Magical Christmas Memories

My dad worked in a factory and every year there was a Christmas party for the workers' kids. As a shy child, I used to dread going, but the lure of a party tea and a present to take home overcame my fear. Just before going home, we used to queue up and receive an age/gender appropriate gift, which we would always open on the bus home. I think the year I was 9, I was bitterly disappointed to receive a sewing kit, but managed to swop it for a pair of roller skates given to a girl who already had some. From disappointment to elation in all of 5 minutes!

My Mum and Dad used to take us to Goldbergs in Glasgow,remember the excitement and anticipation going through the store and up in the lift and eventually arriving at Santas Grotto,truly magical.My Dad was a steelworker in Ravenscraig and Christmas trips were arranged every year.Remember piling into a double decker bus,being given a Christmas box full of goodies,and taken to see a pantomime in Glasgow,also remember going to see Francie and Josie,special,special memories which I wish I had thought to share with my parents before they died.

Dad belonged to a man's choir, and they had a party for the kids and families every Christmas. First we were shown black and white movies, Oliver and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, etc. None of us had telly at home. I used to get very upset about the chaps falling over and having all these terrible incidents and accidents. Then we had to queue up for Father Christmas, and stand in turn on a soap box and say our party piece to the audience. A song, or a poem or story, and then Father Christmas would talk to each of us in turn, ask if we'd been good, etc, and then give us our decorated paper bag with goodies, a ginger bread man, tangerine, peanuts, a few chocolates and a small present. One year, I was about 5- Father Christmas asked me if I had been good. Yes FC, I have. Are you sure, he asked. He hadn't asked ANY of the other children this, of course, just me. So I repeated that yes, I had been good. Are you sure, he said again- because a little bird told me you did 'xyz' the other day (can't remember what it was)- I nearly wet my pants there and then. And then he said, and also that you did 'abc' the week before. I ran away and the next year absolutely refused to go to the party, come what may. FC was of course, my dad- he didn't realise how he upset and worried me, and apologised profusely when I was a bit older!!!

Moving from magic to mortifying, DF was in the army so Christmas was a round of Christmas parties organised on the base. DS and I loathed them. Generally we didn't know any of the other children, we seemed always to be the only children of our age anywhere on base. My DS was very shy and a picky eater and would spend the evening clinging to me as if her life depended on it. Among her food dislikes were; ice cream, jelly, blancmange, fizzy drinks, Iced diamonds (nasty tiny biscuits with tooth-breaking icing on them) and Play Box biscuits, which rather limited her food intake at parties. I liked fizzy drinks and would eat jelly and ice cream but shared her dislike of the biscuits and blancmange.

Then for entertainment we got slapstick comedy films, as described by granjura, neither of us found them funny so we would sit at the back in a corner so we could talk to each other. Finally there was Santa Claus and the gift, which we did enjoy but we would both have forfeited the gifts to be able not to attend the parties in the first place.

That moment when you stretch out your legs and hear a "rustling" sound that means that the empty pillowcase that you left on the end of the bed has been filled!

My dad once bought a little house shaped box that was filled with indoor fireworks. So exciting - but lethal probably!

Magical Christmas memories December 1957, mum was pregnant with her 3rd baby, who arrived early in January 1958. Mum must have been tired and dad took over the bed time routine, so she could rest. We little girls would sit on his knee, by a roaring fire, and he'd read to us from A Christmas Carol. It was wonderful, to sit on the knee of this big man, who worked long hours, with the result mum did most of the hands on care of we children. He'd snuggle us close and read to us from what we now know, was his favourite book.

I have the book, with his name and address written in it, along with the year i was given to him by his parents for Christmas. Such happy memories, of feeling safe and loved with the excitement of a new baby due to arrive any time. Thanks to my parents for everything x

Midnight, Christmas 1962, we came out of the church on the hill above the town to find big, fluffy snowflakes falling on the nearby ancient palace and the loch behind it. A most romantic scene. If we'd known that it presaged a very long cold spell that lasted until spring and froze the loch all the way across, we might not have been so enamoured of this picture!

My father was an excise officer working at an oil refinery owned by Shell who used to treat all the children associated with the plant to a trip to an ice show in London at Christmas. My abiding memory is of the woman who chaperoned us alighting from the coach and her knickers fell down as she took us across the road - she calmly stepped out of them and put them in her pocket! I can't remember a thing about the ice show!