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.

I’ve just remembered kids Christmas parties at the working mens/social clubs. Places would be sought after, my Dad and uncles would rush to put our names down as soon as the list went up on the notice board. They were the best parties. My Dads work always threw good parties. When I was little, he worked for a big cash and carry at the time and they would go all out.

I also remember the men going to the pub Christmas Day, my Dad & uncles would always meet at a particular working mens club, sometimes we’d join them after Christmas mass, I loved seeing all the families in the lounge, ladies all dressed up, us kids all in our Christmas best playing.

When I was older I got to enjoy it from the other side of the bar, I’d work the Christmas lunch shift, it was the only time I’d see so much of my family on Christmas Day. We never did joint Christmas’s, each family did their own thing, but my Dad and uncles never missed out on their Christmas drink together after they’d been to see my Nan in the morning. NY eves were great too, it was kind of a right of passage to work behind the bar at 2 clubs in particular, almost all my cousins worked in them at one time or another. NY was always reserved for full club members and the queue would start early for people to get their favourite table. My parents, uncles aunts would always spend NY eve in the club, my cousins and I would work behind the bar. The bar would shut 10 mins before midnight so staff could join in and reopen again 10 mins after. I preferred these NY eves to one’s going out with my friends.

When we’re we’re little my parents would come home drunk, drag us out of bed and we’d have a party till all hours. I’m sure it must have drive the neighbours mad but it was so much fun for us kids, my dad was a great dancer, not even a dad dancer, the guy had moves 😆

We used to open presents very carefully, fold and save the paper for next year - I even remember ironing it. As a child I loved getting the box of saved paper out - there was definitely a certain Christmassy smell to it - so exciting then! I don’t notice any smell to wrapping paper now - either it doesn’t have one any more, or it’s my age.😩

I still love the Advent hymn - O come o come Emmanuel - always sang it in school assembly after the first Sunday in Advent - it meant Christmas wasn’t far off, so another source of excitement.

I miss making shortbread with my mom. My job was to cut the little glace cherries into halves and quarters so I could decorate the biscuits before going in the oven. I'm going to make the shortbread and send it to my sister in Canada so we both get a dose of childhood christmas.

Adore this hymn love it beautiful song.

I'm ancient like a previous poster confessed to being. I have many memories like those described above, but the one I would particularly like to share here (which doesn't appear to have been mentioned) was the arrival of the "Corona Man" in the week before Christmas.

At that time (mid-late 1960s) all we used to generally drink was milk (full-fat), water (tap), tea (from a proper pot with proper leaves, not tea bags), coffee occasionally if you were grown up, and squash which you diluted.

Though if there was a young baby in the family, the mother would be provided with Gerber Baby Orange juice by the health clinic (I know, because I have a baby bro who is a decade younger than me) and that diluted juice was just the best ever....

So, come Christmas, Mum would give the order to the Corona company for twelve bottles of 'fizzy pop'. There would be a mix of types such as orangeade, lemonade, ginger beer, dandelion and burdock, something red (maybe fizzy raspberry?) and maybe a bottle of Coca Cola.

It was the only time throughout the year we would have "fizzy drinks". The bottles (probably a litre in size) were delivered in a wooden crate and were all made of glass and subject to a deposit... The Corona Man would turn up at some point in the weeks after Christmas to collect the empties so (and the wooden crates!) could be returned and reused....

When I think of what is available to everyone, whatever age, now, it's quite fascinating how diets have changed... And I'm not sure if it's to the better...

Would the red not be Cherryade?

@mam0918 Thank you! Yes, of course it would have been cherryade!

I always loved cherryade, that and cream soda seemed 'special' to me.

Nice thread! My parents both died recently so have been reflecting a lot on all things childhood related. My parents displayed our shit homemade decorations every year without fail. My brother's angel mobile, made at nursery, was always placed above the table centre (he's now 49). We've been clearing out their house over the last few weeks and I'm slightly dreading the Christmas suitcase coming out and having to decide what to do with the fairy lights Dad always insisted on putting in the kitchen window despite half of the bulbs having gone. So many memories.

From memory I don't think cream soda featured...

Oh I remember the Christmas in 70's I was given a SodaStream . I must have spent the two weeks high as a kite on unrestricted sugar . I used to press the button soo much it was flooding everywhere . Good times!😂

My parents used to pin a bunch of paper streamers with a few balloons in the corners of the room. We had a little artificial tree, it had blue and green tinsel branches and mum put blue and green lights on it. Advent calendars with just the pictures behind the doors, no chocolate advent calendars back then. And my grandma always gave mum a tube of Smarties and a sugar mouse to put in each stocking. I only ever had a sugar mouse at Christmas. We'd visit both sets of grandparents on Christmas Eve and on the drive home my sister and I would each look out of our car window and count the Christmas trees with lights on, she'd take one side of the raid and I'd do the other. The winner was the one who saw the most trees

I could literally have written this, right down to both sets of grandparents becoming friends/family @ChocolatemilkBertie ! Did you grow up in rural Warwickshire by any chance 😉

Anyone remember the fake snow foam? Used to spray that on the tree in the 90s. Probably a massive fire hazard!!

I miss the people. I miss my grandparents, my cousins, my uncle and just being with family. I'd love to have an hour of that all back.

I miss the Only Fools and Horses Xmas special.

Aw this sounds really special memory!

I definitely remember the pop man and I think the baby orange juice, I’m mid 70s but I’m sure my baby brother had it in 1980. I vaguely remember begging to have some of it along with a farleys rusk 😆

I know this is going to sound horribly sanctimonious but I can’t help noticing how many memories include grandparents and other family members, and think about how many threads we see on here about Christmas being for ‘just our own little family’.

I’m another poster who grew up with big family Christmases, with kids round the fold our card table, and such great memories of it all. I know the various elderly relatives (lots of great aunts) drove my mother mad at times but I grew up with the idea that you invited people who needed company.

Now grown up, my parents died so long ago that Christmas was painful from a fairly young age. It’s wonderful again with kids of my own but we’re no longer in extended family Christmases and I also feel sorry for my kids to be missing out, and I miss the chaos!

Definitely know what you mean @CorporateBull , my dad's extended family always got together on boxing day, it was a tradition for many years. The last year of the get-together (before a big family fall-out) my uncle had to work boxing day so it got moved to Xmas day. DF flatly refused to go, saying he hated leaving the house on Xmas day itself. I was really disappointed to miss out on the fun that year! Oddly enough many years later he took a job working a lot of unsociable hours, including Xmas!

My DCs, who are only 12 and 8, have no GPs left and one much older cousin and it gets me down at times. I'd love a big family Xmas again.

@timtam23
on the drive home my sister and I would each look out of our car window and count the Christmas trees with lights on, she'd take one side of the raid and I'd do the other. The winner was the one who saw the most trees.
We did the same thing as adults! My Mum's birthday was Dec.17th, so we always went to her house for the day on the nearest weekend. Driving home in the evening, we'd take the long way home and count Christmas trees. I think the record was something like 90.

Well first of arent you LUCKY you had a big family... not all of us do

Secondly dont feel sorry for us and our AMAZING christmas that dont cow down to every man and his dog... I grew up as just a nuclear family and LOVED it, my kid are growing up as a nuclear family and LOVE it, DH grew up half and half and HATED the big family years.

@ITSSSSCHRISTMASSS , well before the 70s, but I certainly remember the vitamin ‘orange’ juice that came in a square bottle with a blue lid. We’d be given a spoonful of that after the dreaded cod liver oil! I loved that OJ.
Also tins of National Dried Milk - I can still ‘see’ them, used for younger siblings, also well before the 70s.

Whoever mentioned pink sugar mice, we always had one of those in our stockings, too.

Secondly dont feel sorry for us and our AMAZING christmas that dont cow down to every man and his dog... I grew up as just a nuclear family and LOVED it, my kid are growing up as a nuclear family and LOVE it, DH grew up half and half and HATED the big family years.

People probably don't want to visit you anyway.

Why such a passive-aggressive comment?

@YetAnotherSpartacus i shouldn’t have laughed at your post - but I did.

So many lovely memories in this thread. It has brought a proper tear to my eye.

Oh and the Great Aunts. So many Great Aunts. (And they all liked a wee gin).