocktail for a starter (only ever had a starter at Christmas), leeks in cheese sauce, sausages wrapped in bacon.

My Grandma's Christmas buffet. Naff. Beige. Perfect. Celery sticks in a pint glass, pork pie, mini sausage rolls, Seabrook crisps, silverskin pickled onions, cheese (esp cracker barrel), crackers, beetroot, bread. She died last year, a month before Christmas, age 94 and I recreated her buffet with a lot of fondness and sadness.

Going to see the lights switched on in the town centre and walking home spotting people's lights and trees.

Watching Christmas adverts.

The Argos catalogue.

A plastic stocking of chocolate bars and sweets covered in netting.

Foil garlands, lantern lights, honeycomb paper decorations, the same old decorations year in year out.

Paper advent calendar with glitter and tiny squares.

Dad reading The Night Before Christmas and hanging our stockings on our bedroom door handles.

Dad shouting "he's been!"

Watching a BBC drama on Sunday nights on the run up. Narnia, The Borrowers etc.

Tissue like gaudy paper with large print of lanterns and Santas.

Avon toiletries as presents, esp bath pearls, mini soaps etc.

Holly Hobby and Victoria Plum trinkets and annuals as gifts.

Chucking paper from gifts round the room in a riot of colour and Mum huffing with her open bin bag.

Always getting a new outfit (usually homemade but with fabric from the market) and wearing it on the day. The year my Mum made us matching pleated floral skirts was a high point (really)!

I was a child during the 1960’s, so things were a lot simpler then. However, I loved looking at the toys in the shops and a trip to London on the train to look at Hamley’s and Selfridges toy departments was a big treat, and also to see the Christmas lights.

My DS was a child in the 1990’s, and while decorations and presents had become more lavish, he enjoyed making potato print Christmas cards for grandparents when he was 3 and from 6 onwards made paper chains from holographic gift wrap, i cut the strips in advance and we stuck them with sticky tape. I did see an article in a magazine once where paper strips were embellished with sequins glued on at intervals, which would have made them look quite glitzy. We also cut out white paper ‘snowflakes’ to stick onto the windows.

My mum cleaning every inch of the house for guests
The loft smell of the decorations, and the foil garlands
Pringles
The colours cast by the old fashioned lights
Certain Christmas songs, particularly cliff Richard
Yogi Bears Christmas

There is such a cosiness about my childhood Christmases, due to such random things.

Love Christmas.

My 1980s childhood was cold and boring. We didn’t have central heating so sitting around indoors wasn’t an option. We were outside running about with friends, or cosy inside huddled in the only room with a fire, either talking or watching tv. Winter was gloomy, particularly in a city of grey buildings to match the grey skies. Christmas was a much shorter season, only starting in mid December and the lights and decorations were magical. I have fond memories of lying on the living room floor fascinated by the play of light on the metal baubles and the foil ceiling chains. But I think that sort of wonderment comes from chronic boredom. My dc don’t know what boredom is in a world of non stop entertainment.
Sweets were a rarity and Christmas dinner was a once-a-year extravagance. We didn’t get toys on every birthday (more often a pound note or a gift of new clothes) so Santa’s gift was really special and exciting. The anticipation on Christmas Eve was nearly painful.

There just isn’t that contrast of extremes nowadays. Even advent, traditionally a period of fasting and reflection has been taken over by calendars with gifts every single day.
I’m not criticising anyone here- my Christmas is pretty full on and ott. I think I’m unconsciously trying to recapture the absolute wonder of the past. But it came from having less not more.

My memories are of decorating the tree and putting the Angel on the top. Making paper chains out of strips of paper. Decorating the Windows w Snow.
Going to midnight mass and we always went for a walk on Christmas Day. Unless it was raining

I'm 1970s but many of these resonate.
Santa in the Co-op. My gran putting her decs up really early but taking them down on Boxing Day.
The Woolworths and Boots Christmas ads and catalogue. Avon Christmas gifts.
Christmas lunch at one grans, and her brother came up from down south and she bought Cracker Barrel and gorgonzola. Playing cards for money. Into the small hours.
Boxing Day at other grans. Tinned salmon and cucumber swilling in vinegar.
We'd have a Christmas Fayre at school and I'd buy my friends bath crystals packaged in a sort of makeshift holder made from old Christmas cards.
None of this white light nonsense on your tree. Coloured lights all the way (my Gran had those lanterns and Cinderella carriages that go for about £300 each now on eBay)
And Swedish angel chimes. Which I have now introduced to southern Italy!

Christmas specials on TV.
One mega film on Christmas Day (after the obligatory Bond) which would be new to TV.
I remember when Gone With the Wind was it, for some reason, despite it being already ancient it had never been televised. The whole country stopped.
Jimmy Savile in hospitals.
Both my grans on the sofa like a comedy duo talking about the Queen looking a bit older and "it'll be that worry she's had this year".
The most outrageous Queen's speech was when she had a very small William involved. Everyone was really shocked, but in a good way.

I'm 47. I have a dbrother and dsis both older and my mum and dad gave us thr most wonderful, happy childhood Christmases and memories. I remember going into my mum and dad's room at 5am asking if Santa had been yet! We all rushed downstairs at 7am to find a stuffed pillowcase each full of gifts. Every year, i also got a new jogging suit. When we put the decorations up, my dad used to have to use a ladder to put up four enormous paper garlands that we strung from each corner of the room to the centre of the light. We used to go to Midnight Mass which was very exciting for us as kids. I clearly remember going into my brothets room to say it was time to go and he was playing the new release, 'Feed The World'. I can still remember some of my favourite gifts:

A doll I named Yvonne (!). She was big and you pressed on her shoulders and she 'walked'.

2 little dolls called Carrie&Christopher who were anatomically correct!

Onr year, I got 13 colouring sets from family, friends and Father Christmas!

As we opened our presents we would ask mum&dad who the gift was from and they would say 'That one is from us' or 'Oh, that one must be off Father Christmas!'

One of my strongest memories is sitting on my my dad's knee and showing him a card of custom made clothes my Auntie (who was very creative and artistic) had made for my dolls.

It was all so magical. I thought I heard sleigh bells one Christmas Eve. Such precious memories.