Bah! Humbug!
 

It’s here again….the winter festival.

You know the thing that 20 years ago was Xmas and 30 years ago was Christmas!

This old fart remembers Christmas past…we did the nativity play, sang carols and we had a tree with about 20 lights and trimmings put up mid December, trimmings incidentally consisting of gummed paper that needed us kids to lick and stick, the old man trying to get them from corner to corner using drawing pins whilst avoiding the light bulb in the middle of the room but still looking symmetrical…advent calendars with nothing behind the doors except a picture and a cut out game on the back. Visiting Santa and getting a balsa wood plane or a paratrooper or a plastic rocket and a roll of caps. The excitement of unwrapping 3 or 4 ‘big’ presents, a couple of selection boxes (also with cut out games on the back), a book and a beano annual, and of course the U2 batteries running out before any shops opened on the 27th.

Cut to winter festival present…trees with 200+ lights, advent calendars stuffed with everything from wine to chocolates, a very dumb ..yep you guessed it.. American idea of.. ‘elf on a shelf’ which forces parents to come up with ideas everyday from the 1st to the 24th, xmas eve boxes with presents for the kids to open the day before.

The magic has gone..or is it just me being an old fart?

Re: Bah! Humbug!
 

Yes, and yes. ;);)

Re: Bah! Humbug!
 

You forgot the satsuma wrapped in coloured tinfoil.
The nuts…in their shells.
Never being able to get a whole Brazil nut out of the shell.
Making boats out of walnut shells.
And as a child being allowed a ‘damp glass’ of some sort of wine.
For thos uninitiated ‘a damp glass’ was a mix of wine and water.

Oh, I have many more memories of these past Christmas celebrations.
Yes it was better back then…it was less commercialised, more personal…and better for it.
I guess that puts me with you Guinness and I really do not mind being an old f*rt….some were not lucky enough to make it.

Re: Bah! Humbug!
 

I always remember my parents taking us to the kids christmas parties at various working men's clubs that he was a member of.

Re: Bah! Humbug!
 

yes and yes.

Re: Bah! Humbug!
 

I remember a very different Christmas when I was a young child to what it is now. My mother would buy three packets of crepe paper and we would sit and make chain decorations out of them, which we would then drawing pin to the walls from corner to corner and up in the middle of the ceiling. It was such a happy fun time sitting and making these. We had some decorations that we kept from year to year and my dad would bring home a real Christmas tree that we would put these on. None of this happened until Christmas week.

On Christmas morning a pillow case would be on my bed and this would hold an orange, nuts (hazelnuts which my dad would have collected from the hedgerows), a book, and there was always one main present, like a doll or a blackboard and easel, I remember getting those. I also know that my mother was in a club for six months, saving to buy presents for us kids. My siblings (all much older than me) got selection boxes but I didn’t like chocolate as it made me feel sick. A coveted bottle of wine might make an appearance for the adults, saved for and treated with respect. The only bottle for the year.

How simple it all was but I guarantee we had more fun then than the children of today have, irrespective of how much money is spent on them. It was a magic time.

Re: Bah! Humbug!
 

The things that I remember most were having Christmas dinner at Grandad’s home. The whole family would get together, granddad, grandma, uncles and aunties, plus my brother and two cousins.
Granddad would butcher 3 of his chickens, so there was enough for everybody.
Then the Christmas crackers would come out and everybody would pull them apart in order to get the hats out and everybody would put his/her hat on.
Great times!

Re: Bah! Humbug!
 

If it is, then that makes two of us and there must be more members of the club out there.

Re: Bah! Humbug!
 

to me the magic is when the kids are young.