Christmas Nostalgia Then Vs Now

[VeronicaFranklin]

Christmas time always makes me feel nostalgic.

What is something you had or did at Christmas as a kid that you don't now and miss?

For me it's:

Family (Grandparents specifically)

Foil Christmas decorations that were hung with blue tack from the ceiling in every room...

We always left Sherry out for Santa...

Angel hair tree tinsel that you wistfully sprinkled all over the tree...cat...dog...carpet...

The selection boxes shaped as a Stocking with netting on...

Multi- coloured Christmas tree lights (the old style glass ones that used to get hot to touch and probably presented a massive fire hazard! not the LED coloured ones of today)

Toys R Us advert

Annual trip to see Santa at the Arndale which was usually some bloke who had a really cheap looking wig and beard and was probably not DBS checked!

Only having 5 TV channels so you had to sit and watch Christmas movies when they were scheduled to be on, which some how made it more exciting to watch Christmas films when they weren't available to watch all year round.

Christmas shopping with my grandma looking in the bustling high street department stores, no online shopping.

Searching the sky for Santa on Christmas Eve not tracking him on an app.

My favourite was Santa Claus: the movie with Dudley Moore!
Just watched that again this evening!

Oh what a lovely thread...like some of you I feel like crying at the nostalgia 😢. I remember having so many people at Christmas lunch that my parents used the wall papering table as a second table for us young ones to have our meal on.
I also used to love getting marks and Spencers peach collection bubble bath and talc and would have a pamper and fresh new PJ's on Christmas day night.
Absolutely loved getting dandy and the Beano annuals too.
Most of all I wish I could have the joy of my mum as she made Christmas so special ❤️

I miss that half hour ish long cartoon about santa going on holiday.

You never see it anymore probably because it's no longer very PC.

We have that Father Christmas movie on dvd . Love watching it every year, the kids love it when he has to run to the toilet!!

Our Christmas was probably rubbish compared to a lot of peoples, but it still felt magical all the same.

Our tacky tree with multi coloured lights and our foil decorations.

The Christmas fate and Christmas party at school and Santa bringing the whole school a fun sized box of smarties.

Going last minute present shopping at the high street with my mum and dad.

Writing cards to all the neighbours and delivering them with my mum.

My stocking was actually a long sock but it was so exciting to wake up with it stuffed with pencils, chocolate, and an orange.

We had a fry up for breakfast and a very late Christmas dinner on our laps in front of the Christmas tv followed by trifle, then we'd still squeeze in some cheese and crackers.

Still remember the wonderful heavy feeling of the full Christmas stocking on my feet and the rustling of paper. Agreed mums make Christmas so special, I lost mine eight weeks ago ❤️

My dad was amazing at finding the quirkiest gifts too for my stocking (sorry Father Christmas !)

I remember him going out to get the Christmas booze and coming home with a cardboard box full of whisky for him, gin for mum and coke for me ! Only ever allowed this at Christmas.

Tangerines only at Christmas and nuts

Our Christmas tree with the coloured lights

Settling down to watch Morecambe and wise and only fools and horses Christmas specials

Christmas in the 70's/80's nothing comes close now !

Getting a chocolate orange that you had to drop on a tiled floor or hit with a hammer to break. And fighting with my brother over who got the middle chunk that formed the core. So much better than the thin, waxy ones you get today.

My lovely nana (from Sunderland) called him Santy Clause - and I had forgotten! What a lovely memory 😊

I had this. I can still remember the smell in my memory!!

Not xmas for me but I miss Bunty.

My mam got them for HER xmases as a child/teen and kept them then they where randomly passed onto me (my mam had me in her teens so I guess she didnt keep them that long before handing them on to me).

I guess my mam binned them when we had a big house move because I have never seen them since but I wish I had them for my DD.

My DH cracks chocolate oranges and easter eggs by wacking them against his head... every so often you get a hard one and hear the thud then 'owww'.

Hes not always very bright but has other qualities lol.

Buying both the Radio Times AND the ITV mag and circling all the things we wanted to see.

The TOTP Christmas special with my dad criticising all the tunes (and the Christmas g&t in hand!).

Happy days.

The thing that ruined the excitement of Christmas for me (I was at an age where it probably would have died down anyway, to be fair) was when my parents had our downstairs doors replaced. Before, they had glass windows, and we'd creep down the stairs, Dad would always say 'Has he been??' and we would be able to see the outline of presents through the frosted glass as we crept round the corner of the stairs.

For some reason, the magic was never the same with the solid doors (though as I said I was at that age anyway).

Welcome to the club, my dad allowed me to drink foam off his beer. Old school 😂Not that I would allow it my own child! But some stuff was really horrible- smoking at home etc. The amount of smoke we inhaled as children, because smoking was so popular and not frowned upon. Ugh.

I used to give Father Christmas the Argos code and page number so he knew EXACTLY what I wanted.

This made me LOL!

Oh that advent calendar gives me all the feels! magical !

Aww guys these replies are making me a bit teary, it's so comforting to see how so many of us miss the simpler Christmases of times gone by, I feel Christmas nowadays just isn't as special, whether it was the innocence of childhood or what I don't know, I just think Christmas now has become so commercialised, everything is available at your finger tips, tv can be recorded and watched whenever, convenience is king and it steals a lot of the magic of the make do Christmases of the past.

This Christmas is the 1st Christmas as a mummy for me and I aim to try recreate some of the magic of my childhood Christmases for her in the years to come.

When we were little and teething, my nana used to dunk our dummies in Advocaat. And we used to rattle around on the back seat of cars with no seat belts on - it wasn't completely unheard of for kids to sit in the boot of the car was a hatchback! Or stand on the back seat to look out the sunroof. A 70s/80s childhood! It's a wonder any of us are still alive. Weirdly my mum wouldn't let me play on the concrete train at primary school in case I fell off and hit my head, but she never batted an eyelid at putting my baby brother in a soft carry cot on the back seat of a car!

Oh yes! Same here.

Did anyone else use to get bath salts in hard blocks like ice cubes and in pastel colours?

I am sure I've asked here before but I also remember a cardboard sweet-shop with really unusual sweets and a big red scoop and I haven't seen it since I was really small - so in the early 70s.

The peach M&S bubble bath yes!
I remember my grandma made everything herself. The Christmas cake, Christmas pudding with money in, she even picked her own onions which could blow your mouth they were so strong. We had nuts with shells which took so long to crack that you exerted so many calories it was the best workout ever.
Fake snow on the windows. Advocat to make snowballs with. Sherry and Babycham.
Getting packs of Christmas cards with different pictures on each one. I don’t remember being able to buy cards with the same design until I was older. The same with Christmas wrapping. Mum would buy a pack from the market. It had different designs and was sold in sheets rather than rolls.
I think all the mis matched stuff is why I have a more themed Christmas. I know it’s terribly unfashionable but all my decorations match. I only use one type of wrapping paper, and I don’t do random stuff. My tree lights are all white too.

pickled

Last minute christmas shopping with my mum, the shops were all packed.
My dad cooking a fry on Christmas morning.
Circling the best tv in the tv times.
Showing my mum and dad what father Christmas had bought me and them pretending they had no idea what we had got.
I remember all the men going for a Christmas drink at the pub before lunch and my mum panicking that the dinner would burn before they got back!

Most of what's in the OP, plus actually seeing the extended family in person, rather over FaceTime. We had an annual family get-together - dozen of cousins, aunts and uncles, great aunts and uncles, all gathering in the social club for an enormous Christmas hooley.

We've been scattered for decades now, only coming back together for the occasional wedding, or sadly, funeral, so my DC don't know what they're missing. But I do, and it makes me sad for them.