The Xmas Rush

margaretclare

In my childhood - wartime, rationing but even without rationing we were very poor - we'd never heard of turkeys. One Christmas we even had rabbit. Mostly we'd have a joint of beef, or a chicken even - chickens weren't factory-farmed and one was a treat.

The worst of it now, for me, is getting it rammed down your throat for weeks ahead. I made the mistake of going into Tesco and couldn't escape a huge banner wishing me Merry Christmas. As it wasn't quite Remembrance Sunday, I didn't want to be wished Merry Christmas!

At home, there'd be Christmas puddings, cake, mincemeat, spice-bread etc made several weeks in advance. Spice-bread is eaten with cheese. Christmas cake is not iced and is also eaten with cheese.

Christmas trees were not brought in and decorated until Christmas Eve tea-time, and then the local carol-singers would come round.

As for presents, a lot were home-made, knitted or sewn, or second-hand. Christmas 1944 I got a second-hand bike and the local POWs who were working on the farms taught me to ride it.

chesky

margaretclare wrote: »

... and then the local carol-singers would come round.

As for presents, a lot were home-made, knitted or sewn, or second-hand. Christmas 1944 I got a second-hand bike and the local POWs who were working on the farms taught me to ride it.

the POWs definitely wouldn't be allowed within a hundred yards of a girl nowadays. And whatever happened to carol singers? Haven't had any at the door for years and years - is that a London thing, does it happen in the rest of the country?

margaretclare

chesky wrote: »

the POWs definitely wouldn't be allowed within a hundred yards of a girl nowadays. And whatever happened to carol singers? Haven't had any at the door for years and years - is that a London thing, does it happen in the rest of the country?

My mother came along to 'help'.

Carol-singing - no one goes round doing it, unless maybe in a small village, if there are any small villages left.

luxor4t

chesky wrote: »

the POWs definitely wouldn't be allowed within a hundred yards of a girl nowadays. ....

My mum remembers talking to the Italian POWs working on the roads, they used to joke with the children or sing - she says they seemed sad too, as some were fathers. She was 5 at the start of the war, btw.


Does anybody else remember the annual hunt for a plug for the string of tree lights? I don't know how much plugs cost in the early 60s, but my family never had a spare one for the tree lights.
One year Dad took the one from the hairdryer. He was in the doghouse!

chesky

luxor4t wrote: »

Does anybody else remember the annual hunt for a plug for the string of tree lights? I don't know how much plugs cost in the early 60s, but my family never had a spare one for the tree lights.
One year Dad took the one from the hairdryer. He was in the doghouse!

Lights? we never had lights....

Ken68

Thanks OP, I remember the Co-op delivering our Xmas shopping by pony and cart, now it's a Tesco van.... "You shop, we Drop".

luxor4t

chesky wrote: »

Lights? we never had lights....

In the early 60s had a string of 11 Pifco lights in a blue and yellow cardboard box with a clown on. There should have been 12, but one holder just had plasticene and a bit of tinfoil.
I can remember the almost hysterical excitement of seeing the tree, more or less upright, in its tub of ashes, "blazing" with these lights. I think my parents had been given them by my grandfather who sold small electrical items in his ironmongers' shop seasonally.
These lights were used well into the 1970s, although I think they were down to 9 working bulb holders by then.

margaretclare

Given that we had no electricity in the cottage I grew up in, not until 1958, and there was blackout, I wouldn't have known any lights.

We did get shopping delivered, though. I was always used to that. We were a long way out in the countryside. 6 pounds of flour was delivered amongst everything else, and that made the week's bread.

I did know about Father Christmas - not Santa - but I'd never heard of reindeer, with or without red noses. It never crossed my mind how he travelled. Amazing how a stupid pop song of decades ago has now entered the mythology and part of the 'tradition'.

NAR

luxor4t wrote: »

My mum remembers talking to the Italian POWs

According to an old chum of mine our POWs in Italy were "treated" very well by the local Italian girls! :eek:

mumps

I remember Granny coming to prepare the turkey properly, this involved home made stuffing and then the turkey being sewn up. I don't know why she always did it, maybe it was her stuffing recipe?

I went to a Catholic school and the build up to Christmas was probably as long as people moan about now, this was in the 50s. We seemed to rehearse Christmas Carols and the Nativity for weeks and weeks and made religious present and cards, handmade cards and calendars and hand painted models of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus.

We also did our own decorations, miles of paper chains and branches painted white with milk bottle tops threaded onto string to make shiny decorations, silver, red and blue i think. At the end of term we would take it all home.

Midnight mass was always the real start of Christmas, one of my earliest memories is holding my dad's hand very tightly in a packed church, standing room only.

Granny always bought us new underwear, we were always disgusted. We always had a smokers set, sweetie cigarettes and pipes and no I have never smoked. We would also have tangerines and some chocolate and of course a big present which would usually be something cowboy and indian based for me, I was never a girly girl. We would also get an annual and maybe a board game.

I remember my mother being just as stressed as moms are now and as I got older I realised she worried about the cost of presents for my little brother and us big ones would just have something we needed, one year we got gaberdine macs for school. Not very exciting but by 13 or 14 we were expected to be grown up enough to realise Christmas was for the little ones.