Post-War Christmas memories

There's lots of memories posted here that I share.
We had chicken for Christmas dinner when I was small and had turkey when I was older, probably in the 60s. Chicken was expensive then and beef a regular Sunday roast, the opposite of now.
My Mum made Christmas pudding and cake, always made in October half term, and I copied her for many years. We had sweet white sauce rather than custard with the pudding.
We made paper chains and milk top silver foil decorations at school.
We had an artificial tree though I'm not sure when we got this.
Sometimes extended family would be with us at Christmas travelling to us in the south from the north.
We would have on main present with a few small ones, a stocking with satsumas, chocolate, pencils etc.

I was asked to write something for a Christmas event at an over-60s club and this is what I came up with:

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.

My first memories are the late 40's and chicken was a very special treat for celebrations and christmas. Making paper chains from coloured paper strips, one of our Fathers socks hung on Xmas Eve, which always had a silver sixpence in the toe and a tangerine. Xmas pud was home made and filled the house with steam, small silver sixpences were baked inside so Father always worried one of us would swallow one and choke on Christmas day.

Oh, yes, the sixpences in the Christmas pudding! Only in our house it was the very old silver threepenny bits my mother had saved. Lord knows what happened to them.

I still make my own Christmas puds from an old GH recipe - prefer them to any shop,ones I've ever had, less dense and heavy. They always come to the table flaming (half brandy, half vodka) with a sprig of holly stuck in. I always get someone to turn the dining room lights off first, for the best effect.

No turkey when we were young, we had a piece of pork for Christmas lunch. One year I recall my mother obtaining a tall tin which contained a de-boned chicken.
Tea was ox tongue cooked and pressed by my mother the night before.
We would get a real tree and decorate it with milk bottle tops and cotton wool. Streamers were made from red and green crepe paper, the edges fluted by pulling at the paper to stretch it.
Christmas wrapping paper was not really available and gifts were placed on a chair unwrapped or in brown paper and string.
Mother cooked, for ten or twelve, in a kitchen smaller than my en-suite and without a fridge.
It may sound nostalgic but it was not always happy. My father lost one of his brothers on Christmas day when he was 21 and that made it avsad day for him.

Oh Greyduster I really used to enjoy Heinz Russian salad! Simpler times, I guess.
I was at work before I had even heard of coleslaw and I had been married for a few years before I had ever heard of houmous.

They’d have to be mad, Jalima. It came out of tins and looked like sick! Come to think of it, it smelled like sick!

It still happens every year winterwhite - the lights I mean, not the marzipan-stuffed dates!

I wonder if the Russians ate Russian salad?

My mother stuffed those dates with marzipan - waste of marzipan I thought. She always made everybody’s favourite small cakes for teatime on Christmas Eve and we put on our best dresses.
No one else has mentioned the ritual drama of the lights being put on the Christmas tree and failing to turn on because a bulb had ‘gone’ somewhere along the line every year, and the suspense of putting it right. Maybe our lights were particularly antiquated.
I’d quite forgotten Heinz Russian salad. Wonder what happened to that. Only ever seen at Christmas in our house.

We always had chicken and I remember it vividly because we kept the chickens in our back garden and they were killed and plucked. One for us and one for each gran. Christmas day at home just us, but Boxing Day was my gran's and all the family.

We had an artificial tree with real candles on metal holders which clipped to the ends of the branches. Homemade paper chains and those paper bells which were folded flat and opened 360 degrees and were held by metal clips.

Presents in pillow case at the foot of my bed with satsuma, nuts and perhaps a chocolate animal shape. Always an annual, Schoolfriend or Girls’ Crystal.

Christmas lunch, mid afternoon was always at my paternal grandparents, which involved a walk of quite a few miles, we didn’t have a car in the late 1940s. Always roast goose, never any alcohol though I think my father and grandfather would disappear to the pub for a quick drink before the meal. Mid evening meal always included tinned mandarin oranges with Carnation milk

Lovely to hear all these memories. However, they make me realise how rotten my Christmas memories are. My parents hardly made any effort at all. If it wasn't for kind patients making us things we'd have had only oranges and nuts on Christmas morning - even then they had to be returned to the fruit bowl. One year a kind patient gave me a huge pair of pants! Usually patients gave us hand knitted cardigans and home made tablet.
Luckily, both sets of grandparents made real efforts. One Granny always bought us smart clothes and the other Gran always bought us the toys we wanted. Lunch was with one or the other set of grandparents. Dad always volunteered to be on call at Christmas. Looking back I wonder why my parents were so down on Christmas. I'll never know. After I married I resolved to make Christmas really special for my own children and now grandchildren.

Read this wrong at first. Pre war memories. Not get many of them thought I.

We had a capon
There was Emva cream sherry and brandy but no wine until I bought a bottle when I was about 18. It was horrible, too sweet.

Home made paper chains, the Christmas tree had bits of cotton wool on it covered in glitter to look like snow, baubles and tinsel.

A stocking with an orange, apple, nuts a few toys and a sugar mouse with a string tail.

We had a piano but no tv so we had a sing-song in the evenings.

My memories are of a full pillowcase of small presents, a stocking with a satsuma, couple of brazil nuts?? and some spangles. The lunch was always roast chicken and a Xmas pudding that had steamed up the kitchen for the whole morning. No wine, but plenty of sherry and advocat.
Straight after lunch, the box of quality street appeared and a dish of nuts to crack. Oh and the box of dates ???

Capon for us, orange in the toe of dad's socks plus a few bits and pieces from you know who. Home made paper chains and a large paper ball hanging from the ceiling. A real tree and glass balls and dodgy lights. Best of all dad washing up and smoking a cigar a'hhhhh nostalgia.

I think we had chicken, too. My mother was a really good cook.

My parents (well, particularly my father) was a very gregarious type, and on Christmas morning all the neighbours were invited in for a drink. Some went home quite legless. "Lunch" could finally be eaten at about 4 pm.

We always had electric, coloured fairy lights on the tree, and we used last year's cards to make lanterns which we hung on the branches and poked the little lights into them for decorations.

There were gaudy garlands - sometimes the home-made paper chains - strung from each corner of the ceiling. No tasteful all-gold or all-red colour scheme - just gaudy!

There were presents from Uncles, Aunts and Godparents on our beds in the morning in a pillow case. I can't remember ever seriously believing in Father Christmas or any other magical being, nor ever being encouraged to. After all, we had to write thank-you letters to all the uncles and aunts afterwards.

Also we had had a session on the dining room table 2 weeks before Christmas watching our parents wrap all the presents which were to be sent to our numerous cousins.

The most magical time was when I got up on Christmas morning (it may well have been 1962) and went to the toilet, to see fresh new snow on the window sill. A good few inches had fallen in the night - it was quite unexpected and the best surprise ever.

I always got a classic book as well cherrytree I remember Woolworths did a whole series of those books at a very reasonable price.

We never saw anyone at Christmas, no relatives or friends at all.
We always had roast chicken for the Christmas meal, never turkey,I was married before I ever had roast turkey.
We went to church mid morning, or when we were older, midnight service, which seemed magical.
We made our own paper chains every year, and paper lanterns, but never had a Christmas tree.
No Christmas stockings, but a pillow case with presents left downstairs.
Nothing expensive, there was very little money, but a selection box, annual (Beano or Filmfun or Rupert Bear)
Plasticine, crayons, colouring book.All depending on age at the time.

As an avid reader it was Bllue Peter Annual and books from various relatives.
A classic (Jane Eyre etc)
From my grandpa.

I have a Christmas memory of when each great aunts (of which we had many)
knitted my sister and I bobble hats and scarves.
We were quite disappointed not getting our usual books.
But of course we did send our thank you letters.

Capon for Christmas dinner.
My sister and I had eat 2 sprouts each, we hated them!
But love them now

Selection box and tangerines.
Dates and Nuts together with nut crackers on sideboard.

Real tree
And home made decorations from crepe paper.

Every year a new decoration as demonstrated on Blue. Peter such as
Hanging Advent candle holder from wire coat hangers
Snowman sweet jars which were jars covered in cottonwool.

Happy memories especially when we stayed with my grandparents?

I remember the dates , yuck , and dried figs ... yuck yuck . I couldn't believe it was the same fruits when I got to taste fresh ones

Such lovely shared memories. My Dad went to Brentford Market with produce from a market garden and we always had a box of large Jaffa oranges and a box of Coxes apples from Sandringham. Walnuts and Brazil nuts with the shells thrown in the fire and Christmas dinner was always a large caponised chicken, reared by our neighbour.
Decorations were those paper garlands, carefully refolded every year and our real tree had big lights with spare bulbs!
Parents didn’t have much spare money for alcohol but I was told they always had a half bottle of whisky to offer visitors. And of course Advocaat for snowballs?

Brilliant memories. All I can remember is a small blue suitcase. I remember pushing the metal locks and seeing the same 3 or 4 tired paper decorations. I vividly remember the smell of that case.

We always spent Christmas at my Granny's house during and just after the War - everyone contributed so there was a fine feast and up to 18 of us seated round the table. My mother came from a large family and the children would be squashed up on benches to fit us all in. We had a Christmas tree lit up on Christmas afternoon with real candles. One of my uncles was a part-time fireman so he had to sit by the tree. Another uncle had connections with the "black market" so there was always a large bird. I think it was a turkey. When petrol was rationed we travelled by bike with me on a little saddle on my dad's crossbar. One year it snowed on Christmas day and it was decided it was too cold for me to go home on the bike so I had to sleep with my cousin just up the road at her other grandmas. I remember that house was lit by gas - something I hadn't seen before. At home we had home-made decorations and some very old and rather tattered paper streamers and bells.

Don't forget snow.cut out of paper folded symmetrically and yards of paper chains. Coping with those long decorations that folded back into a pair of small cardboard shapes.

To this day, Father Christmas gets teased when she puts tangerines and nuts in a stocking......tradition from early 50s I am afraid.

I remember I had a neighbour Mrs Turner who delighted in taking me up to Derry and Toms to see FC. Such a treat. However I couldn't work out why we went on a magical journey through for example space and then just walked out after seeing him. No return journey was so strange to me.