The Garden Fence - proper Old Style support and chat!

pollyanna_26

MingVase said:

Funny Polly, I'm just reading a book about the Blitz and those places are mentioned in it.

Re Christmas - when my kids were wee I used to get them to help & we made all the decorations.  Alcan foil cut into long thin streamers and hung up, will twist and sparkle in any draught. Paper chains dabbed with glue and tons of glitter sprinkled on. Holly leaves in epsom salts. But I was brought up with a coal fire and really really missed that, was sad that mine didn't know how lovely a real fire was. We moved when they were early teens  back to a house with coal, and by then you could buy stuff to put in the fire that made the flames burn blue and green. And we try to stick to rules within the family that things should either be hand made or else in the case of the sons, that a day's labour is a good pressie. We really appreciate that now we're decepit 

The docks were a major target in WW2 put them out of action and it would be difficult to win the war. Some of my family remember when the Malakind ship carrying explosives was hit in the dock and but for quick action would have taken the whole area off the face of the earth.

I think it's part of the build up to Christmas to  make things rather than hit the shops. There are lots of memories in some of the things even now. The dds did the cross stitch decorations although middle dd put up a bit of a fight at first. She's very artistic and has done magical transformations working late into the night to create a Christmas wonderland for the children she works with since then but has never been interested in knitting , sewing etc. unlike her sisters and myself.

Son used to the man stuff reaching high branches , lifting things and sometimes going for fish and chips having made a pot of tea. I told him how my dad could mend and darn also knew how to knit after the war. He figured out why left handed me couldn't get going with knitting bysitting next to me rather than opposite.I did the same thing with youngest. DS never got interested in mending shoes which was a common thing when I was growing up dad had all the kit.

According to ds if war broke out noone would be darning , mending footwear or anything else nowadays.

pollyx

pollyanna_26

maryb said:

I like Christmas Eve best.  Christmas Day itself is a bit meh by the afternoon, though I love going to church in the morning and belting out the carols.  And I wish it would all get back to normal sooner than it does

I loved all the excitement when the children were younger on Christmas Eve but it was pretty exhausting trying to do a lot of secret wrapping and hiding things after a usually 6-8 weeks of rehearsng the Christmas plays, do my share of costume making

turning sheets and teatowels into shepherds and more sheets, net and white feathers into angels.

.I always meant to ask the head what became of the angels outfits after everything was thankully  stored away for another year. Mary and Joseph were well turned out and the baby Jesus well swaddled , thankfully a doll as a naughty boy poked his eye out one year. We were lucky to have the dolls hospital near so it was replaced for the next afternoons performance.

TheThree Kings were a sight to behold a number of grannies or ladies we invited to school events had donated lovely velvet, satin and silk curtains or other items to the cause so the kings were rather swanky.

Looking back there were a lot of performances reception assisted by one infants bay tnen the other infants bay with middle infants and finally top infants who were well use to saying their lines.

we had to have afternoon performnaces for each group and evening ones too for those unable to attend.  Then infants party day before the holidays and juniors the next thankfully organised by our cook and her team with the odd warning finger or shake of the head from one of us.

Unlike the chidren we had a few days to work before freedom so by the time Christmas eve arrived I could have slept on a clothes line but there was last minurte wrapping and other preps to deal with.

I never discovered why some of the angels dresses and halos were missing the following year but I swear I could make .them in my sleep.

pollyx

 

MingVase

Lots of us in here can turn our hands to practical stuff, we should organise an O/S  Festive Fence  do!  Make as much as poss and cook/bake etc - even get the stills up and running. Nargs is good on the poteen...

mothernerd

First things first Elf and Safety warning. Every time anyone mentions the 'C' word before November, Father 'C' has to shoot an elf (and the modern generation may have been colonised by Americans but to me he will always be Father 'C') - that is the law. Therefore to save those poor elves can we please refer to the festive season, that day in December (possibly festival of light because pagans and many religions join together at the darkest time of the year to celebrate the coming of the lighter days and the return of the sun (can you imagine being a cave dweller - how much faith you had to have to believe that).

Monna  I'm afraid the over commercialised 'C' is as much a myth as the young generation not respecting their elders (graffito at Pompei), teaching people will mean they write naughty words on gates and walls (Thomas Hardy's 'Return of the Native'). In one of the 'Miss Read' books (set in the late 1950's/ early 60's) the opening is all about how commercial 'C' has become. Read a delightful book many years ago 'The Virago Book of "c' stories and I believe there was something similar by Colette.

Those Dickensian 'C' scenes with snow everywhere - it was the fall out from a volcano which erupted (remember they stopped the planes flying when one of the Icelandic ones went off a few years ago - the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora is the largest every recorded and the fallout was so bad that 1816 is known as the year without a summer). The results included widespread famine, Bengal cholera from the sulphorous clouds that drifted from Indonesia (then spread throughout the world) and the birth of the 'opium triangle' - started as an alternative source of income when other crops failed. The whole Century is littered with famous volcano eruptions so year after year there were 'White 'C's'.

My grandma told me about a wartime 'C' when one of the market stalls was rumoured to be getting a delivery of oranges. She rushed there in the early morning to ask the stall holder to save one for her, then went off to do her shift (both my mum's parents came from families with pubs). At the end of the day she went back to the market to get the orange for mum's stocking. Another customer objected as they had been queuing but was told off by the stallholder and other customers who knew she had just finished a 12 hour shift. Mum still has 'Beauty' a pot doll who she must have got during the first wartime 'C' (age 4). When she saw her, she just looked at the doll in silence (grandma was very worried) then finally said "My, isn't she a beauty", which is how she was named. Most of her nose is missing as mum would nibble it. 

My favourite childhood memories are of stopping on the market square to look directly up into the branches of the town tree, strung with coloured lightbulbs. When my children were small we could see the tree from their bedroom window and would say goodnight to the tree at bedtime. The woman who looked after me when mum went back to work (Auntie D and Uncle W - he was around a lot because he was off work after having a heart attack) took me to Manchester to a big store to see Father "C' - can't remember the actual visit (apart from it being the first time I had seen large window displays) but when we got back, it was so cold that the washing had frozen on the line (there may have been starch in them). I remember  Uncle W's shirts standing up all by themselves in a semi-circle by the fire, Pretty sure Father 'C' gave me a little nurse set - very thin cotton apron with a large red cross on and some 'instruments'.

I made paper chains with my children (usually whoever was off sick got handed the papers and the stapler - when I was running the craft group they were amazed when I said we had to use 'flour and water' paste for gluing). I won't bore you with all the hm decorations and presents I've made in my time. I would buy them one special decoration each - I particularly remember the local art shop/ photographer's (she ran the art side, she had married her father's photography apprentice) having a box of extremely delicate white filigree (pressed metal) ornaments - all white. I know I picked the fire engine for one of the boys (about the same size or slightly less than the original matchbox cars) but can't think what the other one was.

Taking husbands back. On their first wedding anniversary, I wrote my darling daughter -in -law a long post thanking her for loving DS1, looking after him and not sending him back.

LameWolf

I'm afraid the 25th day of the 12th month is a bit of a non-entity for me; we've already had our celebration a few days before, on the Solstice. I'll be happy as long as I have a canine guest.

pollyanna_26

mothernerd am I right in thinking the shooting an elf thing originated across the pond? The elf on the shelf seemed harmless  fun if done properly but then people added rules , if the wrong person moved the elf Father Christmas would have to shoot a reindeer and it seems mentioning Christmas before November means the end of an elf.

Maybe I'm too tradirional but if any of my offspring were playing up on Christmas Eve I'd just say well don't be surprised if there aren't any presents in the morning.

Introducing guns into the Father Christmas fantasy is quite bizzare. Youngsters have enough  to cope with

My real frasier fir christmas trees came from Scotland when one became too big to bring in and out of the house I'd phone and they'd tie  a label to one the height I wanted which would be delivered early December. I phoned in May,  My mum would make her Christmas puddings early September and stock up on ingredients for mince pies , bunloaves and other goodies and we'd both say Christmas umpteen times before November.

As far as I know old traditions are perfectly ok and have stood the test of time which is fine by me.

pollyx

MingVase

I've never heard the elf thing, new to me. I do like to get Halloween  and Guy Fawkes over with before I start dealing with christmas though. Just one thing atta time for my brain

monnagran

Me? Tell you about wartime Christmases?  I'm sure I've done all this before and I don't want you to sigh with boredom.  Perhaps when I've an hour or two spare I'll tell you all over again.

As for Infant School Nativity plays.............I know I've been there before.  Surely you remember the one where, having given out the main roles to my nursery class, I told the rest that they could choose what animal in the stable they would like to be..
On the day we had a camel  two donkeys, half a dozen sheep and a gorilla.
Several years later a similar situation turned up in a popular film.  I met one of my 'old' mothers who said that she had taken her, now grown up, daughter to the film.  When the Nativity scene was playing the daughter leaned across to her mother and asked if it was possible Mrs C had written the script.

As to the Christmas Blitz, the Southampton Blitz was earlier, in November.  My mother and Grandmother managed to get on a bus where it was packed to the roof with people trying to get out of the city.  They were getting up to my Great Aunt who lived in Salisbury.  I was under 2 at the time and entertained everyone by pointing out the "pretty lights," otherwise known as exploding bombs.
Mum said that people were just walking out into the New Forest, nothing with them, just walking to get out of the hell of the bombing.

The 94 yo man I am looking after, was also living in Southampton at the time.  He was 14 and in their house alone with his mother.  When the air raid warning siren went, his mother shouted that she was going to get an elderly neighbour down into the shelter and to get down there himself.
Neither of them made it.  The house received a direct hit.  His mother was blown out of the house, she survived, but was an invalid fir the rest of her life.
David had just come out of hospital and he was buried but still alive, being saved by a huge beam that pinned him down.  He could see that the beam only had to move a fraction of an inch and the wreckage that it was supporting would crush him to death.  He could hear rescuers above him, deciding that no one could survive there and they were packing up to move on. when David felt something warm and wet on his ear.  It was his little dog who had managed to wriggle through and find him.  He just managed to whisper, "Tell them, tell them I'm here."  With that the dog wriggled back and by whining and running back and forth to the tiny hole that he had travelled through managed to get the men to understand that someone was down there.
Thus David is still with us.

That's more than enough for today

mothernerd

pollyanna_26 said:

mothernerd am I right in thinking the shooting an elf thing originated across the pond? The elf on the shelf seemed harmless  fun if done properly but then people added rules , if the wrong person moved the elf Father Christmas would have to shoot a reindeer and it seems mentioning Christmas before November means the end of an elf.

Maybe I'm too tradirional but if any of my offspring were playing up on Christmas Eve I'd just say well don't be surprised if there aren't any presents in the morning.

Introducing guns into the Father Christmas fantasy is quite bizzare. Youngsters have enough  to cope with

My real frasier fir christmas trees came from Scotland when one became too big to bring in and out of the house I'd phone and they'd tie  a label to one the height I wanted which would be delivered early December. I phoned in May,  My mum would make her Christmas puddings early September and stock up on ingredients for mince pies , bunloaves and other goodies and we'd both say Christmas umpteen times before November.

As far as I know old traditions are perfectly ok and have stood the test of time which is fine by me.

pollyx

DS1 posted a cartoon the year before last. The girl who was his 'Best Man' at his wedding was saying that she was sick to the back teeth of people's 'Elf on the shelf' pictures  (and it wasn't even December). DS1 isn't a fan of 'C', he would rather ignore the whole thing but the cartoon was obviously from our side of the pond (very tired beaten down Father 'C'). He was a bit disappointed that his wife said he couldn't have 'weeping angels' on the tree. His friend (the one he was trying to cheer up) has Jack Skellington from the Nightmare before 'C' at the top of her tree.

All 'war toys' were banned at my house. Be careful what you wish for - traditionally 'C' lasts from Michaelmas to Candlemas. That's the end of September to the beginning of February. Obviously this made sense in pre-industrial times. Bring the harvest in and then people and animals would gather under one roof to keep warm and conserve energy until it was time to venture out to start planting in Spring. 

I'm quite fond of 'C' but hate the American version - one of my tutors called the house decorating the 'Griswold phenomenon'. I think shooting elves is for grown-ups not children. I read the book version of the 'Kranks' film. Written by Stephen King and I found it very horrific - the 'Kranks' grown up children are overseas and will not be coming home for 'C'. They decide to go away for a nice holiday and not to bother decorating the house as they will be away. The pressure they are put under to conform - the whole street has the same huge inflatables to go on their roofs, the firemen are offended that they won't buy their calendar, the boy scouts want them to order the tree from them, the neighbours assume they will be hosting the neighbourhood party, the list of food which 'has to be' bought or made is endless. 

I hate all that kind of forced jollity. I'm very aware of people who have lost someone at the festive period or struggle for other reasons. People who are already financially overstretched, people with MH problems, people with relationship difficulties (that's why the second week in February is the biggest week for people requesting divorces, having been in close proximity to their 'nearest and dearest' over the holidays and then deciding they can't take it for one minute more). Sometimes we just can't feel the 'magic of 'C' and we shouldn't have to do more than we feel able to cope with.

If I'm running a thread in one of the coming months I'll emphasise that it's your 'celebration' and you should feel free to do it your way or even don't do it at all (obviously if children are involved, doing nothing isn't an option). I've done lots of family centred celebrations and if or when I ever have grandchildren, will probably do so again, but currently it's just me and mum, some nice food, the tree (I did make some penguins and reindeer to go in the window last year - the children in the neighbourhood had kept us entertained in isolation, going for walks with their parents).

If you want to stop sending cards or make no present pacts, talk about it early. Don't buy any food your family doesn't love - I always recommend asking each family member to write down 10 food items that make 'C' - if they fail to do so, they are not allowed to complain if it isn't on the table or in the cupboard. I also found writing down what we had left afterwards each year helped cut down spending the year after (my birthday is in January so I put some nice things aside for that). I knew someone who threw a Boxing Day party to 'use up all the leftovers' - I said that that was what I used to get us through January.

If you are having a tough time then you should feel free to absent yourself and spend some quiet time in a bedroom, or outside.

We had to do the asking what 'made 'C' when ours were quite young (probably 8, 6 and 3 yo). My husband contracted an illness that meant he couldn't work, the computer room environment would exacerbate the condition and recovery was anything from 1 to 6 months. We were self- employed so no work meant no income (we would have had to wind up the business to claim benefits). We had to ask some very delicate questions to find out what they wanted. I thought DS2 wanted a Thunderbirds suit and thought I could probably sew one or buy a pair of suitable plain pyjamas and make the hat and a yellow sash. One of the things that was really important to them was getting chocolate money in the bottom of their stockings - only a small expenditure but it would have been so easy to miss it out to save a few pence. 

Nargleblast

Absolutely true, mothernerd. Christmas is what you choose to make it. I detest the elf tradition, just another thing causing stress as the parent (usually the mother) has to think of something different to do with the elf every day. And Christmas Eve hampers!? For goodness sake, don't children get enough presents on Christmas Day? I don't mind letting them open one small family gift on Christmas Eve, but not a whole box full of yet more stuff. 

A few years ago I got a book called Merry Midwinter by Gillian Monks. It covers all the festivals between the end of October and beginning of February, looking at the changing season, signs in Nature, traditions from past times, and stories of the author's family and her childhood memories of seasonal celebrations. It includes ideas for gifts, decorations, and recipes. I get this book out every year in October and read it, following the passage of the days. It's a welcome break from the crass commercial gimme! gimme! Kerching!!