Christmas Dinners when you were young.

chicken for everyone but me,I didn't and still dont eat anything that had feathers,I usually had ham ,although there was christmas pudding the trife was the star of the day and the christmas pudding was often sliced and fried with bacon for breakfast on boxing day .I remember my Dad working on Christmas day too.New Year was the important one in Glasgow ,with family and anyone who showed up at the door all sitting down to three course meal at midnight...traditional steak pie every year ,fruit wine for the kids and sherry for mum,dad liked a dram and granny liked a nice claret

Always a chicken at Christmas, a special once a year treat, as very expensive. Beef was cheaper in the 50's. One satsuma and a couple of nuts in a stocking and one small present. Lucky baby boomers, living it up....forgive me but getting a bit fed up with constant griping about our supposed gilded lives.

Always a capon. We alternated Christmas Day tea with friends. We all sat around the table so there was the selection of chairs brought from home and borrowed from neighbours. I remember my dad and uncle crossing the road carrying 2 chairs under each arm and a roll up smoldering between each of their lips. They never dropped a chair and more importantly they never dropped their fags.

We didn't have relatives visiting at Christmas as they lived a couple of hundred miles away, except one year when my aunt, uncle and cousin visited from Scotland.
We had chicken which was a luxury in the 50s (beef was cheaper) and turkey when I was older. We had nuts, satsumas, dates, chocolates and Mum always made Xmas cake and pudding (which I later did for years, but stopped now). My parents had Harveys Bristol cream sherry to drink and we were allowed a sip when older.
With a Scottish father, we always celebrated New Year and had friends round.

We always went to my grandparents for Christmas dinner (sometimes we stayed overnight on Christmas Eve and Santa always found us!) Dinner was always Turkey and as a special treat we has frozen peas instead of tinned. Granddad used to buy really good crackers, and there was always a box of Newberry Fruits and Granddad would smoke a cigar.

A large chicken, bred in Brecon, was our dinner. We shared with my mother's family, who lived next door but one. Prior to dinner, the neighbours would get together for a drink and a few cigars. With everyone a couple of sheets to the wind, I've no idea how the meal made it to the table at all.

On one occasion, my grandfather had to be helped to bed, and my uncle threw up in the grate.

Yes the fruit bowl and nuts at Christmas and no other time. Were they rationed? I guess so.

I really don't have a memory of Christmas dinners but remember finding sixpence in my Christmas pudding which was always with my Mums white sauce. The thing that stands out for me was going to the off licence with my Dad and buying bottles of R.Whites lemonade and a bottle of Tizer for us kids,a bottle each of Port and Sherry, Babycham for my grown up sisters my Dad only drank a glass of Shandy and this was the only time we had any drinks in the house.

We used to go to my nan and grandads in Birmingham, they kept chickens so that's what we had and vegetables from the garden, they didn't have much themselves, but they shared it with us, a family of eight. I also remember the air raid shelter, the outside toilet and the China po under the bed, but that's another story!

No rellies, chicken for dinner, chocolates, nuts, satsumas, dates - what great treats - don't think our grandchildren could ever understand how exciting it was to enjoy food that you would never have at any other time of the year....

We never had any relatives and there was always a chicken. I remember that our neighbours had a turkey and it was considered to be very upper class. Only rich people had turkey! I can't remember having Christmas pudding. Probably we did but it hasn't stuck in my memory.

Most often a piece of pork, a very rare treat was chicken which came in a tall tin. I never saw fresh chicken in the late forties/ early fifties. If neighbour had been out shooting we would be given a rabbit.

We always had relatives over for Christmas. Both Grandmothers and others like spinster aunts, sometimes other families with children. Sometimes Dad would have to be at work so the time of the meal was dependant on the shift worked. Sometimes we went to the Panto.
I think I had much better Christmases then than all this competitive stuff about who has bought the most presents, who got the most, who is invited where. Now it just seems to be a cause of argument
SPF

We had no visitors at Christmas as relatives lived a long way away. But they used to send down a large Melton Mowbray pork pie each year and we would have a slice for breakfast! I have no idea why and always thought it very odd.
We would always have a capon, never turkey. On the sideboard were satsumas, crystallised stem ginger, Turkish delight, Newberry Fruits, sugared almonds figs, dates, and many different nuts.

Most years we spent on our own although I remember one year going to my grandmother and staying a couple of days. None of our relatives had a car and I think there was not so much public transport on Christmas Day. We usually had a chicken as my dad killed one of ours.

We always shared Christmas with other family, alternating homes which were some miles apart and so Christmas included some hairy journeys in old cars held together by wire (literally!). Dinner was always turkey, very traditional. anyone else then get offered bread with turkey dripping for supper?

Yes Church and capon.

Nobody visited us on Christmas Day, apart from anything else, there was usually snow,and no relatives had a car.We went to church in the morning and then came back and cooked our Christmas dinner, usually a chicken, one memorable year it was a goose, and we all hated it.