Tell Me About Your Favourite Part Of Your Childhood Christmas

[barry1010]

This may seem odd but mine was making 'stained glass windows' at junior school with coloured tissue paper and the school Christmas party jelly and blancmange.

Simple pleasures

[roopower]

Christmas happened overnight on Christmas Eve. My parents must have worked all night to make it happen, we went to bed with nothing - no decorations, no tree and got up to the house decorated and lunch all ready for cooking. We did the same for our children when they were very small. It was magical to see their face when they got half way downstairs as ours must have been for my parents. 

[barry1010]

That's lovely, roo - better I think than being bored with the whole thing before Christmas Day.   Did you go to bed knowing the next day would be Christmas?  When you were very little, obviously

[Hazlinny]

It was seeing what was inside the Christmas stocking - just had to be a jigsaw and books there 😊🧦

[barry1010]

There was always a book on the end of my bed when I woke up - that was my present from Father Christmas.  

[Countrylover]

The whole extended  family going down to Brighton and spending Christmas in my Uncle Charlie's seafront hotel.  Loads of kids and lots of fun for 3 days

[Redhelen72]

It was generally when we saw my dia (grandfather) Xmas as a child was full of tensions! Mother wanted a perfect Xmas and if you didn't react in the right way or grateful enough she would go off on one. The only time it didn't happen was when Dia was about 

[barry1010]

Christmas can be incredibly stressful for parents.  A disappointed child is a heartbreak for the parent.

[nicebloke1]

It was exciting making the Christmas calendar at school, it was made over about 2 / 3 weeks off and on. The glory bit was when the teacher handed out that little like book with the month and dates for the following year to glue on to the bottom. Job done, then allowed to take home and show off. :0)

[barry1010]

I'd forgotten about those calendars, thank you

[nicebloke1]

You could only take it home on the last day, after the party. :0))

[Patsy33]

Helping to make those coloured paper link chains with my sister. Then Mum would hang them around the room with a few balloons. Most favourite was waking up to a pillow case each at the bottom of our bed, brimmed full of presents. We were so excited to see what Mum had got us. She couldn't afford a lot but never disappointed. My Father used to tell her to just get us a writing book and pencil each! 😁

[barry1010]

Patsy, my tongue has gone dry just thinking about making the paper chains.  Looking back I wonder if my parents knew what they were doing with their balloon arrangements, one round balloon each side of a sausage balloon. 

[Patsy33]

Yes, my Mother used to arrange the balloons like that too! 😲

[rowanwitch]

After tea,  the smaller presents from under the tree always included some annuals, mine were normally Blue Peter and one of my comic favourites, some crayons and colouring books.  

[nicebloke1]

Theres one thing that was in my stocking that I hated, sugar mice, did anyone even eat them? And they still sell them to this day. Yuck!

[roopower]

Barry, I can't remember if we knew it was going to be Christmas, it didn't start in October like it does now, of course. I suppose I must have had some idea but it certainly didn't stop the magic. 

[barry1010]

Sugar mice put my teeth on edge, I never did like fondant.

[jourdain2]

So much!  Christmas was  magical - because, I suppose, the rest of the yearwas much of a muchness in the mid 1950's.

Hours and hours making paper-chains with my sister.  We had shiny squares of paper to cut into strips and glue together.  Then decorating the old, artificial tree and re-discovering the robin, angel and other ancient decorations.  Fastening new birthday-cake candles into the clup-on candle-holders for the tree and lighting them for the first time - no grown-ups around!

Heating pennies on chestnut-roasters over the openfire and making holes in the ice on the window so we could see out.

Early Christmas morning, scrambling to the bottom of the bed to find presents to  occupy us, 'School Friend' annual perhaps and a sugar mouse.

Christmas Day driving past 'Sooty's House' at Guisely on our way to a more distant cemetery, following which we called at an 'Auntie & Uncle's' & played with their children for a while.

Hearing Mum and Dad arguing inthe car on the way back as to whether the turkey (left in the oven) would be overcooked.  

Christmas dinner in the evening around the table in the oak-beamed dining-room and the distribution and opening of presents afterwards.

Simple days and happy ones. 

[Buenchico]

I've really struggled to remember any particular Christmas highlight from my childhood - apart, of course, from opening all my presents!

However I have remembered that, although I absolutely detested having a traditional roast dinner every Sunday lunchtime, Christmas Day was the only day in the year that I got to eat a type of roast meat that I really liked (because it was far too expensive for my mother to buy for any other day of the year).  Yes, for me, Christmas Day was chicken day!

[barry1010]

Chicken was a luxury, it had to last us three days when I were little.

I so hope everyone has some happy memories of their childhood Christmas