70s-style Christmas

[ChristmasMad1]

Hi all,
I live with my grandparents and want to do a 1970s-themed Christmas for them this year. I wasn’t alive then, but I love everything about the 70s — the music, colours, fashion — and I’d love to make it nostalgic and fun for them.
Only thing is, I don’t really know what a 70s Christmas was actually like! And all the food needs to be gluten-free, so I’ll have to adapt recipes.
Would love ideas for:

• Typical 70s Christmas food/decorations/traditions
• Gluten-free versions of 70s treats or desserts
• Budget-friendly decorations or music to set the scene

I really want to make it special for them, so any tips or memories would be amazing.

Thanks! So far I have found some tissue Pom Poms to hang, lammetta for the tree, mini multicoloured Christmas present tree decorations, some bows for the tree, multicoloured baubles, a red star for the top of the tree, a few coloured tablecloths, some multicoloured poinsettia, some retro Christmas banners, some foil hanging decorations, a few honeycomb Christmas decorations, some Christmas pillows and red throws, a lot of multicoloured Christmas decorations (e.g. angels, nutcrackers ), a little Christmas train, lots of tinsel, some stockings, some retro tin signs to splash around the house.

what else do I need? That's only for the living room / dining room, not sure what to do in the hallway?

You need those plastic foil decorations that hang down. The smell of them is very specific and makes me so nostalgic.

What was the wrapping paper like? I have leftover brown paper from last year.

@Thingsthatgo What are they ?

Prawn cocktail or melon to start. Usual Turkey dinner but keep the veg basic, sprouts, carrots, peas, roast and mashed potatoes. Christmas pudding and custard or a Sherry trifle.
Drinks, sherry, snow balls, baby cham with glacé cherry.
Play charades, cards or monopoly, or if there are DC, buckaroo or mousetrap. Watch The Wizard of Oz or Oliver!.
Give sexist gifts. Tea towels for women, car care kits for men. Bay City Rollers calendars for teens.
Lay a brown swirly carpet, heat the living room like a sauna and ensure the rest of the house is freezing. Wear scratchy home knitted jumpers in shades of orange and brown and crimpolene flares. Play Slades Merry Christmas everyone on a tape recorder.

Oh for heaven's sake; they'd invented gift wrap years before the 70's--we weren't given our prezzies in brown paper! Anything you might see around now!
But if you're really going to be authentic, not a single mobile phone or screen in sight . . . . Apart, of course, from the telly.

Without wanted to be a negative nelly, do your GP love the 70s as much as you do? Because as someone who remembers them, the last thing I'd want is my Christmas Day 'themed' to the period. Because either you're going to get it wrong (because you weren't there) and it's not going to resonate, or it's possible they're going to be disappointed to be presented with something that I promise you was in very many ways, a lot more rubbish than what we do today. My personal view is that nostalgia stuff should either be done by people who lived it, or be so far in the past no one's alive to tell you you're getting in wrong. Eg, the Victorian Christmas.

Coloured lights and tinsel - you basically had a box in the loft containing the Christmas decorations (possibly an artificial tree too) and that's what you used every year. The fact you are trying to do this on a budget do still using what I already have is in itself a very 70 concept. The idea of acquiring new decorations and new themes every year was an anathema - you used what you already had (possibly some passed on by grandparents and others you had made at school). In fact this is what prompted a deep sense of nostalgia about the bent angel on top of the tree and the non-matching baubles that came out every year. Foil wrapped chocolate decorations would also be a good addition and also lots of Christmas cards - strung up on the walls. Candles were only really for power cuts which was probably just as well as all the flapping cards would have been a fire hazard. There was no sense of a tasteful display - the theme was Christmas and that in itself was enough. It was bright and brash, but in many ways more low key if that makes sense. Certainly noone would have been planning their Christmas decoration themes in October - you trimmed up (as my dad would have said) second weekend in December then it all came down and went back in the loft on January 6. Get some vintage sweet brands - tin of Quality Street, selection boxes and also those boxes of dates with the plastic prong, nuts that you crack yourself with a nutcracker and bowls of satsumas. TV would be Morecambe and Wise and a James Bond film - Christmas Radio and TV Times were essential to plan viewing as this was pre video and streaming so you had to watch stuff when it was on. I was a child in the 70s so I have a certain amount of nostalgia for these Christmases, but I think it is a nostalgia for childhood more than anything (for the hallway maybe you could recreate the Blue Peter Advent crown out of coat hangers - I longed to make one, but was never allowed!) The Christmases I created for my own children in the early Noughties were tastefully confected from the Christmas markets we lived near in Berlin when they were tiny, giving them a life-long association of German Christmas songs, St Nicholas arriving on December 6, and the little iced Christmas biscuits we always used to make - and lots of candles and greenery. Those are the Christmases we continue to recreate today and I must say I prefer them on the whole though DS has a taste for Paxo stuffing - something I carried through from my 70s childhood and he still loves!

If you can, watch Back in Time For Christmas and also the Christmas episode of Giles and Sue Live the Good Life - both have great ideas for a 1970s Christmas. Yes, I know both of them have Giles Coren in them, but he wasn't as bad when they were filmed and he's barely in the Back in Time For Christmas episodes. God, I'd love to go back in time and relive the Christmases of my childhood - mid-late 70s and then early 1980s. Don't forget the paper chains and the 1970s Argos catalogue!!

Junior Choice on Radio 2 is pretty much spot on with its choices - I think Anneka Rice does it now.

No lots of brightly coloured tinsel ,random baubles, maybe a few homemade decorations.

From.my memories of a 70 s Xmas most of the food was home made including Xmas cake and mince pies, over the Xmas period ,my mum would have bowls of peanuts ,crisps, dates ,nuts that you cracked in bowls in the lounge that everyone helped themselves to, turkey was always a full turkey with all the trimmings in my house at least ,and we would have Xmas pudding after ,mince pies and Xmas cake would be offered to any visitor
On boxing day we always went yo my grandparents and they did a huge buffet with an enormous sherry trifle ,the kids would usually be allowed a small weak snow ball ( advocatt and lemonade) ,whilst the adults drank all day.

Don't forget to have the occasional power cut - usually coinciding with the lights being turned on! Remember to get candles and have Monopoly ready to play - I have many memories of a 70s winter evening playing Monopoly by candlelight!

Turn the heating off and open the double glazed windows to recreate the 70s drafty house - I love Christmas and was a small child in the 70s. I would not want to experience a 70s Christmas again and we were well off. You must get a Radio Times and circle everything you want to watch and watch it at that time. If you miss the start there’s no winding it back remember. I do love the fact you think we didn’t have normal wrapping paper then 🤣

OP, I found a photo of a 1970s Christmas cake for you.

My grandad made it and my auntie shirley iced it. That icing was always as hard as nails.

Food of the 70’s - appetizers, vol au vents, And, We call them porcupines here - An orange on a tray, With toothpicks sticking out with kabana, cheese and little coloured onions from a jar.
Silver coins stuck in the Christmas pudding.
Hand made streamers, and paper chain decorations.
Crackers with the paper hats and silly jokes.

My mum used to make our Christmas cake, she'd ice it dad used to ice the greeting on the cake. One year he mis spelt Christmas so the message read "Merry Chistmas" which we found very amusing, we were very young at the time in our defence. I think the rock hard icing was royal icing and you could almost break your teeth on it.

Another year, dad wrote the greeting again and it was all decorated with the fake little Christmas tree, robin and Santa and somehow he left it on a chair, no idea why he did that and our nan sat on it. It was a very lopsided cake that year.

Happy days ... 🎄

@Myblueclematis Brilliant stories. I bet your nan's face was a picture!

Merry Chistmas 😀

Wonderful! The little Snowman and bits always got re-used, with bits of old icing stuck to them at times. :D

I think the most enjoyable thing was it wasn't started in September, it was 'once a year' and a treat. Hated the Christmas cakes though. Lol.

Remembered, presents in a pillowcase at the end of the bed.

Re Christmas lights, lots of info posted but the colours were a bit different to the popular standard lights - you really want a string of lights that includes pink and orange, it makes the difference somehow.

To make it like my 1970s Christmases you will need:
A silver tinsel fake Christmas tree (slightly balding 😂).
Loads of brightly coloured tinsel hung over the top of every picture and mirror, as well as on the Christmas tree.
Lots of brightly coloured, glass baubles on the tree.
A set of 20 coloured fairy lights for the tree (and lots of spare bulbs!)
Some really tacky and naff cheap, thin wrapping paper.
Crepe paper Christmas crackers, with a joke and a hat inside.
A huge tub of Quality Street.
Terry's chocolate oranges.
After Eights (or, if you're posh, Elizabeth Shaw mint crisps).
Pickled walnuts and onions (to eat with the cold turkey on Boxing Day).
Billy Smart's circus on the telly in the afternoon, followed by a "big" film, like Dr Zhivago, Ben Hur, The Sound of Music or Lawrence of Arabia.
Morecambe and Wise in the evening.
Lots of Babycham for the youngsters (ie age 10-15).
An extra electric fire plugged in, as it's Christmas and the one day in the whole winter when you won't have to wear three jumpers because you don't have central heating!

My mum had a 70's cookbook and the cheese and pineapple sticks were stuck in an upturned half grapefruit so it looked vaguely like a hedgehog and they had (inexplicably) half a glace cherry on each - which must have tasted foul with the cheese.

There were also vol au vents, with creamy-looking sauce fillings, normally involving mushroom or chicken, and lots and lots of casseroles all requiring white wine, red wine or sherry. That last ingredient seemed to make it somehow sexy and 70s-worthy.

Don't knock 70s cooking - it was great! My mother was a brilliant cook and she made sauces, souffles, pastry, puddings, etc. mostly with wine or brandy. Vol-au-vents were (and are) lovely, filled with chicken and mushroom or prawn in sauce.

@ChristmasMad1

"What was the wrapping paper like? I have leftover brown paper from last year."

Um, people didn't wrap presents in brown paper in the 70's - or in any era to my knowledge! They used Christmas wrapping paper just the same as we do now, with pictures of Santa, robins, snowflakes or whatever on it. There's no difference.

What a really lovely idea ! This is what I remember from 70s Christmas , probably already said but a nice trip down memory lane , I was VERY little in the 70s. Nut with a nut cracker, satsumas literally everywhere , including stocking . Selection boxes ..no other sweets in stocking, that was it . Lots of cheapo wrapping paper , coloured tape, always had an annual. Games were monopoly and operation on repeat , paper chains,dinner at my Nanas was lots of different meats which we carried on eating Boxing Day . Boxing day was a HUGE food spread . Christmas pudding and Delia Smith trifle . Carols on the telly and usually wogan , or some such . Perfect times in my family .