General Chat

Glad I reminded you of the Lavender Polish. :-)

Mum used to use it every Saturday morning on her wardrobes and dressing table. She put on the polish, and I buffed it up. It was birds eye maple, and I could always 'see' faces in the wood.

We also had a mirror on a chain in the living room, and tinsle was draped around it, and a HUGE christmas cracker was plonked in the middle of the frame.

:-D :-D :-D

Oh yes Choccy. Sugar mice!! & an aunt always used to buy me a cardboard figure of some sort, filled with useless little trinkets such as toy jewellery. I thought they were marvellous.
For me it still isn´t Christmas unless I can spend Christmas Eve in front of a roaring fire with a box of Turkish Delight, a bowl of nuts, a glass of port & a good book.
Hardly ever happens now, sad to say.

and those 'magic painting' books that you 'painted' with water and colours appeared :-)

and then, 'serious' painting sets - painting by numbers - I loved those.

dont forget the jigsaw puzzle that came from aunty...... :-D

And fuzzy felt, and those boards with pegs that you made pictures on with coloured elastic bands...

I loved getting a new scrap book.
Used to buy Angel scraps and old style scraps,
spent hours sticking them in the book :-)

Edit...I also liked to get Jacks and something I
can't remember the name of it :-S
You put it in the palm of your hand and it moved by its self,
Dad said there was a grub inside it that's why it moved...HELP
anyone know what it was???

My Sisters and I always got Matey Bubblebath at Christmas from one of our Aunties(every year), also a certain box of chocolates but I cannot remember them yet :-S :-D :-D

Yes the box of chocs I had would have a thatched cottage picture and a satin bow across the corner.

I only saw sweet cigarettes at Christmas. I always had a packet in my stocking! I bet they don't do those nowadays! Also in my stocking would be a packet of chocolate coins in gold foil wrappers. Remember the foil milkbottle tops that would have holly print at Christmas.

Lots of drawing pins........everyone seemed to put up garlands on the ceiling then, either paper chains or other home made twisted crepe paper ones. Then there were the concertina tissue ones that were a devil to fold back up after Christmas.

My stocking consisted of an apple, orange (if there were any) a shiny new penny, a book, and a new pencil box that I asked for every year. The wooden ones with the slide out lid, and you twisted it to get into the bottom compartment.

Another vivid Christmas memory.
My grandfather reared what he called "roosters". We would go to Romford market at Easter to buy six young birds which were fattened up for Christmas, by which time they were huge.

A few days before Christmas I would go to his house to help with the ritual of the Christmas massacre - I would be about 12 yrs old.

Grandfather would disappear into the darkness toward the chicken house.
The kitchen door would open and an arm thrust through the door clutching a large chicken by its legs, Very dead, but still flapping its wings.
This would be repeated until all six birds arrived in the kitchen.

My job was to sit at the large kitchen table with my grandmother, plucking the still warm birds.
Halfway through there would be feathers everywhere, in my hair, up my nose, everywhere. I always felt that I was running alive. Yuck.
At the point where my grandmother would "clean them out" I would make a sharp exit. I had no stomach for that.

I got quite good at it, but doubt I would fancy it now.
Grandfather kept one bird for them, and the rest were sold to order.

Now it's so much easier to go to the supermarket.

Merry Christmas,

Tec

A jumping bean. Emma?

Maddie I loves ya....been trying to
remember but nothing was coming
through the little grey cells <3 :-D :-D

You can still buy a form of sweet cigs but they have no red end and are called Candy Sticks.

Wasnt we grateful for the stuff we got,compared to todays toys more thought went into them for value for money and the home made clothes for the doll were done with lots of thought,the home made dolls house ,what time and energy went into make one,during the evenings after a long days work by dad.

the simple games ,children wouldnt thank you for now days.

Snakes and Ladders.
Ludo,
Tiddley Winks,
Draughts,
Snap Cards.

all played by the whole family over christmas..

what about brandy snaps ,we also used to get toffee in a block with a little hammer,sorry I cannot remember the make.

There were chocolate smoker's sets too. A chocolate cigar and a pipe and some other things used by smokers.

I remember the chicken plucking bit but always thought the really most unpleasant part was when the stubbly bits were burned off. Oh boy, did that bit stink?!

Think it was Bluebird toffee with the hammer.

Plasticine also comes to mind (not with a hammer) - coloured ridged sticks in a packet.

we had six chickens in the shed one year - all being made ready for Christmas and earmarked for various family members - all family members got theirs and the one we kept for ourselves dropped dead on Christmas Eve so my Dad had to go down the woods on Christmas Eve and find some pheasants to shoot - in the dark - fortunately he knew where they roosted and was lucky to shoot two who were roosting side by side, so Christmas dinner was saved that year :-D

Plasticine was only different colours until some time usually before New Year when it became a uniform brown colour apart from the bits trodden into the carpet.

Nobody in the history of the world ever mixed their paints in the lid of their paint box I am sure.

When Fred first came home from hospital after having his stroke I started him colouring with crayons and I wanted to get him to try painting as well but you just can't get those little paint boxes any more. Not round here anyway.

I did get one in Lidl but it wasn't the same.

I loved the painting boxes I received at Christmas.

All those fabulous names Burnt Siernna, Cadmium Blue, Crimson Lake, Ochre.

No wonder I became a world famous artist!!!!!!

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D ;-)

Thankyou for this lovely thread. I have just read right through and it really has brought back a lot of memories from my childhood too.

yes we always cracked mixed nuts in the afternoon after xmas lunch. We always ate at 1pm so that everything was cleared away ready to sit and listen to the Queen's speech.

Tangerines, dates, turkish delight and my dad loved meltis fruits(juicy jellies).
Grandma had after eights and they were only allowed after 8pm lol

We also got square tins which had a picture on the front and wrapped toffes of liquorice, vanilla and other toffee flavours..cant remeber what they were called.

Boxing day we got "tree presents" at grandmas. little gifts she put on the tree to amuse us so the adults had a cuppa in peace. They would be a bead making set or small puzzles etc. kept us busy for ages and never got bored.

Watched morcombe and wise or the 2 ronnies or played monopoly.

yep lots of things now spring to mind.
Those were happy days and we had less but we never went without.

Today, we live in a materialistic, gadet controlled world where everyone needs to have the latest thing... but we tire of these things too quickly and then we become bored. traditional games and toys will never fail to amuse..we just need to be reminded of them from time to time.

Florence
in the hebrides :-) :-)

Yes, Florence I agree a lovely thread. It has brought back many happy memories of my childhood Christmases.

The front room was always opened up for Christmas (it was too expensive to have a fire lit in both the front and back room all through the winter). I can remember the roaring fire, the smell of pine and that of oranges and tangerines, the windows partially frosted up on the single panes of glass.

Mum would leave some biscuits and a small glass of milk on the hearth for Santa and getting up earlier to see if the biscuits had been eaten and the milk drunk and the sheer excitement to see that they had.

In my stocking would be an apple, orange, a piece of coal, sweeties, a little toy (like 5 stones), a little dress that Mum would have made for a favourite doll and Dad would wrap up a couple of presents with Christmas paper on the outside and layer upon layer of newspaper inside (a bit like a pass the parcel present) and when I got to the present it was something like a packet of sweet cigarettes.
Mum and Dad got as much enjoyment watching me as I did opening my stocking.

At Christmas we had pop like White's Cream Soda this was a real treat something that we would only otherwise have on a birthday if we were lucky.

Dad would save up and buy Mum a big box of Dairy Box her favourites.

We had the mixed nuts, fruit, dates, figs, tinned biscuits and sweets. We roasted chestnuts in the fire too and had homemade pickled onions and chutneys.

In this day and age it wouldn't seem much but like most others it was all my parents could afford but I never felt I had missed out on anything.

Those Christmases came with much love......priceless <3 <3