topic Re: Christmas in the 1950s 🎄 in Off-Topic

Christmas in the 1950s 🎄

RunrigForever — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 10:58:31 GMT

Hi everyone 🔔🎉🎅🎁🎄.

Below, I'll be sharing a story about what Christmas was like for me and my family in the 1950s. Enjoy.

Christmas 1950 style began with mum bringing down the Christmas box of decorations to the living room. Me and my sister would take delight in emptying the box out onto the hearth rug and remember the decorations from the year before. Dad had fettled the lantern tree lights, then we could start decorating the tree. Green tinsel branches hung with individual baubles ..... silver lametta draped over the branches ..... lastly the fairy gracefully placed atop the Christmas tree. The tree was then settled on top of the old black and white tv. The heat from the back of the set and coal fire made the tinsel and lametta shimmer. Colourful paper chains and crepe paper twists hung from the corners of the living room.

Come Christmas Day there was a stocking at the bottom of our beds filled with small goodies including chocolate, which was eaten straight away! Downstairs in the living room a pile of prettily wrapped presents were on the hearth carpet. Such surprise Santa had been.

A full turkey roast dinner with all the trimmings ..... lucky he who got the silver sixpenny piece hidden in the Christmas pudding. The Queen at 3pm followed by The Big Film ..... a buffet tea with a chocolate Yule log taking centre place on the table.

The tv highlight for the day for us kids was Disney Time showing scenes from popular Disney cartoons ... then as it had been a long eventful day not so long before bedtime then mum and dad could have the tv to themselves.

The best part of Christmas was having our dad with us all day every day for a week at Christmas.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera at the time so there are no photos to share.

If you have any past stories to share of Christmas memories, please comment below 😃.

Re: Christmas in the 1950s 🎄

lewys-gp — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 11:12:06 GMT

Lovely topic, @RunrigForever 😊. So nice to read.

Re: Christmas in the 1950s 🎄

TallTrees — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 14:37:56 GMT

Very nice memories @RunrigForever

My memories

The little windows open in the Christmas calendar showing every day of Christmas so exciting. Then up goes the Christmas tree, by Dad, everyone decorates it, usually a fuss over the fairy lights which nearly always needed new funnily shaped and tiny little lights. Then at last Christmas day, the Chef of the day, usually Mum 😁 starts the Turkey dinner and Christmas pudding 🍮 😋

Always enjoyed making the stuffing (not out of a packet) preparing the brussel sprouts and bread sauce. Then the pressure cooker was prepared for steaming the gorgeous plum pudding. Carefully and constantly stirring the sweet white sauce for the pudding 🍮

Pets too enjoyed a special Christmas meal and presents, tearing off the colourful wrapping.

Happy Times. 😊

Re: Christmas in the 1950s 🎄

RunrigForever — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 16:25:47 GMT

Hi @TallTrees

You paint a lovely picture with your words

That plum pudding sounds delicious

Yes, pets play with the Christmas wrapping paper xx

Re: Christmas in the 1950s 🎄

RafaC — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 14:30:07 GMT

@RunrigForever lovely recounting, such a joy to read, brought a smile to my face. Thanks for sharing!

@TallTrees such a pleasure to read your story too, thanks for sharing and loved the bit about your pets getting their share of Christmas treats

When I was a kid, every Christmas was spent at my grandparents house, with many members of the family coming together, aunts, uncles, cousins... a huge feast was prepared by my grandma who is a superb cook. For many years we exchanged our presents after having the Christmas dinner, when it was close to midnight on the 24th, but as my grandparents grew older, we changed that to before dinner, which was good for my eagerness to open all the gifts as quick as I could 🤣

Re: Christmas in the 1950s 🎄

TallTrees — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 15:03:15 GMT

Ah yes the presents 🎁 ☺

@RafaC

I'm a "foodie" so a huge feast sounds fantastic.

Thank you for sharing your Bygone Christmas memories too, lovely 😍

Re: Christmas in the 1950s 🎄

pgn — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 09:05:40 GMT

Those fairy lights could give you quite a belt if you attempted to adjust them on the tree while illuminated... The soldering iron usually appeared to fix a broken connection, and tinsel did not help much in that respect. 😱💥

And the stars were in halves, each side closing over a bulb - but they got lost over the years, so a solution was to take a damaged plastic bauble and slice it in half, and then carefully pushing a naked bulb through the bauble shell to make a kind of reflector and position that in the tree... Oh, such invention whilst avoiding blowing a fuse or getting thrown across the room as 240V surged through your probing fingers to earth.... 😵

It was either that or getting steam scalds as any dented baubles were restored as in...