Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

I loved christmas as a kid. The xcitement leading up to it, going to bed early on christmas eve, We always had stockings at the bottom of the bed, and out main presents were downstairs. Dad didn't like turkey so we had duck or goose. Yummy. Happy days.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

you was ever so lucky, early fiftys, a sugar pig was always the main item, mind you i once remember getting an innertube for a bike i had given, oh and a suger pig, is it any surprise i wasnt too keen on christmas,

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Poor you! We always got a sugar pig too. They were quite disgusting. I do remember one year though, 1959, mum had an accident at work so we didnt get anything at all, Devastating!!!

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Oh Irony of irony's, don't tell me let me guess, you had an older brother that told you you couldn't eat your sugar pig 'cos your diabetic', so he did you a favour and ate it for you?
I know mine did, (three years on the trot).
:D

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

What were these sugared pigs of what you speak?

Like a sugar mouse, and not that lass from Yorkshire ?

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Yes, they were just like sugar mice. Pink and sickly. Yuck!

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

So any significance being a pig?

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

My mum used to say a sixpence n an orange if she was lucky, she was born 1934

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

They still make them...

SUGAR PIGS: Retro Sweets From The UKs No 1 Internet Sweetshop

And the Yanks just don't get it...

Hornby Confectionary Sugar Pigs

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

We used to have sugar mice and an apple and an orange in our Stockings , but our big presents were in pillowcases

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

beleave me they wasnt anything like a sugar mouse, it was like a full 1ib of sugar set solid, i can never remember finishing one, usually ended up in the bin, maybe why i dont like sweet things now, scarred for life,

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Well if you didn't get sugar pig or mouse it was novelty soap and you couldn't eat that. The big one 1949/50 was Brumas the baby polar bear. Anybody else get one of those?

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

It's quite a big thing over here especially Holland & Germany, although the pig is made of Marzipan. Think the idea of the pig is more about good luck for the coming year. (always having something to eat) :)

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

yes...I got a Brumas the bear. My aunt Alice had something to do with London Zoo( Was on some committee or other...I can't really see her shovelling elephant poo...she was far too posh for that) she sent me one, but I was never allowed to play with it. It was kept in pristine condition and always on show when she came for a visit.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Yes I never remember using mine - wonder what happened to it

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

I don't know where mine went either Sue...maybe they are together somewhere...playing happily.

We were poor and had some very frugal Christmas times.
One year Ma bought us all selection boxes......not with chocolate in, but with liquorice novelties.....a pinwheel with one of those sweets in the middle with hundreds and thousands on......a pipe with red hundreds and thousands on...a sort of pan pipe thing with comfit in...shoe laces...that kind of thing.
She put them in the attic out of our way......it was damp up there(I think it rained in) and on Christams morning we all got a box of black goo - we still tried to eat it.


Then one year my dad was making presents for us. He woud diappear into the attic and we would hear him hammering and banging.
During the half term holdays we managed to get the key and get into the attic to see what he was making.
I was supposed to be keeping 'cavey' but failed in this duty because I was just as curious as the lads.......Ma(who had been out for a few minutes) came back and copped us all looking at the wooden fort, the garage and the shop.......she went wild and told us that we would not be getting any presents, but instead would get a bag of cinders.
Well, we forgot all about this until christmas morning......we all got up and found four brown paper bags in the hearth......all containing cinders! We all skriked our eyes out
That year we did not get our presents until New Years Day.

That was called 'tough love'.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Something else I used to get at Christmas was pieces of Royal Doulton Bunnykins china - an "auntie" friend of my parents worked at Bridge's china shop. That's something else that's disappeared without a trace. They still make it today but in China I think and it's not quite the same.

Flutterby Patch: The tale of Bunnykins china

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

I had a widowed aunt who had no children.
Sweet rationing was in force until early 50s.
She saved all her sweet coupons for the year and presented both my brother and I with a biscuit tin full of all the sweet goodies that were on sale.

We gorged until nausea set in.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

So no change there then with folks buying the big tins of Quality Street etc. Only difference is they can do it more than once a year - they don't know how lucky they are.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

We were like most people in Accy in the fifties. We had no money and we didnt know what it was like to have special presents, but one Christmas my mam got me and our kid one of those hoop things that you hold over a curly wire or something and you had to move it all the way accross without it buzzing. It was great but she couldnt afford the batteries so we spent all day tryng to get it to the other end taking it in turns of shouting out BUZZZZZZZZ. when the wire was touched.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

great mog i thought that was really inventive,

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Worse than that though was when we could afford some batteries, we never used them because it was more fun our way. Told all my kids and grandkids. They never understand how we could be so grateful for such a simple item.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Found this very deep and questionable explanation... lol :

Investigating The Implications Of Sugar Pigs

Agree with LindaShanks ... they were really sickly.

I just think it was because their shape was the easiest to produce ... :D

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

You are right on the counts of it being deep and questionable Kate.

I quite liked them, but never ate one all at one go......I would nibble it over a couple of days......break pieces off and suck the lovely rose flavoured sweetness.
I only ever got one at Christmas and preferred the sugar pig to the sugar mice......I could eat a sugar mouse in one go!

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Leaving a mince pie & a glass of Sherry outside on Christmas eve, along with some lumps of carrot & swede for father Christmas & his reindeer. :)

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

No wonder he is so obese. Gonna' have the do gooders after us soon ... :D

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Plus Plod trying to do him on a DUTI charge & probably the temperance lobby for encouraging alcoholism ! ;) :D "Merry Christmas" indeed. (let's see who that upsets too ! :s_aim1:)

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

That probably encouraged me to be a drunkard!!:D

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

The only time we had alcohol in the house was at Christmas - usually port or sherry.
My father would give us what he called 'a damp glass'...this was a liquer glas with maybe a teaspoon of port or sherry in the bottom...topped up with about a tablespoon of water.
I didn't like it much and tipped mine into the piano.(my mother couldn't figure out why the keys were sticking).

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

The pillowcase, yes! I remember that. I remember waking up on Xmas morning .... and you could feel the weight of the toy-filled pillowcase. Presents not wrapped; but who gave a fiddlers. Of course, that was after I moved down to live with my grandad on Rishton Rd. He had money. When we lived up on Queen St., and money was tight, (my dad found it difficult to pass by a pub when he had his pay packet) it was a sugar pig, and apple and an orange, and a new penny (which invariably ended up in the gas meter:mad:) And sending notes to Santa up the chimney.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

the notes up the chimney was a classic, i was the clever ---- that didnt beleave, but still the notes went up , i dont really know where i thought they was going, alsorts of dreams about things that our houshold could never afford, but the notes still went up ,

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Yeah ... but do you remember what happened when the sweep did the chimney? Little pieces of paper which had got stuck in the flue came down with the soot.;)

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

You needed encouragement:eek: I always think of you as a self-motivator.;):D

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

*HIDES*
:)

I get sugarmice sent to me quite often lol. It's a nickname from when I did a lot of rescuing and rehoming of rodents, my first hamster was a gorgeous fluffy furbeast called Sugarmouse and my rescue was named after him.
[threadjack/].
I have nothing constructive to put to the xmas thread! :cool:;)

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

It didn't ask for constructive sugarmouse......blow the dust off your memories and post them on here :) I'm sure they would be interesting.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Not sure if I want to,they're all depressing! :D

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

When I was at Benjamin Hargreaves School in Standard 1, Miss Wilson was the teacher. As Christmas neared we were asked to bring jelly and blancmange packets for a party. There was a cooking stove at the back of the classroom and on the morning of the party Miss Wilson cooked the blancmanges. I remember the warmth and the wonderful sweet smell as we did our work. At the party we sat on benches alongside long tables, and one of the benches collapsed at one end and several children slid off. It would be 1944 or 1945. I think the whole school was present but it was a small school. It's the only time I remember a Christmas party at school.

There was a party at New Jerusalem Sunday School as well, one Saturday afternoon, maybe the same year. Father Christmas came and we were given a present and an orange. All the presents were wrapped and I got a paintbox.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

Would that be the New Jerusalem Sunday School in Clayton? I remember going to kids' parties there in the late forties and early fifties. My mom went to that church.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

I expect it was the one in Accy if it were near Benjamin Hargreaves School.

Re: Anyone got tales to tell about childhood chrismas.
 

It was the Accrington New Jerusalem church, the Sunday School on Hargreaves Street.