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Christmas

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Original poster

70s-style Christmas

111 replies

ChristmasMad1 · 26/10/2025 20:58

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.
OP posts:
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7
TellingBone · 29/10/2025 01:22

YorkieTheRabbit · 26/10/2025 22:47

Lots of paper and foil decorations and lots of colours. Tinsel
Morcambe and Wise on the tv
Snowballs, Babycham. Mateus or Blue Nun.

Random size chairs and stools around the table as no one ever had enough matching chairs for all the guests.

Melon boat to start. Turkey, Paxo, roast potatoes and sprouts. Christmas pudding or Arctic roll, Birds trifle. After eight mints.
Cheap crackers with daft jokes, everyone wore the crown.

An evening buffet of open sandwiches, always egg and cress, tinned red salmon. Selection of things on cocktail sticks, cheese and pineapple, cheese and silverskin onions, sausages. Bowl of salad, left over turkey, slices of ham. Mince pies. Christmas cake covered in rock hard icing. More Birds trifle with hundreds and thousands on top.
Boxes of matchmakers, bowls of nuts and a nutcracker hanging around. Sticky dates.

Selection boxes. Radio Times. Monopoly, Mousetrap Annuals of Jackie, Blue Peter etc.

The only thing missing from that lot is a triangular tin of Old Oak Ham and a stand pie. 😄

ETA: And some 'Eat Me' dates in a box

LivingTheDreamish · 29/10/2025 02:38

Christmas tree - multicoloured decorations (no tasteful colour schemes) plus tinsel and angel hair. Homemade paper chains festooned around the room. Big tin of Quality Street.

Gremlins101 · 29/10/2025 06:36

No idea but what a lovely thing to do.

hope you have a lovely time

Gremlins101 · 29/10/2025 06:36

No idea but what a lovely thing to do.

hope you have a lovely time

PistachioTiramisu · 29/10/2025 09:06

PaulRobinsonsLeg · 28/10/2025 23:23

I bought these Xmas lights a couple of years ago - they're glorious! (Have seen similar in Aldi for much cheaper, can't say it they're as nice though)

https://www.lights4fun.co.uk/products/150-multi-coloured-led-traditional-pickwick-christmas-lights

We had those exact lights, I'm sure! So pretty.

Shangrilalala · 29/10/2025 22:29

YorkieTheRabbit · 28/10/2025 21:28

My Gran used to make these Christmas trees out of white netting.

Oh we had one of these. I had quite forgotten! What a fabulous memory. Thank you!

HeadDeskHeadDesk · 31/10/2025 17:41

SeaAndStars · 27/10/2025 10:05

Ohhh and nobody bought gift tags. You cut up last years Christmas cards (perhaps with pinking sheers) made a hole in the corner and threaded string through.

You totally did, and definitely pinking shears 😂

HeadDeskHeadDesk · 31/10/2025 17:48

You need some satsumas, lumps of coal and a few of those gold foil covered chocolate coins to stick in the bottom of a sock for Chrismas 'stockings.'

And for snacks you'll need those really stinky but strangely delicious cheesy footballs in a carboard tub, Twiglets (ditto the tub) Turkish Delight, crystallized orange and lemon slices in a round box and some Eat Me dates in those strange little wooden boxes with the tiny plastic fork. And some mixed nuts still in their shells and a nut cracker.

A jar of Maraschino cherries for your Snowball. Totally obligatory.

THisbackwithavengeance · 31/10/2025 17:59

Tinned salmon for Christmas Day tea. You knew it was Christmas when my grandma got tinned salmon out the pantry. Lunch was eaten quite early and then a salad tea around 6pm then everyone played cards. My grandma and my mum drank advocaat and we kids were allowed a snowball. And then my mum would bring out a tin of Quality streets which was a Big Deal as you literally never saw them any other time of the year.

Christmas TV was a big thing. It was the only time you got to watch a decent film. We would watch Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz and then there would be a James Bond.

I’ve forgotten to mention my grandma’s sherry trifle. Yum.

HannahDefoesSpringFling · 31/10/2025 19:28

Chocolate liqueurs. Little chocolates filled with strongly flavoured alcohol, deeply shocking if you were a child.

70s-style Christmas
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