Christmas Dinners when you were young.

I have wracked my brains but cannot remember Christmas lunch as a child , my Dad was a drinker and Mum very unhappily married so I wonder if this is the reason ? My Gran was my saviour and lived just round the corner so we probably went there . We were very poor due to my Dads drinking and often went to Grans to borrow food because she had a job in a food packing factory so was never short ! . I do remember the bowl of nuts on Grans side board with the nutcrackers which were only there at Christmas . We are very well off these days in comparison from reading all the posts .

It was up early opening presents in bedroom, breakfast, sweet eating have dinner before Queens Speech on TV, and then whatever was on TV.
Mick

We never had company for Christmas lunch - just usually my mother and father and my adult older brother, if he wasn't eating elsewhere. Mostly it was turkey. It would be bought and hang in the cellar, fully feathered with its innards intact until my mother prepared it on Christmas Eve. And it was always a huge one - goodness knows why. My mother would be reincarnating it in various guises for the rest of the week! It was the only time we ever used the table in the "front room". We never had crackers. It was like a glorified version of Sunday lunch really. We always had fruit and nuts. My father would buy the fruit. He was fussy about apples - always Cox's and he would always say "you have to rattle them - if you don't hear the pips rattle they aren't ripe." The greengrocer must have groaned inwardly when my father approached to rattle his apples!

Always chicken for Christmas lunch, but that was very special as it was the only one we had all year. My mother made parsley and thyme stuffing and I can still remember the Christmassy smell of it cooking.
My aunt, uncle and cousins came over for tea. I was laughing with my cousin a while ago about the box of dates that was always on the sideboard. Nobody eat them and they were removed around March but there was still another one the following year.
There was a bottle of apricot or cherry wine for the adults as well. Wine wasn't an everyday thing to buy like it is for a lot of people now.

Always chicken in the early years, Christmas pudding with silver threepenny bits inside which my brother and I always managed to get! I think my parents had sherry. Later we had babysham. I remember the tangerines, nuts of different kinds, with silver nutcrackers, and a box of dates. There was also a bowl of sweets. Decorations came out every year, paper chains and the ones you pull out. I wanted them to stretch into the middle to the light fitting, but mum said that would look like a pub. Don't know how she knew as she never went to pubs as far as I know. We cut the cake at teatime and I still have the little robin that sat on the top. Happy days, probably because of rationing and it was the only time we had these things.

We hardly ever had chicken - too expensive - but did always have a turkey at Christmas. And always nuts, dates and tangerines, as we called them then.
Just about every scrap of the turkey was used up - finally in a big stew. It was my father's job to strip the carcass, which was then boiled up for stock for the stew. My mother was too squeamish, and was never mad keen on turkey anyway.
My father always wanted bread sauce, which hardly anyone else ever ate. I have never bothered with it.

I still make stock from the carcass, and a big stew - any leftover veg, gravy, sage leaves, etc. all go in and it's always popular.

Christmas pudding always had sixpences in it, or rather some old silver threepeny bits my mother had kept. I still don't know what happened to those! I used to,love the ritual of stirring the pudding and making a wish - still always did that when dds were at home. Still make my own puds.

I have similar memories, we had a chicken which was quite rare in those days and therefore a luxury, also mashed potato, turnip and carrot and peas, no Yorkshire puds, no roasties or sausages, just a basic dinner perhaps a bit more than a sunday roast. We had the usual Christmas pud, always a bought one and for tea it was chicken sandwiches and trifle with a piece of Christmas cake. All very basic compared to nowadays. We had a fruit bowl with oranges and red apples and a bowl of nuts with the nutcracker and a box of chocolates. For the following days we had figs, and dates as an extra treat.

We lived in Singapore when I was a child but we still had proper Christmas dinner with turkey, all the trimmings and Christmas pudding afterwards. Despite the midday heat!
I still buy Newberry Fruits, they were my grandmother's favourites. I wish you could still get Weekend chocolates, I was always given a box in my stocking. Black Magic was only for grownups

We started our married life in Singapore, Lynnieg. Everyone cooked and ate Christmas dinner then too! Santa came in a helicopter wearing red shorts with his outfit and sunglasses!

We always had those orange and lemon slices jellied sweets as well as dates and nuts that you needed to take a sledgehammer to.

We lived in the Middle East for several years when dds were little - it would be 80 deg ish but we still had the trad dinner with turkey.

One memorable year, Father Christmas came to the English-speaking school on a camel! Apparently it was a ceremonial one, kindly lent by the Royal Oman Police.
He told the kids he'd had to leave his reindeer at the airport because they didn't like the sand!

Because the temp was so nice at that time of year (unlike ghastly summers!) so many grandparents would visit for Christmas - it was lovely. We had both lots twice, IIRC.
My poor MIL had been cooking Christmas dinner for hordes in a tiny kitchen for something like 40 years - she absolutely jumped at the chance of coming to us.
FiL grumped that they couldn't possibly leave the house in December, what if the pipes froze? Etc.
My dear MIL said, well, you can do what you like - I'm going!
Glad to say he came anyway, and did really enjoy himself.

Just been reading a similar thread on MN. They are remembering being given a halved hard boiled egg with a dollop of mayonnaise on top as a starter. Egg mayonnaise and prawn cocktail were the height of sophistication!

We didn't have starters at all! We'd never heard of them in the 50s I don't think.

(apart from soup)

All I really remember is that my Scottish grandparents always came to us and they were strict teetotallers so lemonade was served throughout the meal. My father kept a bottle of something stronger in the kitchen and was forever jumping up to go through and "help" my mother, then he would pop a pan drop in his mouth before returning to the table!
We usually had a capon, but one year Mum was given a HUGE turkey which they had to forcibly push into the oven (think Japanese train commuters) and hope for the best.

We had sweet sherry, brandy and beer in the house but didn't have wine with a meal.
When I was about 18 I decided we ought to drink wine with the Christmas dinner so I went and bought a bottle of Barsac which I didn't realise was a sweet wine.
DP were very polite and drank it but I don't think anyone liked it very much. In fact DM probably liked it better than she would have a medium or dry wine!

The one memorable Xmas dinner occurred in the late 50's/early 60's. The family had gathered at my grandmother's house and every single adult came down with 'flu. My poor mother staggered across the road to the Co-op and bought 10 Birds Eye chicken TV dinners for those that could face food. I used to like those little trays with everything in its own compartment-must have appealed to my sense of order!

Always chicken for dinner, Xmas pudding with a silver three penny bit concealed - oh the joy of finding that! My biggest memory is that as soon as we finished eating my grandmother would announce "0h well, that's Christmas over for another year".

We had turkey on Christmas Day but Mum always cooked a joint of beef on Christmas Eve and when it came out of the oven we would have a hot beef sandwich on white bread with oodles of butter .......
I'm taken back everytime I smell beef cooking.