When you were kids, did you do ' Christmas activities'?

[Bigearringsbigsmile]

It just was NOT a thing in my childhood.
We made cards in school and did a play and had a party.
But outside school? There were no light trails, movie nights, biscuit baking, hot chocolate making etc
Nobody used to decorate the outside of their houses.

🤔🤔
I remember going to see the department store windows which were fabulous and going to the grotto inside.
My dad's work used to have a kids Christmas party for their employees children.

Once Christmas came it was absolutely lovely but December was not a month full of activities...🤔

We might visit a grotto in a department store but that was it. Oh and drive to look at local lights. Obviously there was the school play too.

It’s all a bit much now and I can’t help think it slightly ruins the magic. The more ‘real’ that people try to make the whole Santa/Christmas thing, the less magical in my opinion.

Those of you struggling with the premise of the thread.

We're not saying we didn't do anything at Christmas - of course we did, it was fab! - but there wasn't the vast array of stuff to do that was for commercial profit.

It wasn't so frantic. A nice build up to a lovely time of year.

Not really, we would have had a Christmas crafts and party at school and perhaps brownies or church but other than that I think I went to the Pantomime a couple of times once with a neighbour when the intended guest was too unwell to go. When we were very young we went to a department store a couple of times to see Santa and I think that's about it.

At home we would watch Christmas films on tv so that would have been the in the few days before Christmas and we had some Christmassy story tapes and books we'd get out to read and listen to at that time of year as well as some Christmas music tapes for once the tree was up. It was pretty low key and inexpensive but it was still very magical and exciting. We probably don't need all the stuff that goes on now, I think it might even end up being too much and sort of ruin the magic at times.

a navitity (in which I was the virgin Mary for 5 years straight)

Good job Mumsnet wasn't around back then - can you imagine the AIBU threads 😂

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I remember getting the part of Sunday school mary because I was wearing a blue dress on the day they picked the parts.

I'm in my 40's. My mum would take us to a grotto, a Christmas Carol service and we'd bake mince pies and other things. The tree went up after we broke up from school so around the 20th and we'd lay out all the Xmas chocs and be allowed a couple, we could go free range on them from Xmas eve. My mum would always do a Christmas deep clean. It took me a while to stop that habit when I was an adult (like full on clean out all the kitchen cupboards etc).

my kids are teens. The tree has got earlier each year (going up next weekend), we did grotto's occasionally but they always saw Father Christmas at the school xmas fayre anyway. I did introduce a pesky elf when they were quite small and regretted if after a few years! He still has to come out now or they complain but someone will move him, we all deny it though so it's quite fun now rather than feeling like a chore. We do a Christmas light walk Xmas Eve walking around our neighbourhood. The price of the light trails make me balk.

Yes the difference is the overall cost. Most of the things we did in the run up had very little cost attached. Some paper chain strips and maybe a small few bits for craft eg glitter but mostly Christmas crafts involved old christmas cards and wrapping paper and toilet rolls. Plays and carol services were free, walking around counting christmas trees cost nothing, my mum doesn't remember paying to see the department store Santa. Any Christmas parties were fairly simple. Some families gave kids new pyjamas, in ours they were a wrapped present in Christmas Day and no-one bought matching ones for the whole family. Few people decorated to the extent we do now (and I love decorating so no judgement!)

Having Mary envy here. I have miserable flashbacks to being the chicken in the nativity play.

A chicken!

Red tights, my dad's massive brown/flecked jumper, a red cardboard beak and comb all finished off perfectly with pale pink NHS glasses.

No but the house was always very Christmassy. We would have films on and eat good food but didn’t go anywhere but my best memories are from being at home anyway.

Made paper chains at school. Nativity play. Allowed to take board games in on the last day before the Christmas break. Went Carol singing with the Brownies. Pantomime. Much simpler in the 60s/70s before everything became one giant Instagram brag x

We used to make all our Christmas cards as a family- Mum is is quite arty, and we all still do homemade cards for each other. There’d also be mince pie making, and house decorating, often making things like paper chains or spraying branches gold.
Very occasionally, there’d be a panto or a trip to see the lights in the west end ( mum) or a trip to the ballet ( grandma) or something on ice ( dad) but I don’t think that was every year. My parents split up when I was quite young and I don’t think there was ever any consultation or joint planning.
We did annual carol singing as a fundraiser for a charity, which was always fun, although my sibling and I being the only children were sent knocking on doors while the adults all stayed in a group carrying on with the singing!

As a child I remember going to the panto my gran paid for us.
I got a new nightie for Christmas Eve.
We saw Santa at a department store probably Debenhams or Binns.
I remember baking with my mum probably mince pies and biscuits.

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, no absolutely not.

We had the school Carol concert and some people went to a panto. We didn't because there were seven of us.

I remember dm suggesting we drove in to see the lights in Regents Street one year and my dad rubbishing the idea because of the cost and effort.

My house has gable lights and a wreath and a beautifully decorated Christmas tree. I wind holly & ivy up the banisters with gold & silver ribbons. 🤗. No cost or effort spared.

I remember getting the part of Sunday school mary because I was wearing a blue dress on the day they picked the parts.

I was the only girl with dark hair 😂

Midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Christmas tree and making some decorations with my dad . Christmas party at the working men's club where Father Christmas (who I once revealed to a room full of my fellow five year olds was my Uncle Albert) have put selection boxes. Christmas stocking with an orange, a walnut , sweets and a little toy in it and one main present, plus an annual. We loved it and would wake up on the hour from about midnight to check if Santa had been. The worst part was traveling round various relatives houses listening to the adults getting merry and talking bollocks

Other than any school activities no I don’t think we did, not that I remember anyway. We were quite poor growing up and my mum was a single parent for a while working 3 jobs, there wasn’t the time or money for the extra indulgences.
I am in a better financial position as a parent with a dh and still don’t do any of this stuff, Ice skating, light trails, trips to see FC. Just don’t see the point. Overcrowded, inflated prices, excess queuing, bah bloody humbug.

Grew up in the 70s and 80s and yes. Panto, lights switching on, parties, trips to see lights and Santa.
All the commercial stuff now is fabulous in my opinion and we have such fun with our kids doing ice skating, a show, light trails, the lot. Why not??

@SeaAndStars I was never allowed to be Mary because I was too tall and they wouldn't let Joseph be shorter than Mary!

I was either a shepherd or an angel.

We did the panto with school, made a Christmas tree decoration with the school, Santas grotto which I'm fairly certain was also arranged through the school, and as a family I do remember doing an annual walk around the village to look at the lights, there was one chap at the top of the village who went all out and decorated his house like Santa's grotto so we always finished there. Outside of that any festive activities participated in were done through the church in Sunday school. (card making, paper garland's etc)

The usual stuff in school- party, nativity play, making cards etc.

Outside school, it was all church related. So Christmas fair, carols by candlelight, Christingles, crib service on Christmas Eve and church on Christmas morning. We went to church anyway throughout the year. I think my dad took me and my siblings to see a department store Santa when we were very little.

Love this post OP and agree wholeheartedly it has all got out of control.

The modern day trend I hate and refuse to follow is the matching family PJs! Just Euugh 🤮
I feel a lot of it is driven by social media and not only must it be exhausting but it must all cost a bloody fortune too.

Where we get our Christmas tree from, we see young families and it is evident their trip to get their tree is being documented on their social media; from the matching knitted jumpers/outfits/coats/overly done hair and make up etc makes me quite sad, all looks so contrived.

I’m in my late 40s and I fondly remember being taken to London every Christmas to see the lights, combined with Christmas shopping, and I recall only ever going to a panto once. Christmas party at school with a visit from Father Christmas (it was the caretaker we later learned 🤣) that was it. Magical.

I'm 45 and remember the xmas school class party, the TSB bank party for the trusty savers and going to the pantomime with my youth club each year. My mum always had the homeade sausage rolls and mince pies on the go and did sit and watch a film on the telly with us but that's when there was 4 channels to choose from so basically the tv guide was circled by the family of their choices 😂

the giant tins of Rose's and quality street were torture to look at until my mum declared the xmas cupboard was open. And every xmas eve I always came out the bath to new pyjamas and a neighbours dad would dress up as santa and walk up and down the street with his bell shouting merry christmas.

My mum would be buying xmas cupboard food from sep each year and then enough booze to resink the titanic for hogmanay as hogmanay was just as big as xmas when I was growing up.

We had a school party, a Sunday school party, nativity play at both, carol singing around the streets and in the old people’s home the week before Christmas, panto with the Brownies. We also made paper chains and other decorations at home. My mum saved foil from chocolates etc throughout the year to make things. Then after Christmas we cut the cards down into gift labels for the next year. It all felt utterly magical.

We used to do a lot of sweet making, mince pie baking, and on Christmas eve a puff pastry cake with almond paste, a bit like a sweet giantsausage roll, all homemade from scratch. The only going out thing I remember was an outside carol service by the bridge in the town where my grandparents lived.

We didn't do much when our kids were smaller , although we did have rugby club children's parties.

What a lovely thread . I'm early 60s and recognise the OP's Christmas. Plus Advent calendars just with festive or religious pictures, behind the doors the size of postage stamps. Mum pushed the boat out one year and bought an Advent candle, but we kept forgetting it was alight until half a dozen days had burnt down. I don't remember that being repeated!

My birthday is mid-December and the tree never went up until a couple of days after that.

We didn't have the money for all the current tat and have nothing but wonderful memories of several decades of family Christmases.