Christmas past!

[zip55]

Re: Christmas past!

Unfortunately I am old enough to remember real candles on our Xmas tree, before fairy lights came in ...

[Grosh62]

Re: Christmas past!

WOooooh!

[Grosh62]

Re: Christmas past!

Christmas in 1970s Dewsbury W.Yorks before the bad press was great. Santa came round the villages on a low back truck to collect letters from the kids. He went back to his Grotto in J&Bs department store and gave out Matchbox cars just for telling him what you wanted for Christmas. life was so simple then.

[Megawitch]

Re: Christmas past!

Unfortunately I am old enough to remember real candles on our Xmas tree, before fairy lights came in ...

Me too! A H & S no no nowadays!

As a child we had a big box of tree decorations that was kept all year on top of the wardrobe in Mum & Dad's room. The baubles were all glass then and very fragile. one of our favourites was a clear glass ball with a panda painted on it. My sister once went to get something from the wardrobe and pulled it over onto herself. Many of the baubles got broken in the fall but luckily not Panda. I don't know what eventually happened to him as we all grew up and left home.

[RetroAEROSMITH]

Re: Christmas past!

One of my faves was a wind up church/chapel that played "the first noel" i think...and if you looked through the window which i had broken you could see the mechanics that created the music...it was one of those rollers that had spikes on at intervals that struck on the relevant strand of metal and created the tune...it was amazing to me, not sure where it went though. When i sit down and think of all the things id cherish if i still had them these days compared to when i did have them and thought they were tat i could scream. These days things are so disposable, year after year I/we replace decorations that have nothing wrong with them for newer ones just because "this year i want a black tree with all red decorations"..its crazy.

[tulip]

Re: Christmas past!

I can confirm that toilet roll tubes are now banned which I think is a piece of nonsense.We have to use a cut down kitchen roll tube,which is not the same,I admit to using a toilet roll tube from time to time.We used to make a snowman from a toilet roll tube,ping pong ball and wait for it......yet another thing that is banned.A meat tray!!!!!!!!He was lovely,did that with gran.I remember all the glass balls too that cracked in your hand and we had a white christmas tree,which I posted here somewhere before.

tulip

[Austin Maxi]

Re: Christmas past!

Probably the most memorable Christmases for me were from the early '80s. I recall the crepe paper-type paper chains which came rolled up in several joined-up colours and you had to unroll them and twist them round a few times to create the pattern before hanging them up on the ceiling - hard to describe them accurately, but if you find a 1970s or '80s Giles cartoon with a scene of the Giles family at home at Christmas, there's usually a few of those decorations depicted. Our tree was always a fake one, no need to hoover up pine needles when the decs came down, and it had a decorative gold star on top, and plenty of tinsel, baubles and lights on it (as most did).

Back then the Christmas TV consisted of stuff like Roland Rat Christmas specials in the morning, and The Two Ronnies or a repeated Morecambe & Wise from the '70s later in the day. Usually there was an early 'Only Fools And Horses' Christmas special on as well.

I remember getting a large yellow plastic sledge as one of my presents one year, which was handy because it snowed later that winter and I was able to put it to good use on the paths which ran from the top of the close I lived in down to an underpass which lead to the back of the junior school I went to until '83.

[stockportyears]

Re: Christmas past!

Back then the Christmas TV consisted of stuff like Roland Rat Christmas specials in the morning, and The Two Ronnies or a repeated Morecambe & Wise from the '70s later in the day. Usually there was an early 'Only Fools And Horses' Christmas special on as well.

I was a huge Two Ronnies fan growing up, particularly Barker, and watched anything they were on, even in the middle of Christmas Day. Strangely enough, although I love them now, through tv repeats and You Tube vids of sketches, I didn't really appreciate Eric and Ernie at the time, I kind of thought they were more for my mum, who didn't like the Ronnies but loved Morecambe and Wise - it was a bit of a generational thing.

Only Fools and Horses at that time appealed to everybody. 'To Hull and Back' was one of the funniest tv specials ever, that was when the show really peaked. I think they should have given up sooner than they did to be honest, the last two or three 'specials' really weren't up to much, and even when the show went to an hour in about 88-89, although there were some hilarious moments, like the blow-up dolls and the 'Groovy Gang' episodes, at times I think they were more interested in telling us a story about Del and Rodney's love lives than making us laugh.

[darren]

Re: Christmas past!

I can confirm that toilet roll tubes are now banned which I think is a piece of nonsense.We have to use a cut down kitchen roll tube,which is not the same,I admit to using a toilet roll tube from time to time.We used to make a snowman from a toilet roll tube,ping pong ball and wait for it......yet another thing that is banned.A meat tray!!!!!!!!He was lovely,did that with gran.I remember all the glass balls too that cracked in your hand and we had a white christmas tree,which I posted here somewhere before.

tulip

what is wrong that toilet roll tubes are banned.

a kitchen roll tube is not the same.

[stuckinthe80's]

Re: Christmas past!

Toilet roll tubes are a bit unhygienic for kids to be playing about with I would think.

[stockportyears]

Re: Christmas past!

Toilet roll tubes are a bit unhygienic for kids to be playing about with I would think.

In third year infants, our teacher gave us her old cigarette packets to make things out of!

[stuckinthe80's]

Re: Christmas past!

In third year infants, our teacher gave us her old cigarette packets to make things out of!

LOL!! Thats brilliant!!

[smiles7964]

Re: Christmas past!

RetroAEROSMITH, my parents still have that church! Only ours played silent night, and it lit up. Don't think it does anymore. They still have loads of old xmas decs that come out every year! From before the 70's even! I'll try and take some pix this year to post! : )

[darren]

Re: Christmas past!

cant the see rhe problem inusing using loo roll tubes..
cant believe they got banned.
yes i also made a snowman from a toilet roll tube.

I can confirm that toilet roll tubes are now banned which I think is a piece of nonsense.We have to use a cut down kitchen roll tube,which is not the same,I admit to using a toilet roll tube from time to time.We used to make a snowman from a toilet roll tube,ping pong ball and wait for it......yet another thing that is banned.A meat tray!!!!!!!!He was lovely,did that with gran.I remember all the glass balls too that cracked in your hand and we had a white christmas tree,which I posted here somewhere before.

tulip

[bakermuk]

Re: Christmas past!

We had three "Father Christmases" - small (about 3 inches tall) little rotund figures that always sat on the mantlepiece. There was a red, white and green one. Each held a tiny sprig of tree in a hand - which was actually coloured pipe cleaner.....!!I wonder what heppened to them!