The simple things you remember most about Christmas

[crochetmonkey74]

I'm not one to judge - each to their own - but the juggernaut of Christmas 'extras' now seems mad and got me to thinking about my memories of Christmas- none of which were present based.
Things I remember most are : starting to see tangerines in the grocer, all stacked up next to the shelled nuts and with those boxes of dates. The grocers looked all lit up on the walk home from school- and it would make me feel really Christmassy.
My other big one is the feeling of a heavy stocking on the bottom of the bed- it was always filled with tiny things that I can't remember- but always a chocolate Father Christmas sticking out of the top!
We had a set of Christmas tapes from Readers Digest (just found a set on Amazon for way too much but bought it anyway)
also, we used to listen to the St Winifreds School Choir 'Christmas For Everyone' record and light our very cheap cinnamon smelling candle - even now any cheap christmas candle (the ones that smell of burnt plastic cinnamon) makes me feel all Christmassy

What are your simple festive memories?

These lights are one of my lasting memories of Christmas - we had the same ones for years. And the Quality Street tin which seemed huge. Fond memories of being together and cosy in front of the Christmas film. It is that importance of being together that I am trying to duplicate with my kids.

@ScreamingValenta my youngest already has a card waiting to go up, from one of her classmates. I got a stern telling off and the look when I suggested it be put on the mantlepiece, because it's far toooooo early!

This thread has brought back so many memories

I remember mum coming down on Christmas morning with one or two more presents hastily wrapped.
Bowls of tangerines and nuts in shells.
Alcoholic drinks out on the sideboard and not in the cupboard where they spent all year.
Mum having her first cinzano and lemonade. Us kids having a Babysham or Snowball on a tiny glass bottle. Im sure we also had a cherry wine or something which was in the same size bottle.
Boxes of Matchsticks.
Tins of Quality Streets or Roses.
Advent calenders with pictures behind the window and glitter for snow.
Toffee in a block with a hammer to break it into tiny pieces.
Decorations hung across the ceiling and from the ceiling and metallic strands hung off the tree.
Visiting family to deliver presents and family coming to us to do the same.
Happy happy times and I hope my kids have some happy memories from their childhood christmasses

My best memories are the ones I have with my own kids.

Great thread
I remember my mum buying a tin of quality street and hiding it until christmas eve when she would open it whilst we watched a christmas film
My dear gp's bungalow decorated in the fantastic 80's decorations and my nanna's wonderful christmas tea where all the family would get together and eat,drink and be merry

Making paper chains and decorations at school and on the last day taking in games to play in class
Going to the christingle church service and lighting a candle
At the hospital where my mum worked they had a christmas party for the staffs dc's every year and there was a visit from santa .we would get dressed up in our new party clothes and we would be so excited
Watching the christmas top of the pops
Being allowed to have a snowball or a glass of my nanna's homemade Irish Cream or a babycham
Finding money in the christmas pudding
Helping my mum decorate the tree (she still decorates her tree with some of the decorations from then now and my dd helps her just like i used to)

The huge excitement of Christmas Eve - Father Christmas coming tonight! Waking in the very early morning to feel the bulging stocking at the end of the bed...
Tangerines, as we called them then - only really had them at Christmas and the smell of satsumas is still Christmassy to me. Always had one in the foot of the stocking, a bag of chocolate coins and a pink sugar mouse - what happened to those?

Nuts in shells - and never being able to crack the Brazil nuts.
My mother mixing up the Christmas puds and all of us making a wish as we had a stir. I still make my own and love the smell when mixing up - orange and lemon zest and good old ale!

Carol service on the last day of school term - I still love proper carols.
And we always sang O Come O Come Emmanuel in school assembly at the beginning of Advent - always exciting since it was the beginning of Christmas. I still love that one, too.

Mine is the smell of burnt toast when we woke at my grandparents house Christmas morning.
My grandmas mince pies and trifle. The carol service which my sister and I would often have a speech to read to the chapel or a part in the nativity.
We still go to the carol service now with my Grandad but my Grandma died a couple of years ago and its not quite the same.

Foil garlands and a fake tree
Blue Tinsel
Being shushed during the queens speech
Chocolate coins, nuts, clementines and a toy car in stocking
Always some extra random kids from extended family

Lametta.

The ridiculous excitement throughout December that would build and build until you thought you couldn't stand it and would burst!

School plays and the church nativity play and always being the narrator. Singing 'It Was On A Starry Night' at the church nativity play every year.
Spotting Christmas trees going up day by day on our walk home from school. Trees up before the second week in December were so rare!
Putting up our tree the weekend after we broke up from school; my dad getting in a strop over the lights; my sister and I bickering over where to hang our favourite decorations. Those multicoloured 'Cinderella' and 'Lantern' lights (the pic of the Cinderella ones upthread took me right back).
Helping my grandparents decorate their tree with really old decorations dating right back to their childhoods and baking mince pies, the Christmas puddings etc. with my Gran.
Carols from Kings on the radio.
Dashing downstairs on Christmas morning and reporting back to our parents that 'He's been!' then opening presents before breakfast and my mum getting stressy that she needed to get on with cooking lunch.
Looking out of the window to see who else on our street was up as early as us.
The crisp, cold weather and light at dusk.
The book Lucy and Tom's Christmas. I bought it for DS when it came back into print and it makes me well up when I read it to him.
Recording films off the telly onto VHS and therefore having the ads from the ad breaks burned into your memory forevermore.
The excitement of relatives coming to stay or going to stay with them.
Throwing Quality Street wrappers into my nan and grandad's fire.
Competition with my sister over who was going to get to open the Advent calendar door on Christmas Eve.
Always seeming to get a tartan dress with white collar or similar from M and S as a present - new dress to wear on Christmas Day.

putting up the foil decorations into the foam stickleback ceiling tiles with thumb tacks which would fall down and have to search for

posting cards in school for friends and getting deliveries in the postbox and thinking really cool, all cards on the last day were put into carrier bags for each child ready for us to take home so no 1 child saw if another got more or less cards than they did

eating factory loads of sweets, chocolate and loads of mineral and crisps

Day trip to Dublin - 8th December as was usually off school as it was a holy day of obligation and to allow us to go to mass (Another thread). This day was also known in Dublin as the day all the culchies came up to do their xmas shopping.

new outfit for midnight mass on xmas eve, probably bought on the day trip to Dublin.

Did any of you have the cobwebby 'frost' for your tree, probably made from cotton wool sort of shredded ?

And possibly a fire hazard next to the tree lights.

Oh how my dad got annoyed when the lights didn't work. We had more clear (replaced) bulbs than coloured ones 😃

Me and my sister used to pretend we were Lady Di switching on the Christmas lights, by flicking the tree lights on! As they were wired up to a lamp it was probably quite dangerous

@Notreallyawaitress

I LOVE this thread!!

We didn't have a fireplace, but my mum once bought this Father Christmas poster which went up every year, I'd tuck my Christmas letter behind it :) (still never got me frosty but that's been done to death on many a thread...)

Auntie bringing the winter edition of the Freemans catalogue found and I'd go through every inch of the toy pages.

That lovely feeling going into the shops after school in December, and when you come outside it's dark and all the Christmas lights are on

The feeling of snuggling down when you come in on Christmas Eve. (Sadly not the same these days as the shops are open late and they'll be open again on Boxing Day)

Watching 9 lessons and carols on BBC2

Multi coloured Christmas lights (Pifco sets from Woollies!) and lametta (the strips of silver you threw on the tree

Special Christmas snacks - tubs of twiglets, cheese footballs, the little cheese biscuits. After Eights and Matchmakers (when they were the short ones in the long box). Liqueur chocolates, Newbury Fruits, sugared orange and lemon slices, Elizabeth Shaw mint crisps. Dates and nuts.

I keep remembering more and coming back

Preparing the veg on Christmas eve with my DM. I do this now with my dc's.

Reading the Dark is Rising as a young teenager and pretty much every December since.

Morecambe and Wise

Laying my presents out in order of size and opening smallest to largest

We had ancient decorations that came out of a crumpled carrier bag every year and got put on the tree with great ceremony. They were horrid but we loved them.

I used to get a stocking with a tube of Smarties, a tangerine, some nuts and a few shiny 1 and 2p pieces in it. I LOVED it.

All the stuff like advent calenders with just a picture (I used to get SO excited about the prospect of opening a window to see what the picture was –simpler times!), toffee in a block with a hammer, Matchsticks, boxes of dates etc.

my grandmother made christmas puddings for all her kids family, she had 7 kids, and every grandchild gave the pudding a stir and made a christmas wish.
We spent the weekends running up to christmas making the pickled onions, the mincemeat and cakes.

my memories of the christmas I got my first tiny tears dolls are quite clear, and my grandad made a dolls cot for me. I remember feeling so happy.

@RhiannonOHara Oh, yes - newly minted coins! My grandfather had false teeth and my sister and I used to get a Steradent tube each full of new coins every Christmas. We were always excited to get them - when I look back now it's moving to think of my grandparents putting any brand new coins aside specially for us over the months.

That's so sweet, Valenta! Yes, it is very touching to realise as an adult the thoughtfulness of parents/grandparents about these things.

Have cried every time I look in at this thread. Wonderful memories here.

The big tin of Quality Street.
DM and Nana making advokat and cherry brandy in advance.
A giant football sock for a stocking, with the apple and orange always at the bottom, and the chocolate coins in a wee string bag.
Waking up to that magical pile of presents for each kid, nothing wrapped. Always a nightie and slippers (always wanted the pink ones but it was yellow or pale green every darned year)
Playing outside in the snow with whatever we got, showing off to all of our pals.
Works holiday parties - my dad was always Santa, and the fun we had helping him glue his eyebrows and beard on! Even though we knew it was him, we were still enthralled.

The Christmas eve my DF and I trudged through the snow after midnight to drop off giant sacks of presents to DSis's children since all the roads were closed. Just the two of, in the midnight quiet. It was beautiful and that memory makes me miss him so very much.

The smell of tangerines.
Chocolate coins.
I adored the children's church service on Christmas Eve - we took a gift but I don't know who for.
You knew it was all over when the Quality Street was down to the toffee pennies.

What a wonderful memory of your DF to hold, SoFarSoGood.

@whatkatydidnext1 Yes! We have a bay window and I was so excited the first year, I put my tree up on 1st December - at least two weeks earlier than normal. I just couldn't wait another day.