Christmasses

So, what kind of Christmas in which era did you experience.
Mine was generally 50/60's the 50's Christmasses seem more vivid, by the 60's I knew a bit more what it was about.
For us we would have a Christmas tree, free for the workers, delivered on the last working day before Christmas, it was usually 6ft. We decorated it and the room with paper chains, a few baubles carefully kept over the years, small candles in metal clip on holders - we never light them ( have you seen a pine tree burn) and a bit of tinsel, quite expensive at the time and of course the lights which needed each bulb to be screwed firmly into its holder before they would work, how did they become unscrewed anyway, laying in their box for 10 or so months.
Mam would begin preparing the puddings and cake during November, the cake would be put in a biscuit tin to mature until brought out for icing. The puddings would be omn the shelf in the larder with their linen covers, nuts collected earlier in the year were also carefully stored in biscuit tins for Christmas. The smell was gorgeous. Christamas Day would be waking up and checking your stocking usually an orange, peanuts, a bag of gold coins and a small gift or two, then downstairs for your main presents, annuals of the Beano, Girl, Eagle and sometimes one of Hollywood actors and actresses, all with those portrait type photos. I would get a set of clothes and a main present - a nurses outfit and bag, a Cinderella watch, a kind of typewriter where you had to turn a wheel for each letter ( bit like a prototype Enigma machine!) that type of thing, there always seemed to be that Christmas new present smell. Everyone went to church first thing then back to dinner - chicken with all the extras, around a table packed with family and friends and a few waifs and strays, my brothers would come home from the services with mates who had no time to get home (48 hour pass) or had no where to go. People or would spend at least two nights sleeping 3 or 4 to a bed or on the settee or two arm chairs pushed together - it was a magical time for me. Can you imagine having strangers in your home like that now.

Thats a lovely post Vintage, it brings back memories of my own childhood Christmases.
My sister and I would make our own streamers and decorations out of crepe paper, then string them up around the walls....I'm sure they looked a mess, but we thought they were great.

My mum always managed to buy us exactly what we wanted, and it always came as a suprise, plus a Christmas annual,  usually Bunty or Judy, and like you, fruit, nuts, dates  and small  presents to unwrap, though mum placed them in a pillow slip not a stocking.
Happy memories. Mam died in 2010, she shared every single Christmas with us, there is something missing now she is no longer here.

I remember I pled and bled for a spirograph one year. It turned out to be a huge disappointment.

HoratioTarr wrote:I remember I pled and bled for a spirograph one year.   It turned out to be a huge disappointment.

Really? I had a spirograph and I loved it!

I bet no one had a Muffin the mule.

No, no Muffin the mule.
The only thing I remember wanting but not getting was a monkey 'doll'. We used to go into the nearest town on Saturdays just to look around the shops, one Saturday in Woolworths, I saw a chimpanzee type doll, quite big, it had flexible legs and arms and they were displayed on poles on the corner of the counters as if they were climbing, they looked very lifelike to a 6 year old and I dearly wanted one. Sadly they were very expensive so I didn't get one. Thinking about I don't ever remember seeing anyone with one.

I dont think I ever saw a monkey doll Vintage....maybe they were a limited edition or something.

My favourite doll when I was little, in fact the only doll I ever got attached to was one I named Nancy.
All the other kids had white dolls with blue eyes and blonde hair that you could comb. Nancy was black and her hair wasn't really good for combing, she had the most gorgeous face, and I really loved that doll. She was unusual at the time (I am talking late 1950's)....I dont think I had ever seen a black person in real life so it was unusual to have a black doll.

My father was a forester and worked mainly up on the hills and mountains and he used to find odd bits and pieces in some fairly inaccessible places, hardly anyone had cars and the roads in the forest were very rough so few people would go there for a trip out. One day he came home with a doll, a black doll, I'd never seen one before, that was in the late 50's.

When I was a kid we lived in a pre-Revolutionary war home in Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. There was a closet which had a secret hutch in the back, used to hide runaway slaves in the underground railroad. There, my sister and I found bunches of toys used to occupy the kids of runaway slaves.

Vintage wrote:So, what kind of Christmas in which era did you experience.
Mine was generally 50/60's the 50's Christmasses seem more vivid, by the 60's I knew a bit more what it was about.
For us we would have a Christmas tree, free for the workers, delivered on the last working day before Christmas, it was usually 6ft. We decorated it and the room with paper chains, a few baubles carefully kept over the years, small candles in metal clip on holders - we never light them ( have you seen a pine tree burn) and a bit of tinsel, quite expensive at the time and of course the lights which needed each bulb to be screwed firmly into its holder before they would work, how did they become unscrewed anyway, laying in their box for 10 or so months.
Mam would begin preparing the puddings and cake during November, the cake would be put in a biscuit tin to mature until brought out for icing. The puddings would be omn the shelf in the larder with their linen covers, nuts collected earlier in the year were also carefully stored in biscuit tins for Christmas. The smell was gorgeous. Christamas Day would be waking up and checking your stocking usually an orange, peanuts, a bag of gold coins and a small gift or two, then downstairs for your main presents, annuals of the Beano, Girl, Eagle and sometimes one of Hollywood actors and actresses, all with those portrait type photos. I would get a set of clothes and a main present - a nurses outfit and bag, a Cinderella watch, a kind of typewriter where you had to turn a wheel for each letter  ( bit like a prototype Enigma machine!) that type of thing, there always seemed to be that Christmas new present smell. Everyone went to church first thing then back to dinner - chicken with all the extras, around a table packed with family and friends and a few waifs and strays, my brothers would come home from the services with mates who had no time to get home (48 hour pass) or had no where to go. People or would spend at least two nights sleeping 3 or 4 to a bed or on the settee or two arm chairs pushed together - it was a magical time for me.  Can you imagine having strangers in your home like that now.

The lovely memories you invoke, warm the cockles of my heart. *deep sigh*

Of course hindsight tells us that those olden times were not as innocent or as gentle as we remember them to be. There was always plenty of unsavoury stuff going on, certainly in the world at large. 

But our parents went all out to make our Christmasses as happy as they could. Can't have been easy. For that I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

Yes Jules, little has actually changed in this world of ours, except that we all know about the horrors happening anywhere almost immediately.
I most certainly agree with what you say about our parents.

Original Quill wrote:When I was a kid we lived in a pre-Revolutionary war home in Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia.  There was a closet which had a secret hutch in the back, used to hide runaway slaves in the underground railroad.  There, my sister and I found bunches of toys used to occupy the kids of runaway slaves.

Sounds like a wonderful place to grow up in, for so many reasons.

Original Quill wrote:When I was a kid we lived in a pre-Revolutionary war home in Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia.  There was a closet which had a secret hutch in the back, used to hide runaway slaves in the underground railroad.  There, my sister and I found bunches of toys used to occupy the kids of runaway slaves.

If only toys could talk, I bet they would have some fascinating tales to tell.