Christmasses past.

sadly Hogmanay isn't what it was with a lot of folk closing curtains and ignoring the first foot
Christmas was our bigger celebration but everyone stayed up on New Year's Eve - and a dark-haired man had to be the first one into the house, carrying some money, a piece of bread and a lump of coal to ensure food and warmth for the coming year.

My friend told me about the steak pies eaten in Scotland at Hogmanay - she said to soak up the alcohol!
What a pity people are ignoring it these days.

What, the alchohol or the pies?

What a lovely thread- it brings back so many happy memories to me. I too has one of Dad's socks full of the same sort of things others have mentioned. I could never understand why my sister had to have a different coloured sock from me- when I was MUCH older I realised that Mum and Dad filled the other sock of each pair elsewhere and just did a quick swap with the one on the bottom of our bed. My best memories of New Year's Eve was of the church socials we went to, where everyone would join with silly party games. I shall never forget the sight of my Sunday School teacher waddling along with a balloon between her knees and her knicker legs showing!

I remember going to my aunts, all packed into her house, girls in one room boys in the other god knows where the adults slept. it was also the only time we went to midnight mass as a family. O n the day itself we had the adults and children's tables, I remember being a bit miffed when I was about 12 as I had to sit at the children's table because I was nearly a grown up whilst the rest were still kids

Why can't Christmas be like it was back then? Simple & uncomplicated

I was thinking about my christmases as a child - no television, family around on Boxing Day to play cards and games etc and also got to thinking about end of term parties at school.
Everyone took in food. Partitions to the classrooms opened and big sheets of white paper on the desks. Squash to drink. We all wore our party frocks. I used to love the tiny iced gems that some people brought as well as the hard iced biscuits - something we never had at home and now I’m older can appreciate why! Then there were games and general frivolity with tiny presents wrapped in crepe paper given to each child. Happy times.

Like Annsixty, I was an only child, born before WW2 so, like her, we had very quiet Christmases. When I was 16 I shocked my mother by wanting to go to a party on Boxing Day! I was allowed to go - reluctantly.
Last year we had a wonderful Christmas at my eldest daughter’s farm - all my four children and their families and a few extended family members too.
This year because of work commitments we cannot all get together, but my youngest daughter and her husband who live an hour away are “bringing Christmas to us” so we shall see two of our grandchildren open their sacks! No cooking for me either so bliss!

As Paddyann has said, Christmas in Scotland played second fiddle to Hogmanay in my childhood. In the 1940s shops were open on Christmas morning; my Dad went off to work in the factory bus, just as he would on any ordinary day. However, the bus brought them all back at noon, in time for Christmas dinner.
I had an English granny, so perhaps my family made a bit more of a celebration than some other families. We had my Dad's old rugby socks to hang on the end of the bed on Christmas eve. Until the war ended, many gifts were home-made, such as dolls’ clothes, knitted or sewn by my Mum. But the Christmas that stands out for me was the morning I woke up to find a beautiful black doll sitting on the end of my bed. I had written to Santa asking for this and he had heard me! And he must have asked my Mum to make a pretty dress for the doll. I had a dress made from exactly the same pink spotted cotton!
For our Christmas dinner in the 1940s and 50s, we didn’t have turkey. I don’t think they existed in Scotland. We would dine on a big steak pie, made by our mum who was good with pastry. The Christmas pudding would have silver 3d bits, wrapped in greaseproof paper which, mercifully, nobody ever swallowed and they were saved for the next time. Mum put sherry in the custard which made my granny very talkative. Round at granny’s house in the afternoon, with aunties, uncles and cousins, there were mince pies, Christmas cake and ginger wine, supposedly non-alcoholic, until my uncles fed it with a bottle of brandy. Carols were sung enthusiastically if not tunefully, to granny’s accompaniment on her old honkey-tonk piano.

Thank you Luckygirl - just lovely!

I always remember one particular christmas, 1961. My sister got a doll and I got a dolls pram. We had to share, but we were delighted with our presents. We didn't give it a second thought or felt hard done by. It was the way it was back then.

Luckygirl - I love your poem. It paints such a vivid picture. Thank you.
It seemed to be important to us that Christmas was always the same. We children knew it was going to be when the bottles of alcohol started to be set up on the big dresser in the hall, and the tins of sweet goodies were hoarded. Does anyone remember Tunis cake? It was a round Madeira cake with a thick layer of chocolate on the top and marzipan fruit as decorations.
Always the same decorations round the house and on the tree too. It didn't matter how bent and faded they were.
I remember waking up ( I must have been 7 or 8 ) and catching my Dad putting my Christmas pillow case on the end of my bed and the expression on his face. I think I just went back to sleep. Santa was unmasked and suddenly it all made sense.

I remember a drunken dad, who after dinner battered my mum and I. Then neighbours would call the police. It was the seventies, so police did nothing. Then later on I would be abused for the thousandth time. I still hate Christmas.

That is lovely and so evocative, Luckygirl. As a prewar baby, my Christmases were low key. Our stockings were white cotton ones from Mum's pre marriage days. They contained an apple and tangerine, a few shiny pennies, walnuts, wax crayons, a magic colouring book ( the kind you painted with water and hardly any colour developed!) a dress-the-dolly book, and a Mary Mouse book if we were lucky. The "main" present was usually something useful and boring--I well remember the dreadful year when it was a maroon canvas holdall. Mum used to try and ice the Christmas cake every year. She would shut herself up in the kitchen and after a while we would hear some swearing and cursing and it always ended up rough iced with a large Father Christmas ornament, a tiny fir tree and a robin the same size as Santa Claus. The tree lights were so old that the electric plug was 2 pin and made of wood. We made paper chains from strips of paper stuck together with flour and water paste. The big treat after the war was when Dad bought a bottle of ginger cordial and hired a soda syphon.

Christmas Eve 1965, I am twelve years old. My main present, one I had longed for, was a Parker fountain pen. It was supposed to be a surprise, but my sister had seen it and told me. It was probably the cheapest one, but I was thrilled and very excited. It was wrapped up and mum put it on the windowsill behind the small artificial Christmas tree. We were all in a state of agitation because mum always left it until the last minute before going off to the market to haggle for whatever bird was left at the end of the day and we never knew if this was the year there would literally be nothing left. My stepfather got drunk, as he usually did on that day and came home just as mum was leaving. He was in a vile temper (also usual when he was drunk) and seeing the wrapped pen he grabbed it and threw it in the coal fire - because he had a rule that nothing should be put on the windowsill. My mum made a grab for it, but it was too far back and I stood there and watched it burn. I didn't cry or say a word - it was never replaced. Mum went to the market and we four children sat silently on the settee, not allowed to talk (for two hours) until she came home with a small capon. We went to bed (double bed, two girls at the top and two boys at the foot, top to tail) and awoke with a pillow case each on the floor at the end of the bed. Mine had an annual (from my nana), two padded coathangers (from aunty), a selection box, a few nuts and a tangerine. My siblings had similar, but also a (small) main gift. Christmas day was always fraught; stepdad went to the pub, mum cooked and then joined him for the last half hour, then they came home (he was very drunk) and mum served the meal. Children ate in the kitchen, mum and stepdad in the front room.
I remember that Christmas with absolute clarity, but it wasn't the worst.
In comparison my children have had fairy tale Christmasses, but mainly because they were surrounded by loving family.

I remember the excitement and anticipation of the days before Christmas. We lived at my Grandparents' in those days. The front room was in use over the holiday period. It started with me being called in to the room which was in darkness except for the glow from the fire in the grate and the lights of the tree in the corner. Magical days!

I don't remember there ever being visitors. It was just mum, dad, my brother and I. Our grandparents all lived in the same town and we had gifts from them but they didn't visit, unless I just don't remember. We had nothing from aunts and uncles. There was always one big present down stairs and a sack at the end of the bed with colouring books, comic annuals, selection box etc. I realise now this was so we didn't wake mum and dad too early.
We always had turkey. Mum and dad had pud and we would have trifle made with Birds packet ingredients. The afternoon was spent playing board games and then turkey sarnies and watching TV. We were allowed to stay up later than usual.

We had Dad's socks with a clementine in the toe and a few small presents, then one bigger present opened later. We had a lot of single Aunts who all arrived and had lunch together around 1 o'clock followed by the washing up and Dad smoking a cigar, smoke everywhere. A few games were played and that was Christmas done, nothing like what goes on now but we were happy.

I was born in 1954 and my parents were very indulgent to us, having been through the Depression and the War themselves.

I think we must have been spoilt. Both my parents loved a tipple and always invited the neighbours in so on Christmas morning there were up to 20 people in our lounge. It got very raucous and some people had to be carried home.

They would arrive at about 11 am, some went to church and came along later. (By then we had opened our presents and had breakfast and got dressed in party dresses. )

When we were younger we would play in a corner with our new toys, or pull crackers with the other guests and their children and generally had a party.

Do you remember those gaudy crepe or tissue paper garlands we used to hang across the ceiling at Christmas? It seems so un-Christmassy now, looking back at the pictures.

I loved my childhood Christmases in the fifties. I woke to a stocking on the bed, which was one of dad's socks. I then got up to find my big toy, a dolls pram, scooter,or something similar. I would also get some games, an annual and a jigsaw. We always had a turkey with all the trimmings, cooked by mum. Dad would do the dishes. The only time in the year he did this!

I think I had happy Christmasses when I was a child. I certainly remember waking and finding a large sock stuffed full with little treats - a tangerine, a small chocolate bar, a couple of walnuts, a small toy and a lump of coal - and always being excited at getting the current year’s Bunty, Beano, Judy or Rupert annual. But the one that sticks in my mind was the one when my father invited his mistress to spend Christmas Day with us. My poor mother was expected to feed, entertain and generally be nice to this simpering, unfortunate female. You could have cut the atmosphere in the house with a knife.

Although now having my own family and the pleasure they have had with Christmases I can look back with longing and nostalgia to my own childhood Christmases
when Christmas commenced on Christmas eve not like now the beginning of November.
Mum would be making her traditional pork pie with the war time rations we were allowed and even saved enough to obtain a large shoulder of ham. Sausage rolls, mince pies, icing the cake, making a massive trifle,we had synthetic cream as fresh cream was not available.Custard made with powdered milk.Resurrecting the large white tablecloth only used for christmas day dinner. My father allowing me a small glass of ginger wine and mum letting me open a packet of chocolate biscuits instead of waiting for chrismas day.For me those Christmases will always be the best.

Gosh some traumatic stories as well as some wonderful memories. Yes Greyduster the perfume was AquaManda Luckygirl your words are lovely. Some of the traditions I had as a child have carried over to my own children - we didn't have a fire to light but my husband always went downstairs first to switch the gas one on and shouted up he's been! It was tradition for him to take the boys out on Christmas Eve day to get the fruit and veg while I put out the bowls of nuts and chocolates and when they were a bit older I would bring all the presents (previously hidden) down and put them under the tree. My older son did this with his own girls when they were young and now I've had a list from my little 4 year old grandson who is coming to experience his first UK Christmas which says amongst other things mince pies, bowls of chocolates and snow! I can supply the first two but the last one might be a bit more difficult

Grannyactivist
A Parker fountain pen with its gold knib?.Now that really fills me with nostalgia.
Mine was a gift from my fathers' comfortably'off ??sister..

Sharronr I’m so sorry. Don’t really know what to say apart from that except that I hope you have some good memories with your own family now.

Hi I'm a Narrowboat nan also x Do you live aboard?