I have put this in the - everything else catagory, but I writing about my xmas memories, from childhood, to when I was 30 (at that point - Loved xmas), to the current day where even the mention of it gives me a nervous switch, just after your thoughts on how your xmas were back in the day, and especially from people who were kids in the 80's (was mine a typical experience - cause looking back it seems to describe the dark ages ;-)
Years ago, probably about 6 years past I absolutely adored Xmas, and for the first 20 years I lived for it.
In my younger years in the 80’s xmas was almost a magical time, everything was like clockwork, the family started to ‘stock up’ on goodies a couple of items at a time.
The booze – (which I didn’t have), started to stock up on the golden cheap serving trolley in my nans living room, at about a bottle a week, the first bottle of course was Warniks, (advocate), ensuring that the snowball drink would be readily available for xmas day, and showing the fact that xmas was on its way, a bottle of baileys followed, then mini bottles of babycham , then concord wine, red / rose and white, and of course non alcoholic wine for the drivers, the last to be added was a bottle of whisky, rum and then brandy, underneath the trolley was the stuff everyone could have, the annual tin of chocolates involved a discussion and debate, would it be Quality Street, or Roses, on few occasions we would have both, the box of dates would be proudly put on display for almost everyone to turn their noses up, and then towards xmas itself, the nut crackers and a bowl of shelved hazelnuts, almonds, brazil amongst others would be in the bowl, Satsuma’s were also brought in the last week, although they never lasted long so would be topped up in the last few days.
The last thing to adorn the trolley was the collection of drinking glasses, the number of babycham glasses dwindled each year as inevitably they would get broken by some clumsy sod, then there was an array of all size glasses, not to cater for different types of drink people had, but that’s all the household had.
The cupboards would also be filled up with all the pickles, crisps, peanuts basically enough to feed 5,000.
Two weeks before xmas, someone would go in the loft and bring down the decorations / trimmings, they were particularly old, just cheap and naff, the smell of xmas was dusty tinsel, decorations were sporadic as there wasn’t many, but it seems every part of the house had some sort of plastic glittery item.
The xmas tree was plastic and it seems to take an age to put 3 legs on the bottom of it, and spreading the ‘branches’ was a work of art to try and get it to resemble a tree. There was an unwritten rule when decorating the tree, lights go on first, no question!, as this gave an opportunity to hide the white electric wires which were obvious against the ‘tree green’ branches.
Next was to test the lights, ‘always see if the fuse bulb is working’, and check the plug fuse was the only technical knowledge anyone ever had or needed, we had 2 sets of lights a set of 40 and a set of 20, these were normal bulbs not led, so had a softer glow, the set of lights had ‘shades’ with them, which matched the colour of the bulb, although I mixed the shade colours sometimes to ensure that it did not match the bulb colour, this created a multitude of colours other than the yellow, red blue and green.
Then the tinsel went on, all colours, thicknesses were draped over the branches, and strings of bells and beads next, then finally it’s the baubles, which consisted of every design under the sun, glass, cotton, disco ball, and of course apples and the ‘traditional’ xmas robin that was hidden in the tree.
The bulbs did not flash, although we were aware that we could pop down to Woolworths and get a flasher bulb, (it took years to get it),
The other set of lights were displayed around a door arch.
One new decoration brought every year though was the mini xmas candles, in shapes of santa, snowman, reindeer and other characters, these were placed on a baking tin and not a candle holder, as every time you lit them, within 10 minutes, once the candle burnt down to the painted wax, the flame grew bigger and black smoke would appear, it was quite a sight to see Santa’s face and body melt in that way, the candles would burn about half way through and then blown out for safety sake.
The family always had xmas parties, and depending on what side of the family turned up would dictate how the party went, bring both sides and a fight would eventually break out, the ‘christian side’ of the family would consist of endless cup of teas, and maybe one alcoholic drink, and the typical game of give us a clue would start, the food would be a like a Sunday tea, with Salmon sandwiches and always the shallow bowl of cucumber and onion.
A party involving the other side of the family consisted of endless booze, crates of lager, bitter, cider would appear, and the food was a feast, everyone would bring some sort of food I remember peeling prawns – the first time I every saw one whole. Give us a clue was never played, and it was never an arranged sort of party. But one thing guaranteed was the xmas trifle, which was either perfect or a watery mess, it was a 50/50 each year, the watery mess was due to too much sherry in the jelly.
Xmas dinner of course was always turkey, never a turkey crown but a whole turkey, fresh veg, sprouts with the X as the bottom of them, buttered carrots (basically boiled in water), and a knob of butter melted on top, and as a treat sausage meat was mixed in with the stuffing, all the sauces and condiments were up for grabs, apple, cranberry, freshly mixed powered mustard (with milk), and of course the xmas crackers, which is probably the only thing that hasn’t changed, a paper party hat that caused you to sweat infurously whilst eating you meal, and as you sweated the ink from the hat would stain your head, the crappie jokes and the toy. Of course there was a glass placed for each person, we did the best to match them but someone, ended up with a half pint glass, which wasn’t ideal for red wine.
I remember one year a giant cracker was brought for quite a bit of money, this was proudly displayed as a decoration until xmas day, when pulled it was evident that there was nothing inside, and there was a district lack of a bang, quite disappointing, it was suggested that this was cellotaped up and then stored for a decoration for next year, but in the end it was put in the bin.
There was of course the xmas pudding, with just a dash of whiskey to light (too expensive to drown it), and it was lit with a feeble flame that lasted 3 – 5 seconds, there all done – of course the xmas pudding was shop brought, didn’t have the money for all the ingredients, and the hidden sixpence didn’t exist in our family ‘tradition’, and the mixed powered brandy sauce was poured on each serving, I don’t think anyone really liked the pudding.
Once dinner was over, that was it you either played with your toys you had got for xmas, or joined the rest to watch TV, the snowman would eventually come on TV and there was always sitcom and quiz show xmas specials, everyone would be asleep within an hour, to wake up 3 hours later to get ready for the xmas party.
Boxing day dinner was much of the same, not enough for a xmas cracker for everyone, and things didn’t look the same, the condiment jars half empty and always seemed to be mixed with something else, and the turkey dinner wasn’t the same as it was cold slices rather than freshly carved off the bird. The gravy never warmed the meat up, and not used to having 2 roast dinners in a week, inevitably not all of it was eaten. Again back to the TV, sleep and ready for the family party.
The following week consisted of turkey sandwiches and turkey stew, every dish would contain turkey until all of it had gone, there is a reason why most people only have turkey once a year!.
Each avenue of life also had their typical stance on xmas
At school everyone in infants and juniors would eat in the assembly room, with a mass of tables, decorated with paper table covers, and to ensure that the event went swimmingly a few parents would bring in cakes, mince pies etc, and to ensure that everyone could eat at the same time, you would have to bring your own plate, bowl, knife, fork and spoon, and label them accordingly to ensure that you got it back at the end of the day. Santa would arrive and you would have the debate whenever existed or not, if you were in the infants there was no question obviously he was real, and toward the end of schooling it was obviously that is was one of the kids parents, you could tell as he always smelt of piss and unwashed clothes.
The final day before the school closed over the xmas period was ‘bring a toy to school day’, it wasn’t really for the day though, just for the afternoon after the xmas school meal, kids would bring their toys in although really not willing to share and quite a few got broke over the arguments of not sharing.
Also the school used to put on the nativity pulling out all of the dusty props and if you were a Shephard, you would have to bring a tea towel to wear over your head to ensure you looked the part (never got that one)
Pub
One thing I can remember in the pub was it was all geared up for the xmas party for the kids, a big 5 litre whiskey bottle was on display on the bar, and every time someone had some shrapnel (copper), in their change they would stick this in the bottle, and darts cards profits were also ploughed into the bottle, with the whole intention of raising money for the kids xmas party and gift, this was for the regulars kids. Periodically the gaffer of the pub would empty the bottle (for change for the till), and replace the money with notes, someone always witnessed counting the money, although his integrity was never questioned.
The xmas party was always the weekend before xmas, and a party food buffet was laid on for the kids, there was usually a disco, and a magician or some sort of other entertainment, then of course santa arrived without fail, after all the kids had what they wanted food wise, the buffet was transferred to the bar, where the adults would then eat the scraps.
Church
The church (Pentecostal), was very confusing at xmas, santa was not an integral part of their agenda, the xmas tree was decorated with christian based items, and it seemed that they put it up under duress rather than wanting it. The decorations consisted of a candle on each window sill, decorated with tinsel at the bottom, I’m sure someone was watching out incase the flame ever got within reach of the tinsel.
I think they did do an xmas meal, but as they charged for it we never took them up on the offer, give them their due, they did put a santa on, but was obvious it was the pastors friend who was a regular. Each year a nativity was put on, the best one was when the shepherd brought mercury instead of murr, fancy trying to poision the son of god!. The xmas service was about the same as any other, and they congregation sang carols instead of normal hymns. This was about the time of year when the church gave out a presentation, this was basically a gift from the church (for children), to reward their ‘attendance’, this consisted of 1st prize, 2nd prize 3rd prize and consolation prize for either new kids who joined the church and didn’t have a full years of attendance, or kids that didn’t attend Sunday school each and every week.
The other thing inevitable was the xmas cards, you worked out many people to send to and then brought x amount of xmas card packs, in the 80’s you could go really cheap and buy not what I would call xmas cards, but xmas papers, these were extremely flimsy and consisted of various designs, I always sorted out my cards based on how much I liked a person, a person I liked would get the santa picture, someone remotely religious would get the three wise men following the star card, the people who I didn’t like that much would get the robin pic, and the card Id sent (cause it had to – god forbid you didn’t sent everyone a card in your school year), would get the picture of a naff bauble. These cards never stood up, so to ensure your collection of xmas cards were on display, you would usually hammer two large nails in the wall, attach string either side and then slot the cards in, usually the cards were the wrong way wrong, so sometimes you’ve get a bit of celotape and tape them to the door.
Obviously as time goes by your belief in santa starts to decrease, and you ask questions as to whenever he exists, such as how can santa come down the chimney as we have a gas fire, not a coal one – answer - santa has a special key, another question is how much can santa drink?, I mean a glass of whiskey etc for every household? The actual time I found a bike behind the wardrobe was a time when I thought – no he doesn’t exist, but the final straw was when I told my dad that I didn’t believe in santa anymore as he has the same handwriting as him (santa always left a note), dad didn’t mean to say it but responded by saying – ill write it differently next year.
That was the childhood of xmas, confusing, enjoyable, sometimes magically and sometimes confusing.
The one thing was the build up and availability of stuff, a tin of chocolates were for xmas only, you never seems to see them at any other time, same as nuts, lights, fruit basically everything, now every item is available every day.