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...🤔

Oh I forgot about the school nativity play. One year I was an angel with wings and a tinsel crown. Another time I was a snowflake. The one I remember best was when I was chosen for Mary mother of Jesus because it was a singing part. My grandmother made me a long white dress out of an old sheet. She dyed another one blue for a head veil. For some reason that has stuck in my memory. My grandmother was always making me costumes for school plays and pageants. Usually out of old clothes.

Christmases were a lot simpler and cheaper in the 1950s. As other PP have pointed out the children were expected to fit in with adult activities and it was not so child centered. No one had much money. My sis and I were allowed one BIG present with a budget. We chose it in the local fancy goods shop and my mother "paid off" it for months approaching christmas. We also got a small present (usually a selection box) under the tree. We had a christmas stocking with small gilfs like a paint box or coloured crayons, a small doll or similar bits and pieces. That was it. Most of the relatives gave money and it was used to buy us essential clothes. We were not given it in cash to spend as we wanted.

At 8 years old I can remember getting a new pair of slippers and being so proud of them. Its fair to say we were told to be grateful for what we got, and we were.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s. My Dad’s work/Golf Club had Children’s Christmas Parties and I have really happy memories of those. We were taken to see Santa in a local department store when we were very small…there are some photos of us looking a bit nervous with the big chap.

We exchanged cards at school. the tree went up mid December, maybe with chocolate baubles some years. We were probably the last generation where our advent calendars only had pictures inside….we actually had one that came out every year until we were about 7 and 5, my Mum just closed the doors again! I can still remember that the door for 1st December was round and it had holly behind it.

Christmas was with one side of the family, taking turns at my Cousins home and ours and if we were at home on Christmas Day Boxing Day was an away fixture with the other side of the family, and vice versa. We sometimes had parties for Hogmanay, and if not my parents went out dinner dancing at the Golf Club and my Nana would spoil us at home. We had a disco for our friends one year with our record player and Nana shining torches with coloured paper over them.

It was simple, it was magical and I wish I could recapture that feeling. There is an awful lot more going on now and I think the real issue with it is the pressure that people feel under to do it all, to make it all perfect. The feeling that somehow not doing lots of these things makes your Christmas or your children’s Christmas less special. Every generation makes their own traditions and that’s lovely, as long as people aren’t stressed, unhappy and getting into debt trying to keep up with all the latest trends,

I grew up in the 80’s we would go to Christmas parties in the local rugby club, church fairs with my nan and school party/events. Sometimes we would go to see Father Christmas in a department store but would usually end up seeing him about 4 times anyway. Obviously Christmas lights trails and those sort of things didn’t exist but we did do something Christmasy most weekends in December.

Both sides of my family are Christmas mad and there was a lot of preparation in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We would go to my grandparents to ‘help’ making the Christmas cakes/puddings and then my Bamp would let us help feed them rum every week. My sis & I had the job of making gift tags from last years cards which my nan would save.

we would make a lot of decorations and decorate our bedroom and the kitchen (posh decs only in the lounge lol).

Christmas is what you make of it, it’s not about the money but the time and thought that goes into things🎄 love it

What a lovely thread with some wonderful memories. Ive enjoyed reading about all the christmases which came later and how the different traditions (like light trials, christmas eve boxes and elves on shelves) evolved.

Won’t your age make a big difference?

I was born in the 80s and we did Santa visits, went up to London to see the lights & look in the shop windows (it was much easier to drive & park in central london then!). We always went to a big movie that opened on Boxing Day. We baked and decorated biscuits.

My mum went big on the decor inside the house, we had two trees. Lights outside she didn’t do until the 90s

No. Most of the activity related things we did do were through school - made Christmas cards, went to the panto etc. We didn't do anything like that at home, it was mainly about the adults drinking a lot and the kids running about mental for a week. Kids were always out playing on Christmas Day as well!

Was chatting about this recently and for me (born in the 80s), one of the biggest changes seems feels like the actual dates of the Christmas period.

When I was a kid, the trimmings went up around early/mid-December but then Christmas felt like it lasted until we went back to school, in the first week of January. Nowadays, it feels like 'Christmas' begins in mid-November and but then comes to an abrupt end on Boxing Day, with people saying they're yanking down trimmings because they're fed up of them. Well, probably because they've been up for 6 weeks!

I was born early 80’s and I remember once going to a Christmas light switch on in the nearest town and a party at the end of term where you all had to bring something in. We don’t seem to have many photos of Christmas either which is a shame because whenever I see old photos of Christmas I always zoom in to have a look at the food/presents.

Completely agree. On Boxing Day Mumsnet will be full of people taking everything down as they are fed up with it, while I feel I've barely got started!

No, they weren't A Thing, apart from church activities, and maybe the local panto. And we didn't suffer, we still enjoyed Christmas and it didn't go on endlessly. As so often, less really is more, because we actually appreciated Christmas Eve and Day, and looked forward to them.

I’m46 and every single year from the age I could walk my nan took me to Blacklers or Lewis’s in Liverpool to see the amazing displays and walk through animatronics. Wet also had a day at St John’s market buying dried fruit and nuts for the Christmas cakes. With a cafe lunch. Other that that were made all streets of festive crafts and poster chains. She really embodied the Christmas spirit that women tend to deliver. I do the same sort of stuff for my grandkids now.

Do you remember the big rocking horse by the children's shoes in blacklers?

Also...the red rose restaurant on the top floor in Lewis's? With the fountain?
I never went in there but it always looked impossibly glamorous

For me, the home activities that my son did are basically the same as I did 30 years ago. Making cards, decorating, little bit of crafts/cooking etc.

And the school and non-profit stuff is similar. Carols at church, church/town fairs, parties etc.

It's the masses of commercial experiences that I don't remember existing when I was a kid (maybe they did.. and I just ignored them?) I'm quite glad I don't live in the UK because I see them advertised and hear about them on here, and I know I'd be a sucker for them, and likely end up disapointed.

You don't need big expensive "experiences" though.. most of our best Christmas memeories are of mundane things, and that is lovely. Nice memories that are special because of the people and feelings in them, not because of how currated and photogenic they are.

@DesignerStars this is still how it feels for me & christmas trees aren’t collected by the council until a few days into Jan. I don’t think Mns is representative tbh.

I was born in the 70s. We had Christmas activities at school, Christmas fairs, Santa’s grotto, Christmas parties, carol singing with the choir, Christmas crafting with the brownies, made a Christmas chocolate Yule log and gingerbread house with my mum, chocolate advent calendars, and my dad’s workplace put on a special Christmas party for employee’s families. Things have changed over the years, but Christmas was definitely a big event when I was growing up.

In my 40s.

We had:

• visit to London to Oxford St and go round Selfridges and see Santa
• pantomime
• DDad’s Xmas work do
• Multiple carol services
• Xmas fair at school
• Multiple Xmas parties at family friends (including our own…we once counted and over 200 guests, utter delightful chaos)
• Christingle service
• Nativity at school when small
• Advent calendars

I think my DC do less than we did. But I refused to do the Elf and Xmas boxes. We do have lights on the house (DPiL always did, so that’s no new either).

In the 60's it was going to see Father Christmas at Blacklers or Lewis's for me as well. I think the best one was in Owen Owen though.
There was a party at school. The caretaker would dress up and we'd get a colouring book and some pencils. Some of my friends would go to factory parties where their mum or dad worked and I was always a bit jealous of them. The tree didn't go up until mid December. That was it.
I had no idea hot chocolate is an event, it was just a drink when I was growing up and still is.

No. Just panto. This was the 80's.

I did make a nativity scene from toilet rolls and a cardboard box once. I loved that project.

@DelurkingAJ oh yes so many more parties amongst my parents & their friends. They would get very drunk & merry!

Thats a huge change, my friends are all time poor and just tired, plus don’t have the space!

There was a Christmas fete at school on a weekend and I used to love going to the garden centre to see the Christmas decorations - we could choose one new one each year. Then Christmas shopping in town. We went a few times to the local amateur Panto. Sometimes we’d see Father Christmas somewhere. And I’d help my mum make mince pies sometimes or maybe some other Christmas baking. Choosing and decorating the Christmas tree was a big one. We did put string lights up outside and so did lots of other people and a few had more elaborate decorations. I’d watch Christmas films but just if it was on TV and not necessarily a whole family activity.

I was born in 1984. My school did seem to make a big thing of Christmas.

We made cards at school, we did a nativity/Christmas concert and it was always a big deal, Santa visited the school, we had a Christmas fete (also a big deal) with a grotto, a bouncy castle set up in one of the classrooms, loads of stalls and games and then a class Christmas party. I actually think that my school made a bigger thing of Christmas than my children’s schools do nowadays!

At home we didn’t do much, we did have colourful fairy lights in the windows. Our Christmas event was usually me and my dad going to the high street shopping. Woolworths, Boots, it felt really exciting. If we went to the bigger shopping mall it was even more exciting.

I don’t really do loads of Christmas events tbh. We will go and see Santa at a garden centre (my children have outgrown this) ice skating and a Christmas market.

We’ve never gone into doing the Christmas Eve box thing. A lot of these things weren’t really a thing when mine were very small.

I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing to do Christmas events, but parents shouldn’t feel pressured to spend £££ on tat or days out and I think Christmas can be so overwhelming for children. Sometimes it’s the small things that they remember.

I'm in my 50s. Carol singing, panto, going to see Father Christmas, going to see the department store displays in London . We used to make snowflakes out of paper, make paper chains etc.

I grew up in a very small village in the 70s but it had a ,ovely pub. Normally no children were allowed inside but one afternoon in December,they invited all the children in the village for a party. No adults because the pub shut at 2pm and our parents didnt go. There was about 10-12 children and we would play games and they wold serve us something like sausages and chips but the big excitement was that we were allowed to go behind the bar and help ourselves to fizzy drinks from the tap machine - oh the sheer joy. This may have been more of a treat as my parents were dentists and we were never allowed fizzy drinks or drinking straws.

Christmas just seems to start earlier and earlier and involves so much more. Christmas tree would go up about a week before Christmas and DB and I would take it in turns to switch the lights on in the morning (does that count as. Christmas activity!). We would help decorate the tree, no precious parents telling children they can't put their garish baubles on the tree, didn't have numerous trees all over the house.

Would have been nativity in school, and a Christmas party in the village hall and carol singing round the village. Would also possibly go to see Santa, but there was only one grotto in the town, not numerous ones.