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...🤔

Same here. I was born in 1958 and into a very poor, working class family - but there were none of the things you mention so I don't think the middle class kids got them either

1980’s - We had advent calendars (just a picture with doors to open, no chocolate or gifts inside). There would be a Christmas party at primary school (each child would go home with a piece of paper with a food item on it which you would have to provide on the day). At secondary school we would be allowed to wear what we wanted on the last day and there would be a talent type Christmas show in the morning. DM would take us to see Santa at the local department store. The local social club would have a kids Christmas party on a Saturday afternoon in December. On Christmas Eve we would go to the nativity service at the village church. We always had a real Christmas tree which would go up 12 days before Christmas along with lots of ceiling decorations. The local pub used to have a regular dress up as Santa and give each child a small chocolate gift. My Primary school used to have a Christmas Fayre with Santa’s grotto. I remember seeing many Santa’s! The Christmas lights in the town would be amazing, and worth a visit not like now.

We put a tree and decorations up round about the 20th. We had parties at school etc. my parents were RC so we went to church Christmas Day, had a traditional dinner and treats (mince pies etc) . We may have gone to a panto once or twice or gone to see Father Christmas or gone to a Christmas fair eg in a local church hall/school etc but nothing extravagant. I have a vague memory of going to something on ice….it would probably have been at the old Wembley Arena because we weren’t that far.

Oh we made paper chain decorations. Sometimes my mum or gran would bake mince pies or Christmas cake.

I was born in the late 60s. The thing is I do remember Christmas being a huge deal for several weeks, but a lot of it was church related, plus school plays, plus cooking and making presents. So the Advent carols and services with the candle being lit and lots of very intense sermons, rehearsing in the choir for the carol services including solos, and I quite often either did the chorister’s reading from Luke or wanted to so I rehearsed that too. School plays were a fairly big deal, especially at the second primary school I went to which put on big productions. Carol singing I found very exciting especially as our last carol was always at the pub which felt incredibly transgressive. Making Christmas puddings, shopping for food (and the shops shut properly for a while so it took some planning), and my mum did things like buying (or running over) a pheasant and hanging it, plucking /drawing it; picking holly and ivy and decorating. Getting the Radio Times and marking it up, agonising over schedule clashes, applying to my mum for permission to watch things that looked unsuitable. Also writing and sending cards was an enormous deal back then, it wouldn’t be unusual to get and send well over a hundred cards per household. Tbh Christmas seems less intense these days.

Oh yes and usually at least one of us would be singing or playing in a performance of Messiah or other Christmas concert which would be another chunk of time and evening out.

Yes, lots of cooking! Which i attempt with my kids as well. Also cards were more of a thing and you would have the post box at school and we would be sent off to deliver them.

We'd also go to the local woods to collect holly and Ivy to decorate the house with. This is a bit more tricky in London but I give the foraged greenery a good go.

Really our Christmases are quite similar to our childhood ones. I don't think everyone does all the 'christmas experience' stuff, it's expensive and takes a lot of time. Most of my friends will just do father Christmas and then the school and work stuff, maybe a show (dc have been to pantomime with school the last couple of years which is great because I hate them). When they were small we did a lower key Santa at a museum or something. We do like to go and see the TRex at the NHM in his xmas jumper and I like to go to the museum of the home to see the rooms all dressed for Xmas, but those are free museums.

No, no activities. I think my mum was too busy hosting my dad's enormous family.

The house was decorated, the food was lovely, Christmas stocking, a real tree, presents under the tree, watching the Great escape and the queen's speech.

A walk in the woods. A buffet tea.

Sales on boxing day. Up to London for the harrods sale as soon as it started.

I always got new pj's. They weren't santa ones though. Just new.

There was ALWAYS a massive family argument as df had 6 sisters and they all bickered like teenagers. All the dh's were lovely though, and the cousins. I remember the laughter mostly, and family stories being retold.

Absolutely nothing. We had the school Nativity which was a lot of fun. It was very festive at home and at school. We had fresh nuts at home and a nutcracker, a glass dish with quality street in and salted pistachios. They were all Christmas treats. Towards the mid 90's I had a Christmas with my aunty where we went to sing carols on Christmas eve around a village tree and then to KFC for tea. This was their tradition.
We never went out to bonfires either, and new years eve was a nothing event too. As a one off one year we went to the local pub for a drink on Christmas eve, my mum, brother and me. It was very exciting! I was probably about 10! Never saw Father Christmas, we probably couldn't afford it. My presents were put in a pillowcase.

Local Am Dram panto some years. We made Christmas decorations (paper chains). School Christmas party and school church service. School fair. We used to go to the nearest city to see the lights. My grandma took us to the department store to see Father Christmas a couple of times.This was all late 70s/ early 80s.

Basically the same as my DC have. Except making paper chain decorations.

Late 1940s early 1950s.
Our tree went up and was decorated on Christmas Eve. Paper chains festooned the sitting room, some bought fancy ones but others the loops of paper with sticky ends.
At school we wound raffia around those cardboard milk bottles tops with a hole in the middle . When you had done 7 the teacher connected them up to make a little mat. It was my present to mum and she treasured it and I still have it.
Other school-made presents consisted of clean tin cans decorated with cut out sticky paper. Dad got a nice big cocoa tin, brothers got a baked bean can and a mustard tin.
A school party paid for by a local prosperous farmer. Dad was in the Buffaloes, a poor man’s Masons so I also went to the Buffs’ party.

No. We did absolutely nothing except for church stuff.

Which is why I'm the opposite with mine and we do lots of Christmas activities.

I was born in 81. All the Christmas activities were school-based - carol service, nativity play, Christmas fair.

Other than those, we'd give cards to everyone in our class, help mum bake stuff, decorate the house - no earlier than about the 15th December. We'd go to a Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree, make paper chains (I still do) and most of the decorations were natural greenery that we went out to gather (when we were older kids we went out to do this on our own though, it wasn't a family thing). Mum also had us clean all the brasses, which we enjoyed, despite the Dickensian workhouse vibe.

None of these things were done with any fanfare, they weren't events, they were just part of the preparation for the event.

We didn't watch any Christmas films before Christmas Eve, and none of the specials were on TV before then either - now they seem to start at the beginning of December. Going out of your way to watch Christmas films wasn't really a thing then either - you just watched what was on the telly, and some of it was Christmas-themed, most of it wasn't.

Advent was a distinct time - the point was to wait - and you didn't start eating fancy stuff or chocolate etc. before Christmas Eve. The only exception would be a mince pie after the school carol service, at the PTA fundraiser.

I still do it this way, in fact my tree goes up even later these days, usually around the 20th. For us, Christmas is a time to feast and rest and enjoy old films while day drinking, but it doesn't start until the 24th. Two weeks of it is plenty, and I like the anticipation and preparation for it during Advent.

Yes, in the 80s when I was at primary school we did

• making the Christmas Cake and Pudding on 'Stir-Up Sunday', then feeding it on successive occasions. Making mince pies. Maybe also making gingerbread or shortcake.
• Writing a Christmas List/letter to Father Christmas after carefully circling the entire Argos catalogue.
• Doing crafts at home to make Christmas presents for relatives - I recall this being quite a big operation involving multiple sessions over the preceding weeks.
• Carol singing (attending a pre-Christmas church service, a school concert and probably singing at a nursing home with the Brownies too)
• Going to a Pantomime
• Meeting Father Christmas (usually at a party at school or via some kind of community group event rather than booking tickets to go to a garden centre - I think in most your own parent provided the present that FC then gave back to you).
• Card and decoration making in class, doing a nativity play in Infants School, practicing carols in assembly leading up to the end of term and doing an school advent calendar in assembly, decoration making competitions where you had to bring in a hanging decoration made from a coat hanger/crepe paper that you had made at home, a day where you were allowed to wear tinsel or a Santa hat etc to school (before Christmas jumpers were a commercial thing).
• School Christmas Fete where you could buy presents (profits for school funds) from other people's donated stuff.

Most towns and large villages had a big tree with a Christmas lights switch-on event which was intended to draw people to buy things in the local shops but also often had music or entertainments, food stalls etc alongside it.

People did decorate their houses - it was before LED lights and I don't recall a lot of big inflatables around, but fake snow spray and lights in windows were very popular, and you could definitely get long strings of coloured or white outdoor lights for the outside of a house. The fake icicle strings that go under eaves also came out when I still lived at home, I think.

There also seemed to be a lot of normal occasions which suddenly involved a mince pie and a cup of squash once it was December.

TV showed Christmas family films and festive episodes of normal children's programmes in the immediate lead up to Christmas (probably from the weekend before, covering the start of the school holidays) as well as actually during the festival (and the special Radio/TV Times would help you find it all).

There wasn't Elf on the Shelf, Christmas Eve boxes, quite as much themed decor (Christmas duvet covers etc) and there was definitely more Nativity themed stuff around. Chocolate advent calendars existed when I was in Infant School but everyone I knew only had a cardboard picture one with a Biblical scene or some kind of Victorians ice-skating / woodland animals in the snow theme.

Also cards were a big deal so it took time to handwrite and hand address a giant stack of cards - they were sold in packs of 12, 24 or 48 and it wasn't uncommon for adults to send 60-100 cards, plus children would send to everyone else in their class.

Shopping had to be done in person so you needed at least one full Saturday in late Nov/early Dec for everyone to go to a big town to go into all the different shops needed to buy all their presents, and people did start early to avoid the crowds/fit it all in/make sure things didn't sell out (because you were stuck with whatever availability was in the one local shop of that genre that you visited in person).

70s here and I remember doing quite a bit, albeit low key stuff.
At school we’d make the tissue paper and black card stained glass windows. We’d have a Christmas mailbox with daily handouts of cards. I remember a Christmas lunch with a cracker.
School had a Christmas fayre. So exciting to go out in the evening, walking along in the dark seeing your breath in the cold air.
I remember at Brownies we were given a gift catalogue we could order from - oh the excitement of choosing and waiting for your order to arrive in the run up.
We would go and watch the local theatre group do a Christmas play in the evening.
Making endless paper chains.
The sideboard groaning under the weight of the Christmas food treats! Peeling satsumas and cracking nuts (damn those Brazil nuts).
Presents were far fewer but eagerly anticipated.
Only Fools Christmas specials.

90s kid. We did nativity at school, posted Xmas cards to our friends in the Christmas postbox. Rotary club Santa, and possibly Santa in the local shopping centre. We went to Xmas party for DFs company that was ‘big night out’ where we would go shopping for clothes the weekend before (a visit to the big town) and then bought and put up our tree and house decorations around mid December, came down 12th night.
we put stuff out for Santa and Rudolph on Xmas eve but that’s as far as the traditions went. If I’d asked to see fancy houses with lights in the neighbourhood DF would have wondered why I wanted to waste petrol haha! Loved Christmas but it was definitely calm and small scale. Memories are amazing though. I have a toddler now so lots of thoughts of what we want Xmas to be, I’m keen to keep it focused on the day itself rather than a mad lead up.

This reminded me that a special day was when DM had finally written all the local cards and we’d go out for a walk usually on a Saturday morning all wrapped up and post cards all round the local streets.

We might go to see Santa but that was it. Parents put up our tree in mid-December. Some years we decorated small cakes. That was it

Whenever i hear people moan about “you can’t support a family on one income anymore” i think of the metric ton of crap people spend on nowadays, that our parents didn’t.

No but my mum went to town with decorations in a way I could never do! She had 3 real, 9 ft trees with a different theme. A whole nativity display. She used to make garlands for the stairs bannisters out of real foliage and velvet ribbon. She hand made wreaths.
I would not have the energy!
But i do take my kids to a lights trail and to a Santa's grotto and we go see a Christmas film at the cinema. I actually find going to activities lower effort then all the handmade stuff my mum did
Shed also do meals like the Christmas eve formal dinner, the Christmas day dinner, a boxing day dinner... it went on forever and we would all have to dress up and shed invite people. We would go to midnight mass on Christmas eve as well..
I don't do these things. I cook big Christmas dinner that's it

60s child here. Went to see Father Christmas at the Co-op as it was cheap and there was a fake sleigh ride to get there. Did a carol concert and carol singing. Advent calendar with glitter on and little pictures. Christmas tree and the living room absolutely festooned with paper chains. No christingle, elf, Christmas Eve boxes or any of the other crap. Decs up mid December to 6 January. One of our neighbours was fancy enough to have a holly wreath on her door but we weren’t.

I grew up in the 80s and remember things like my primary school Xmas fair, carol singing, visiting Father Christmas in the local department store, stirring the Xmas pudding with my brother and dad, a panto trip after Christmas and putting up the tree and (indoor!) decs usually the weekend before Christmas!

With my kids the only thing I have really added to this is an afternoon making gingerbread cookies and, when they were smaller, going to see Santa somewhere. We also have to get the Xmas tree earlier every year because otherwise they’re all sold out!

We don’t do any Xmas boxes, Elves on shelves, matching Xmas pjs etc. Never wanted to get sucked into any of that.

I love Christmas and have so many happy childhood memories of it 🎄

My parents were absolute nightmares when it came to Christmas and it always made me so sad. They both dislike Christmas so never made any attempt to make it fun for us.

Christmas tree went up on Christmas Eve and down on Boxing Day 😔
No Christmas movies etc other than on Christmas Day!
We never joined in big family Christmas things with grandparents/aunties/uncles etc - it was always just mum, dad, me and siblings as mum and dad didn’t like socialising.
I did school nativity and school Christmas party purely because they were during school hours but other than that I don’t remember being allowed to go to any other organised Christmas events.

We weren’t particularly well off - no holidays etc as a child but we could afford days out that mum and dad wanted to go on. Always upset me that they were so miserable when it came to Christmas.

So we do things differently in our house and I love seeing the joy on DCs face 🤷🏻‍♀️ We have 2 paid activities booked - one is a breakfast with Santa which we are attending with a couple of DCs friends and their families, and one is a local Christmas stage show which again we’re attending with DCs friends. Those are the 2 weekends before Christmas.
We’ll go to our local town tree lighting and carol singing next weekend which is free and a 20 min walk from our house.
DC loves a “middle of the night walk” as he calls it 😂 We get all ready for bed, teeth brushed etc then bundle on the coats and boots and walk round our local area in the dark for half an hour looking at the lights etc.
We have family movie night a couple of times a month usually but we do a few extras in Dec and I’ll buy a few Christmas themed snacks for those.
We write Santa letters, make cards, do Christmas crafts, bake biscuits for Santa.
DC asked for the tree to go up this weekend so it’s up 🤷🏻‍♀️
We usually buy one new tree bauble each year while we’re on a family trip.
We don’t do Christmas Eve boxes, elf on the shelf, matching PJs or anything but each to their own 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don’t see anything wrong with it to be honest!

The only Christmas thing we did as a family was the pantomime, everything else was in school or church. The amount of time and money spent on "making memories" is very wasteful, I've only got over listening to people complain how expensive Halloween and pumpkin patches was, now it's 1st December boxes. DM (early 70s) said the anticipation she had in the lead up to Christmas was amazing - her DM would have been knitting them new cardigans, they bought one new bauble for the tree every year and the joy of getting one present on Christmas Day was amazing. She said her favourite present ever was a set of 3 miniature soaps from Avon, she can still smell them 65 years later.

I'm always baffled by the 'Christmas activities' thing too, we never baked of made ginger bread villages or had hot chocolate stations or trawled through light displays or had make your own popcorn mix family movie night or kids hand making and painting gifts.

We did activities at school like card, cutting snowflakes, sticking cloves in oranges (why did we do this?), the nativity, non uniform day etc...

At home we spend a day decorating the house, we might have a few xmas films on through December but it wasn't like a sit down family movie tradition necessarily just they where on TV while mam was ironing etc... We did have a traveling Santa where I lived as a kid that drove around street to street saying hi to kids which was cool but it purely that that was a thing where we lived, never seen it anywhere else and not something we had any control of. Some years I think we might have gone to a panto/show but not an every year expectation it was a treat if it happened.

More traditions than activities but we did get new PJs and a book and bubble bath etc... on xmas eve (which is now called a xmas eve 'box' but they where just left at the foot of the bed, my mam had the same back in the 60s). Stockings weren't a big deal here either, a bag of nuts, orange and maybe a selection box.

There was never a set tradition of 'activity' stuff we had to do and certainly not pinterest style cooking and hand crafting etsy level stuff.