Christmasses past.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Thank you Luckygirl - just lovely!

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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!

What, the alchohol or the pies?

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.

Agreed about Luckygirl’s contribution. Beautiful, atmospheric.

Christmas Day wasn't a holiday in Scotland up until the mid century ,even after that my dad often worked on Christmas day until the late 60's ,but New Year was our time ,we all stayed up until midnight when we sat down for a three course meal,Soup ,steak pie and veg and potatoes and trifle ,there was often around 20 with chairs borrowed from neighbours and those neighbours would all first foot right along the terrace ,we lived in the first house and they collected the men as they went along right to number 29 .....some staggered home at 6am ...lol but music and parties at every house in the street .It was still the same when we married in 1975 sadly Hogmanay isn't what it was with a lot of folk closing curtains and ignoring the first foot

Luckygirl, that was lovely! Thank you.

I was born before the 2nd war, so very quiet Christmas 's. Only child and no family came. No-one had transport so everyone stayed at home.
No present apart from mum and dad.
Father died from cancer in Jan 1949. After that dreadful time we walked 4 miles to my mother's sister. I was the only GC in the family and it was very sad and lonely.
My own Christmases after marrying were full of family and friends, when my C came I made it special for them as I remembered my own dire times.
We had lots of good times but now both have broken marriages and H and I spend Christmas on our own.
Full circle.

Was it AquaManda, Willow?
Christmas was the only time that our dining table was pressed into service. The rest of the time, we ate in the kitchen. There was always a turkey, which used to hang in the cellar until Christmas Eve, when my mother would draw, pluck and dress it ready for Christmas dinner. There was roast pork too. It seems we all had the smokers set, and I remember chocolate money, tangerines and nuts (which were never high on my list of edible priorities!) and pink and white sugar mice. My mother never bought a lot of fruit in the ordinary course of events, but at Christmas my father would go into fruit overdrive; always Cox’s apples, oranges, bananas, grapes and one year my adult brother came home with a pineapple, which was such a great treat that it was shared with the four other children in our little court of houses. I didn’t actually like it and still don’t! And my mother had chocolate liqueurs at Christmas - that was her treat. My father would treat himself to a bottle of Hoopers port which came in a basket weave covered bottle and had to be poured carefully because it “threw a crust” which I thought sounded pretty horrible but which conferred something special on it in dad’s eyes! That was his treat!

Christmas 1957

The cherryade is opened on Christmas Eve,
Not a moment before.
The classroom paper chains and streamers,
Tea towel shepherds and plastic baby Jesus are done with.
And the motley carols have drifted to the heavens on wings of innocence.
Now the tree lights lie strewn across our carpet
While Dad swears and sweats and unscrews each bulb.
Mum, sighing, arms folded,
Dreams that one year, just one year,
The lights might work first time.
But there is magic in the climb to bed
A pillowcase at my feet.
And a long long night before us.

We unwrap our presents, whispering in the first threads of dawn.
Always an orange, always a sugar mouse
Always the Robin Annual.
We creep downstairs to the front step
To fetch the frozen milk with the beak holes in the lid
And set it on the stove to warm for our morning cereal.

The grown-ups stir slowly
And shamble around in their dressing gowns,
Then, without warning, they are seized by a mystifying energy,
And drag us off on bitter walks along the snowy beach,
Proclaiming loudly how invigorating it is
Before decamping to their customary sloth before the fire.
We shed our boots on the icy step
And wonder what that was all about.

We watch as the grandmothers creak around the house
Flaunting their skills at gravy, or stuffing
Or Christmas pudding.
Sighing as my mother stabs at the bird.
No, not like that dear, says Grandma
As she deftly carves the breast.
We gorge on turkey - are you sure it is cooked properly dear?
And Christmas pudding - No thank you dear – I have to think of my bowels.

Strewn on sofas and armchairs,
Paper hats askew
They affect a glimmer of interest in
The grainy grey queen with her strangled vowels
Trapped in her tiny TV screen in her twin set and pearls,
Before they finally drift into oblivion,
Accompanied by soft rumblings, both nasal and intestinal,
Leaving us free to raid the Quality Street tin
And bag the purple ones with the nuts in.

They surface briefly to slice the Christmas cake
And chase the crumbs round their plates in desultory fashion
Before packing us off to bed.
Brazil nut chocolate shared round the dwindling fire,
Signals the end - a last treat and it is done.
My brother kicks me in our shared bed
As Grandma snores in mine.
That’s my bit of sheet,
No it’s mine.

Happy Christmas.

We used to go to my grandparents for Christmas. Grandad worked in the West End and used to buy a turkey from one of the markets, and we had frozen peas which was a great treat when no one had a fridge or freezer. Real candles on the tree of course. The grown ups drank Dubonnet and I had a little glass of cherry brandy and there was a constant background smell of cigars.

Nothing really changed until the late 60' when I met DH and was introduced to Panetonne, Asti Spumante, little squares of Torrone in pretty wrappers, and amaretti biscuits ( and setting fire to the amaretti wrappers) Quite different from anything I'd seen before.

Getting up on a morning to find the tree had been decorated including the famous sugar fairy in cellophane which came out every year. Some years I was allowed to stay up while it was decorated - we always had the same set of lights which had a Santa on them - mum and dad still had these years later and he had to keep changing the bulbs which never worked. We had long twirly foil things hanging from the ceiling with drawing pins. My dad always got up first to light the coal fire and would also shout up 'he's been'. I never had a stocking but as above presents were piled on a chair with the biggest one at the bottom. This was the only time of the year we had a chicken. We usually went to visit relatives in the afternoon but we probably walked. I remember going to my cousin's one year with a new teenage doll complete with stockings. We left my birth town when I was 8 so things changed a bit but it was still always a special time. Coming from up north New Year was always great fun - probably why I hate it now as its not the same. One year sticks in my mind - I was 12 or 13 and there was a present just from my dad - perfume - the orange scented one I've forgotten the name of. It made me feel very grown up - that was the year I also got a portable typewriter in a case which I still have in the garage. Christmas was magical - an only child I have no one to share these memories with now my parents are no longer here but it definitely wasn't about gifts. It was all about the run up to the day, the decorations, the book about Christmas I always used to read, going shopping with my mum in the cold weather and my beloved aunt coming to stay and sharing my room. I hope to try and create memories that will last for my little grandsons who will be here from NZ this year although I doubt the 2 year old will remember them

Chocolate smokers set in our house too! And a Bunty or Broons annual. And one year I got a set of 12 Derwent crayons that I treasured so much, I didn't want to spoil them by actually using them. I can only remember 2 other presents: one year I got a pair of 2nd hand brown school shoes and another year my grandmother gave me a sewing set.

We had holly on pictures and clocks as well. We kept chickens and at Christmas 3 were killed one for us and one for each gran. Christmas day was just our family, but Boxing Day we went to my Nanna's. We had ham and pork pie for tea, then tinned fruit and evaporated milk, mince pies and Christmas Cake. After tea the grown ups played cards for pennies, we were given sweets and sent to the front room where my brother and cousin tormented me because I was a girl.