Seventies Christmas

[Doone22]

I'm so into doing a seventies Christmas this year. Cheese and pineapple hedgehog obviously, prawn cocktails, advocaat. What would be on your seventies Christmas menu?

Morrisons have babycham and cherry B

Im talking about the variety. We had 'this stuff' but not all in one year.

Christmas is when the boat got pushed out regards food.i don't remember our cupboards being full of biscuits, crisps etc during the year.

Tins of Oake Ham. With jelly round it. In those tins where you peeled the lid off with a key.

That smell as it was opened use to turn my stomach 😄

🤮🤮🤮🤮

You need some Jacob's Cheese Footballs (still available) OP, and to make the house absolutely freezing cold but smelling of the real tree. Dial back presents significantly but have a pile for each child under the tree and a stocking on their feet when they wake up.

In my family, it would involve helping shred herbs for a Victorian stuffing recipe passed down generations, but that is optional. The smell of the turkey cooking overnight with a thyme stuffing is still Christmas for me.

Yes to cheese footballs - I currently have my stash, not sure they’ll last till Xmas.

I use to love the smell of the house on Xmas eve night as DM would be pottering out in the kitchen drinking her Bristol Cream and basting the turkey.

Black forest gateau
Sugared almonds ,
Matchmakers
Dates with a little fork
Snowballs
Advocaat
Tree Top Orange squash (only had squash at Christmas)
Nuts in their shells.

The smell. I’d forgotten about that😷

We used to have sponge finger things too. Like trifle sponges.

I love that episode. The robin on the yule log 😁

We are! At least the tree will be - I've been planning on doing it for months. Just a well we still have a few old decorations as the vintage glass baubles on Ebay and elsewhere change hands for silly money.

Don't forget some particularly 70s coffee. Camp coffee in a bottle would do nicely to go with the Quality Street in a tin. I bought one of the tins last year for the nostalgia value. 🎄

We always had capon at home as well in 60s right up to 80s. Much tastier than turkey and chicken

Oh, and no shop bought stockings - use a man's sock and put an apple, a satsuma, £1 (inflation), a very small toy and some sweets in there. Nothing more.

No chocolate advent calendars, only ones with a little picture behind the doors - and the pictures have to be traditional scenes like a robin in the snow.

I remember the disappointment of getting a grey bell🫤

DM always got turkey, from the 1950's until her death in 2009.
The biggest available, we were eating in mid-Jan, so I absolutely hate turkey

I remember a bottle of camp coffee that sat in a cupboard for years all sticky icky and used sparingly.
God knows why.

Character building - never underestimate the value of a disappointing advent door

Was tree top squash the one with the big plastic lid? Almost like a little tumbler?

Frozen concentrated orange juice.
gammon with parsley sauce
cream over the back of a teaspoon onto the top of a thimble of tia maria
overcooked grey chicken liver pate
brandy sauce (never experienced brandy butter until I met DH).
traybake mince pies rather than individual ones.
carol singing around the village. Best night was when you toured the outlying farms in convoy, such a generosity of deliciousness.
croft original
mini sausages but not pigs in blankets.
avocado vinaigrette
a game dish courtesy of a deal worked out at the pub. Varied according to what had been shot.
i’m sure there were more, but this has been a good trip down memory lane.

Chocolate oranges with the lemon flavoured dark chocolate stalk in the middle.

Where’s that gone eh? And when did it go?

We had turkey but tried a capon once. They were definitely around.

Lidded gift box of 100 fags on the coffee table
Eat Me dates. No one ever ate them.
No batteries for the new toys that needed them because the shops were shut for two weeks
Extra bread and milk on the window sill outside as the fridge was tiny
A dolls pram in the living room with Teeny Tiny Tears in it
A Sindy with a small wardrobe full of clothes
A poodle zippered nightdress case
Celery sticks standing in a jug on the table

All this has made me long for my childhood Christmases in the 60s/70s.

What did Housman say?

'The happy highways where I went,
But cannot come again'.

I can try though, with enough cheese footballs @Catonafreezingfridge