What was in a stocking 70-80 years ago?

beadysam

We have stockings each. Our son climbs into bed withus xmas morning and we take it in turns to open pressies in them. There is always a tangerine, nuts, sweets in wrappers, sugar mice, coins, and apple in foil, a mini can of pop or a stubbie of beer, party poppers, book tokens, goodies from the £1 shop, a book, bubbles, little puzzles, socks, a cd, batteries, jewellry, gloves, pens/pencils, a smellie or two etc etc
It the best bit of xmas....
SAM xx

Spendless

beadysam wrote:

We have stockings each. Our son climbs into bed withus xmas morning and we take it in turns to open pressies in them. There is always a tangerine, nuts, sweets in wrappers, sugar mice, coins, and apple in foil, a mini can of pop or a stubbie of beer, party poppers, book tokens, goodies from the £1 shop, a book, bubbles, little puzzles, socks, a cd, batteries, jewellry, gloves, pens/pencils, a smellie or two etc etc
It the best bit of xmas....
SAM xx

Do you mean an ordinary apple wrapped in foil beadysam?

frugalfairy_3

I'm with you, Sam, I love the opening of stockings more than anything else at Christmas. Everyone in the house gets one and the contents are much the same as yours.

This year I decided to make stockings for my nieces as well, instead of spending money on a present or something they probably wouldn't use (I don't see them very often and they're all teenagers now) so I bought a pack of three pairs of stripy socks for £4 from BHS and stuffed each one with soaps, lip glosses, sugar mice, small chocolate bars, nail varnishes and tiny perfume bottles from Superdrug. I really enjoyed doing them and I hope they enjoy getting them. I tried to buy stuff they would use even if they don't eat the chocolate!

squeaky

megasaver wrote:

Hello Alfietinker.... thank you so much for pointing out my typo! I have just checked my recipe book and it definitely says

50g (2oz) golden syrup...... not 12oz as I had written ! All the other amounts are fine!


Squeaky do you think I should go back and change the amount now in my post or is it too late do you think?

Thanks again

mega xx

By all means edit it.

There might be someone who just grabs the recipe without reading further down the thread who will be well and truly stuck

To help save confusion you could do something like:-

50g (2oz) Golden syrup Edited to correct typo


Or something

megasaver

squeaky wrote:

50g (2oz) Golden syrup Edited to correct typo

All done, thanks Squeaky.... hope everyone enjoys making them as much as dd and I did at the weekend! I had lovely pink mice running everwhere in my kitchen.... well I did on Saturday....most have now disappeared :whistle: Will have to make some more soon to keep everyone happy.

mega xx

Threadhead

What a lovely thread, and brilliant ideas. I know what to get my Nan for Xmas now!! The Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh will be getting my business next weekend!

The peg doll idea is lovely, and I remember making these with my Nan when I was little. I think I will ask my kids to make a "wooden spoon doll" to put in Nans stocking.

squiggles

Awww isnt this such a nice thread to come across,made lovely reading.

kscour

Have made a small stocking each for my two girls with small quilted stockings OH bought them at a craft fair when they were babies. At the time I thought he was mad and worried what to put in them! But they have turned out to be the highlight of our girls xmas. There's not much in them - chocolate coins, "must" have a soft toy sticking out of the top, usually a tesco one, and the rest is just cheap bits, a small ball, nail varnish, fancy rubber or pencil etc. I quite often pick things up in sales during the year. I wrap it all up as well because that pads each thing out. They end up that crammed (because they're only about 30cm long) that you can hardly get the stuff out. And even though they are now nearly 10 I know on xmas morning they'll coming bouncing into our room, jump on the bed and show us their stockings, & then spend forever opening each little present - and all that stuff downstairs that they begged santa for?? Well that won't cross their mind once :rolleyes:

Maisie

Hester wrote:

Alas my Grandma is now sipping sherry with the angels so I can't ask her what sweeties were common during the Great War.

However, my dad was little during the 2nd WW so I asked him. He recalls sugar mice, Mint Imperials, crumbly fudge, Scarborough rock, Fry's Turkish Delight and aniseed balls in a tiny paper bag. (Hope the last are ok with false teeth!?) As it was war-time I suspect he thought about these sweets more than he got to eat them. However even today in his seventies, he'd prefer any of the above to the poshest box of Belgian chocs.

We used to have pear drops and they were pear shaped and smelled of nail varnish! They were a boiled sugar sweet and we loved them.
Didn't have many sweets as they were on ration and needed the ration coupons for them plus not many sweets available. You could get Mars Bars if you had ration coupons and they were cut in half in the shop and sold by halves! Sometimes even cut into slices and sold like that.

As a treat mum would make toffee apples with the sugar ration.

It was a good diet just after the war. Little sweet stuff plenty of vegetables usually grown in the garden. Homemade bread and occasional meat. Chicken was a luxury and usually only available at Christmas.

We always had a new pencil in our Christmas stocking with the other small bits and pieces. Always happy with whatever we got and would spend Christmas day playing games. Charades, snakes and ladders Ludo etc. If we were lucky we got a new game but mainly old favourites treasured over the years.

Remembering all this and what we got but I cannot ever remember mum getting a Christmas present. My mum was widowed at 36 and we were only kids of 6 and 4 at the time. Dad died on Boxing day so not a good Christmas that year.

My brother and I tried to make Christmas special for her as we got older but she always had the memory of my dad at that time.

Enjoy your Christmas everyone . It's the thought and love that counts at Christmas not how many presents you get and how much money spent.

jaybee

We always used to get one of those twisted metal puzzle thingies as well (like two nails twisted together) and usually a puzzle square where you had to slide the bits around to make a picture.