Childhood Christmas Day Memories

[MarmaladeSandwich7]

I just saw a photo on FB of a typical 70s Christmas morning & it made me remember how lovely my Christmases were as a child ( I was born in 1965). DBro & I had pillowcases out on the landing & would take them downstairs to open the presents inside. We had to stay in bed til 7.30 which was pretty hard! Sometimes we’d have pork pie with a glass of milk for breakfast. Christmases at my maternal DGM’s house were the absolute best as there would be at least 10 of us round the table & she was a great cook. I remember my DGD ( sorry not sure of the abbreviations for Grandparents!) always being given loads of boxed chocolates which he shared with us. I acted as waitress, proudly serving drinks on a gold tray including what I viewed as a very sophisticated ginger ale for me! Also remember being allowed snowballs but we were in our early teens by then. Lots of games & my DGM played the piano so we all sang carols. I don’t remember watching tv at all at my Grandparents house & very little at home. Always a walk after lunch - my Grandparents lived in Yorkshire so there were some beautiful places to go right on the doorstep. We didn’t get piles & piles of presents but always had lovely things. I remember getting Galt wooden toys which were played with for years. DM would always buy me books as I was a real bookworm. What are your best memories of Christmas past?

We all woke early but the rule was no presents until we were all awake. And no waking the laggard. Presents in a pillow case under the tinsel tree on the front verandah, which was enclosed and faced the sun so was always bright. Big gifts like a foam surfboards or a bike were leant against the wall. Always a book.

If our priest did early Mass, we would go to that then into the car for three hours to Grandfather and Grandma’s. Otherwise, Mum would have looked at the list of Christmas masses that the Catholic newspaper published and decide which one on the way would suit us.

Pack the esky, pack the farting dog and away. We had cousins and Grandma’s sister once we got there, too. I suppose we took the dog. She was a red setter. I can’t imagine the trouble we would have come home to if we left her alone. (Red setter peeps will understand).

Roast dinner, pudding, Grandma’s trifle which had desiccated coconut on the top and loads of sherry. A sleep for dad, a cup of tea and a mince pie and into the car to go home in the dark, dodging kangaroos and emus.

Boxing day was down the beach.

My older sister always woke us very early. Our presents were in little piles on the sofa (unwrapped). Somehow my sister knew which pile was which. We'd get a toy or two (small toys), an annual, a selection box and a tube of smarties or jelly tots. Maybe a colouring book and set of paints. We didn't get stockings. One year I got a bike and another year I got a giant cuddly rabbit.

Sounds a bit strange, but my parents were usually still asleep at this point. They'd probably been up until all hours assembling a toy garage or something. When they finally got up, we'd show them the presents Santa had brought and they'd exclaim over everything. We'd eat a bar from our selection box and then reluctantly get dressed in our new Christmas clothes. We'd have a cooked breakfast and then head to mass. We were usually allowed to bring one toy to mass. There weren't as many cars back then and we'd see lots of other kids walking to mass with their parents, clutching dolls or toy cars or whatever. At the end of the mass, we'd huddle around the crib to admire Baby Jesus.

After mass we usually called into my Granny's house. My youngest aunt and uncle still lived with her and we'd show them our toys and chat about what Santa brought us. One year my Aunt got this 'Buzz' game as a present and we all had a go at it.

We'd head home and Mam and Dad cooked dinner and we ate dinner at the dining table instead of the kitchen table. Iirc, we used to move the dining table into the sitting room for the Christmas period. It meant we could eat dinner and watch TV at the same time. We'd fold down the eaves after dinner. We could play board games at the table and make jigsaws and colour/paint in our colouring books. I should add that we had no central heating back then, so the sitting room was a warm, cosy room. The other rooms would have been freezing in December.

At some point we'd watch the big Christmas movie which was usually 'The Sound of Music' or 'The Wizard of Oz'.

We'd have tea - turkey or ham sandwiches and mince pies and Oxford Lunch or Australian Sultana cake and a selection of biscuits from the tin.

I would love to go back in time and spend another '70s or '80s Christmas Day with my parents and siblings.

That’s really sad 😢

No, it was my mum’s copy of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas from 1963 in our house, and I still have that original on vinyl. DH bought me the CD years ago and I make him play it in the car from October onwards; although he still shakes his head at Bing’s version of Mele Kalikimaka.

@Gabitule I hope you being on the Christmas board means that you eventually got to experience the magic of Christmas. I loved it because my dad always cleared off for a while and the house was calm and peaceful, but I know it’s a difficult time for so many.

My mother is a narcissist a downside to this is sometime I get confused with what I really remember and what I’ve been told happened. The upside is she was so obsessed with outdoing everyone else that for the first 10years of my childhood we’d get piles and piles of presents, although I actually don’t really remember ever getting anything I really wanted.

Happy memories I do have are decorating the house, full on 70s/80s style, my DF trying not to swear every time he dropped a drawing pin or it broke. Twisting the bulbs on the brightly colours tree lights to get them to work. Tubs of quality streets and roses. The net stocking with big sized chocolate bars and sweets in. My Dad was a butcher and I’d help plucking the turkeys, chickens and other birds, painful but it meant spending time with him. It also meant we had the best meat for Christmas dinner, every joint you could think of.

Work and social club Christmas parties, they really knew how to throw big kids parties in those days and my DF would sign us up to all the ones for the clubs he was a member of.

Christmas carolling.

Christmas morning was chaos and free for all in unwrapping but we got just as much fun out of watching our cat go nuts with all the wrapping paper. Dad would do us all a fry up after. Some times we’d go to mass but we always went to the club where my cousins would be, everyone all dressed up, our mums in the lounges getting pissed on babycham and snowballs and our dads in the games room. We always arrived home with a decent handful of change given to us by usually dads, uncles and friends of the family. Then it would be time for one of my dads Christmas roasts.

My parents would go out most nights especially Christmas Eve so we’d dare each other to sneak into the front room and see what presents there were before our parents got back pissed and wrapped them.

Lots of dancing, my DF loved to play music all the time and dance, everyday was a chance to party but Christmas was the best because he was actually home during the day so music would be blasting all day, he’d be in the kitchen dancing singing and whistling away while prepping food.

Radio Times and TV times, picking our tv viewing, watching top of the pops to see who was going to be the Christmas number one.

My Dad had the same Bing album and an Elvis one.

I'm 60, we had a small artificial tinsel Christmas tree that sat on top of my mums posh sewing machine table. I used to get told off for spinning baubles. We didn't have stockings, Santa delivered one big present to the foot of the bed. When I was about 6, I realised it was my Dad as I woke up. I didn't let on for a few months. I think there was relief about this because my only sibling was much older and had known for years. There were usually 4 or 5 other presents from Mum and Dad.

I remember one Christmas when DB got saucepans for Christmas. Must have been when he was going to uni. He wore one and danced about with tinsel. I miss him very much, he was great fun.

Born 1966. Money was tight in the 1970s and we wouldn’t have treats or stuff throughout the year. The excitement began a few months before Christmas when my Mum would buy chocolates each shopping trip to spread the cost. We’d have quite a bit, those massive tins of Quality Street, Roses, Milk Tray, Thorntons Continental, Neapolitans, After Eights, all stacked in a pile in the front room, later to be joined by boxes and boxes of mince pies.
Our Christmas tree went up the week before, no earlier.
Christmas Started when my Dad went over to collect my Gran on Christmas Eve. She’d come and stay for the week, sleeping on a make shift bed on the sofa in the front room. She’d always say that as we had so much on the day (we didn’t) we could open her present on Christmas Eve.
Christmas morning we’d wake up to bulging pillow cases on the bottom of the bed, filled with small things to keep us amused until my parents woke up and only then were we allowed down stairs. There, we’d find a small pile of presents for each of us in our own area in the room. Often it included those chocolate selections in the net stockings and the chocolate eating would commence.
Mum would be fretting about the turkey being cooked through and looking back, spent a large amount of time in the kitchen cooking for 6.
We had an open coal fire in the front room and Christmas time was the only time it was used. The front room was usually kept for best but served as a quiet room at Christmas and somewhere to play my new LPs on the radiogram. Sitting in there with the flicker of flames, cracking of coal and the fire smell was bliss.
The memories I treasure the most are of the whole family, squashed in the living room, on the settee, chairs and pouffee, snowballs in our hands, watching the Christmas specials on TV and hearing the belly laughs coming from my parents and Gran. At that age, I didn’t always get the jokes but laughed anyway in delight to see Gran breathless with laughter.
I was so lucky. Sorry to all those whose stories are not happy reading.

How festive

Why did they do a Christmas tree and clean the house if they didn't actually celebrate Christmas?

Born in the 80’s. Christmas always felt a bit of a let down, though there were good bits. I think I felt a little let down as a child as we didn’t have stockings, we did have a pillow case which we would leave near the fireplace for Father Christmas but this was usually half filled with gifts from family/friends. From Father Christmas we would get a main gift, new pj’s, colouring book/pens and a selection box. I think for me the best part of Christmas was spending time with family during the few days before, spending time with cousins, having a family buffet at my grand parents house and making mince pies with my mum.

Christmas day would be the same most years, grand parents would come over for Christmas lunch and often my dad would get called away for work leaving my mum to cook and entertain everyone. Mum would then be angry that my dad was late for lunch.

Loved putting the decorations up, we would do this after school had broken up. Christmas food (the quality street etc…) would come out Christmas Eve, unless we had family visiting the day before.

I started doing stockings for my DC’s when they were small, they are now 21 and 19 and we still do stockings. Our Christmas now is much different to when I was a child. I miss the spending time with family, we do see family but only my parents.

Opening our stockings on our parents bed. Then df cooking a full English. My nan and mums siblings came for breakfast. Then once washed up we would open our presents under the tree .
We Then used to 'display' them in our rooms for when my nan and family came for dinner around 3 ish. We would all eat together then the evening games and chocolates.

It's pretty much the same now other than the full English is now pastries and we are the hosts.

Born in the 80s here.

We woke early and our stockings would be out on the end of our beds. They always had a new book in, some fruit, some nuts, some sweets, a small toy and a card. I think my fav was when I got Lucy and Tom's Christmas in my stocking. I still love that book and gave it to my son when he was little. He's nearly a teenager but we still read it together.

After that it was breakfast and then presents. Everyone diving in. It was great.

We'd have lunch with all of us crammed around a table not quite big enough and then everyone would play with their toys for a bit before we'd sit round the TV and watch Watership Down and The Snowman.

After that it was play and eat until we fell asleep.

We’d clean the house and put a tree up because that’s what people did at Christmas time. The concept of celebrating Christmas the way we do it here didn’t exist for us. I don’t know what other families did but I assume some did eat their Christmas meal together. We almost never had meals together, as a family, so Christmas was no different.

I never had stockings and regret doing them for my DDs, I now fill them with chocolate just because they are there. I’m extremely festive!

I dont remember Christmas day much. Yes to the pillow case of presents, being forced to eat one sprout.

Most of my memories are of the lead up, starting with helping mum with the cake, and my gran with the Christmas pudding. Making paper chains and crepe paper twists, Christmas lanterns etc.

We didn't buy sweets but again I helped mum make them, fudge, coconut ice, Turkish delight and marzipan dates.

Looking back it seems that we've gone more going out for things or buying stuff rather than spending time together.

It’s just something I didn’t have as a child plus we don’t have a fireplace to hang them. I love Christmas & do loads of other festive things!

Quite a few pps have said their presents were already unwrapped & this seems such a shame. Surely the joy of a gift is that you don’t know what’s in the parcel?

What a lovely thread

Aww this has made me think back to 90’s Christmas memories..

The smell of the loft when unboxing those bright and colourful vintage baubles.

Coloured lights and decorations that don’t all have a theme, chocolate hanging on the tree.

A cadburys chocolate dispenser opened on Christmas morning.

Choosing a Christmas VHS to watch.

Presents wrapped in colourful , cheerful really tacky festive paper, no designer trending gifts just fun novel presents.

Board games, no tech!

Christmas cards hanging on the walls on string.

Tin of roses.

Watching The Snowman.

Queens speech.

Grandparents.

No social media, no one to impress.

Take me back ! :,(

When we once visited someone else's house on Christmas Eve, we played a lovely game of "listen out for Father Christmas". After it was dark outside, we wrapped up warm in our outdoor clothes, and sat on benches in the middle of the garden. We children were blindfolded, told a short story about the sleigh being very full, and told to keep very quiet and listen out; and if we heard a present falling, to point at it. We heard sleigh bells sounding high above us, and the thuds of presents being dropped. We then had our eyes uncovered, were given torches, and had to find the presents with our names on, which we could unwrap that evening.

(There were protests about being blindfolded, but we were told that if we accidentally saw Father Christmas, we would not get anything. I learned later that the bells were shaken from an upstairs window.)

As a child my presents were never wrapped, but I can remember walking in to our sitting room on Christmas morning to see my presents arranged on a chair and my eyes would be drawn to the ones I really wanted, I can remember getting a much longed for Sindy doll one year. It seemed magical to me.
That being said, I always wrapped my children's presents.
I think it was just a simpler time back then, there weren't the expensive technology gifts that we have now and I always remember a stocking with nuts and an orange, I usually got colouring pencils/paintbox and a colouring book and something like Pretty Peach perfume and a box of cotton hankies. (I'm 60). Oh, and the obligatory stoocking or selection box.

Some of the childhood Christmas presents that stick in my mind (not all from the same Christmas).

Fisher Price hospital
Tiny Tears doll
Red and white striped dolls pushchair
Twirly Curls Barbie
My Little Pony Show Stable
Baby Skates doll
Nurses outfit and toy medical kit

We always had a chocolate selection box.
I had the Twinkle annuals and then changed to the Grange Hill annuals.

We had Christmas dinner at home, then went for a family get together at my Grandparents house in the afternoon.

I always associate watching The Wizard of Oz with Christmas Day.

Same. A magical time that, although my sons are now grown ups, I try to recreate. My favourite time of the year. So many golden memories x

So many lovely memories! Here are some of mine -

Having fairy lights pinned all the way up the stairs.

We had an open fire in the sitting room and Christmas Eve was the only night of the year that my father 'banked up' the fire to keep it going all night. He would get up early and stoke it with new coal and wood so that it was burning beautifully by the time we came downstairs.

Waking up early on Christmas Day, and being allowed to go downstairs and pick two presents from under the tree to take back to bed. I always got an annual (Bunty or Judy for those who remember them) and the largest box of Milk Tray imaginable, always with a picture of a ballet dancer, country house, or cute puppy or kitten on the lid. I loved those chocolates!

Going right back, having a postal delivery on Christmas Day - it was so exciting somehow!

My mother's wonderful cooking!!

Getting into trouble for wanting to leave the table to watch Christmas Top of the Pops.

Wonderful TV entertainment in the evening - Brucie's Generation Game, Morecambe and Wise, Mike Yarwood, etc.

All magical memories - would just love to spend one more Christmas with my dear parents.