Childhood Memories of Christmas

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Amor Vincit Omnia
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Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Listening to the famous piece by Dylan Thomas the other day, I thought it might make a nice thread for this week.

I think it was probably the last Christmas when I believed in everything, so to speak. We had had one of those solid fuel heating burners installed, so there was no way he was coming down the chimney. My parents assured me that he knew about it and they would leave the back door on the latch. I decided, with dogged determination beyond my years, to prop myself up in bed and wait him out.

I still remember my first words when I woke and made out the parcels in the half light at the foot of the bed: “Bloody hell, he’s been!”

My grandfather was very old-fashioned, almost Dickensian, and he had a wealth of funny little sayings that he would trot out at regular intervals. I think he would have made a good Pumblechook. Every Christmas day, at around 10 o’clock in the evening, he would take himself off to bed having first said to everyone in the room: “Well, it’s as far away as ever it was!” I’ve never heard it before or since.

Let’s hear them…get us in the mood! :santa: :snowman: :santaclaus: :tree:
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by iain »

For me the best part of Christmas has always been the excitement of the build up rather than the day itself. Although as a child the excitement of having new toys to play with on the day was always a great time.

My favourite childhood memories are the events you tick off along the way to the big day itself. It started at school when the parts for the Christmas nativity play were announced. I never had a big part, one year I was tree when we did the Wizard of Oz and one year I was a star. As in an actual star. I was one of the plough and we got turned down for the job of leading the main characters to Bethlehem in favour of the main star. The joys of being a teacher and having to find every child a part no matter how small. The actual play came later but rehearsals for it was the first sign Christmas was nearly here.

Then we had the 1st of December and the opening of the advent calendar. We never had one with gifts behind each door, every day just had a Christmas picture but it was part of the excitement anyway.

School had us making some sort of decorations out of coloured paper that my parents would always put up at home. Then of course there was the putting up of the tree at home, which seems to happen much earlier now. I remember the brightly coloured decorations that streamed across the ceiling in our lounge, you don’t really see them anymore but here’s what they looked like. They probably got banned as a fire hazard looking back.

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Then it was the school Christmas party where Santa always came to say hello and gave everyone a selection box of chocolates. Before finally the last day of school, when we all got to bring in games to play instead of normal lessons.

Who was given their mums catalogue to read through and show you mum pictures of toys you might want to ask Santa for? Then you mum saying it was unlikely Santa could afford those so suggesting something else instead, only to then realise on the day you had got that bike you really wanted after all.

Then finally it was here, Christmas Eve when you put out a glass of milk and a mince pie. Santa still likes a mince pie but he gets a bottle of beer in our house these days.

Then it was here, all morning spent in pyjamas before your mum made you stop playing with your toys and get dressed before dinner (at dinner time of course, not tea time)

And finally it was all over, before the excitement for my birthday on New Year’s Day started building on Boxing Day.
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Thanks, Iain. Some great description to set the ball rolling there. The anticipation was always a great part of it for me too. I’ve always thought that the beginning of Advent is the right time to start pushing Christmas, but the commercial world thinks otherwise. I wonder whether kids are a little more desensitised nowadays because they start seeing Christmas stuff in the shops as soon as they go back to school in September!

Presents never seem to be that important, although I remember receiving lots of them and choosing them carefully for other people. My favourite one of all was a book given to me by an uncle. It was a kind of children’s Encyclopedia with an atlas section and chapters about countries, continents and so on. I don’t think my head came out of that book for about three days. I was about nine, and I think it might have had a hand in kickstarting my lifelong passion for languages and geography.

The gift from my maternal grandmother never varied: a pair of grey school type socks with a two shilling coin (10p) in the toe. My cousins all got the same as well.

I don’t remember many white Christmases, they always seemed to be mild and dry. I’m sure that wasn’t always the case but that’s the impression I’m left with.
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by iain »

I was always guaranteed to get in my stocking a pound note (later a coin), some bubble bath, and a soap on a rope.

I suppose this was my mums way of keeping the tradition started with the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh by giving two toiletries for every decent present.
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by mvlow »

Each year we had a tradition of making paper decorations as a family by gluing little strips of colored paper into chains and hanging them from the ceiling. We would also each make a star out of two coat hangers tied together and wrap them in tin foil and Christmas streamers to hang from the ceiling. It was always fun on Christmas Day hoping you would be the lucky one to get the sixpence hidden in the Christmas pudding. It was amusing to wait for my oldest aunt and uncle to visit on Christmas morning with a present for socks or underwear, the same as every year before.

Staying up all night waiting for Santa, then sneaking downstairs and opening presents before we were supposed to in the early hours of the morning. Even figuring out how to make a stink bomb with that gleaming new chemistry set long before Mum had even woke up and somehow managing to not burn the house down playing with all the chemicals in the set.
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by Richard D »

My abiding memory of my childhood Christmas was how different it was from my English Friends. Mine was a Polish Christmas, one that can best describe as a quaint. Polish Christmas celebrations take place on 24th December, it is one of the most significant and family-oriented dates in the calendar. Many institutions stop working earlier than usual on the day of Christmas Eve. Something my father always managed to do, leaving his office early and arriving home around 4pm. As a child I remember how excited I was to see him pulling up on the drive, for me it was the start of Christmas. That’s despite my mother and grandmother cooking and baking, for what seemed weeks, filling the house with the most amazing aromas. I remember my friends queuing to taste my mum’s cakes, and that is no exaggeration.

According to an old Polish legend, animals are granted the gift of speech on Christmas Eve as a reward for their role in welcoming Jesus on earth. As a result, children often try to extract a word or two out of bewildered family pets including my efforts with my cat.

About 7pm my family would gather in our garden, no matter the weather, to wait until the first star to appear in the sky before sitting down to eat on 24th December. This tradition commemorates the Star of Bethlehem, which according to the New Testament guided the Wise Men to the birthplace of Christ. Honestly, I can’t remember ever seeing a star. Kinda difficult living in the city with all the light pollution around us, but we did our best.

Our supper began with a prayer led by my father followed by the sharing of the Opłatek. A blessed unleavened wafer made of flour and water embossed with a religious image. Every person gets one and then shares pieces of it with everyone else. This is accompanied by exchanges of good wishes and occurs before sitting down to eat. This tradition is linked to the breaking of bread at the Last Supper. For whatever reason my grandmother would break the biggest pieces off.

My favourite tradition was when we all sat down at the table to taste a traditional Christmas dishes one place remained empty. Many Poles leave an empty place set at the table in case a person down on luck should show up and ask for shelter. While this rarely happens nowadays, the tradition nevertheless requires that lone strangers be taken in and treated as family. It’s the one tradition that I still maintain today. If you are ever of need, my home is yours.

A traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner consists of 12 dishes. One for each month of the new year. Classic Polish Christmas dishes include, amongst others, pierogi ruskie and the poppy seed cake known as Makowiec, still my favourites.

After supper is when we would dive into our Christmas presents before setting off for midnight mass. I remember a few old boys and girls who, let’s say, had enjoyed their shots of vodka with their Christmas supper.

The walk home with my family was and still is one of my fondest memories, out in the still of the night was a treat for a young boy who could not wait to explore the world.

Christmas Day was fun too, a big family and friends gathering at the Polish club. Lots of singing, including seasonal songs called Pastorałki, dancing, eating and drinking but not necessarily in that order. The Children were treated to a traditional Nativity play and we got to make a Christmas crib, something that even as a child I excelled in. Possibly explains why I went on to teach woodwork.

There you go my childhood Christmas.
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Some fantastic replies here. A Polish Christmas sounds just wonderful!
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by Macdaz »

I’ve pinched an extract from a thread I started a while back about my first watch:

“It was presented like a bar of gold one Christmas morning: a shiny, perfect circle of magnificence that was everything I wanted it to be. The sweeping red hand, the numbers and indices that actually glowed in the dark because, so my Dad told me, they were radioactive! But most of all there was the noise. It didn’t tick or tock, the noise it made was a symphony of wonder that is the thing I most remember about this watch.

The sound was a rapid, metallic plink plink plink plink plink. A siren song which when amplified by the night and sung from my bedside table, gave me comfort in the dark, protected me from the monsters and sang the lullaby that sent me to sleep, every night for years. It was a constant through the Christmas Eves when I tried desperately to sleep before Santa arrived. It brought me back to safety when I jolted awake from a nightmare and it taunted me during the endless summer days when, early to bed, I was expected to sleep when the sun was still shining and I knew the older kids were playing outside the window. I never went out without it, I felt naked if I did. It was my armour, my shield, my badge of honour and my constant companion. My strongest childhood memory is that watch and when I think of those times, in my head, I still hear the sound.”

Christmas Eve night was always spent on a camp bed at my grandmother’s and in an unfamiliar room the plink gave me comfort whilst simultaneously sounding as loud as Big Ben as I tried desperately to fall asleep. Never do I think of this sound more than on Christmas Eve. I wore the watch long after I stopped believing in the big man, but it will always be the sound of Christmas to me.
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by Noush »

I have a rather odd relationship with Christmas. It has worked such that some of the worst things that have happened in my life have aligned with this time of year. My wife passing on Christmas Day 7 years ago and goodness knows how many other things. It's a long list...

Anyhow, I would like to recount a story of a special one that will live with me forever and it goes back to the end of my High School days. And for me it was what Christmas should be about and not what it too often is...

The frame here is that in Australia, Christmas is in summer and it gets light about 5am. So our next door neighbour has a small daughter, I think 7 or 8 at the time. He wanted to give her a swimming pool for Christmas. We are talking an above-ground thing maybe 15 foot diameter, 3 foot 6 deep. Ladder in and out, filtration and pump all that sort of stuff. We had all the pieces stored under our house: we had somewhere closed off and large enough.

So the challenge was, on Christmas Eve after she went to bed for 3 of us - neighbour, my Dad and me to make it happen overnight. The ground had to be shaped, levelled and prepared, layer of sand underneath. Filled with a LOT of water, hoses from both houses, all the ancillary pieces installed and working etc. A lot of work and took indeed all night. We started maybe 10pm and finished just before light.

Afterwards my Dad and I sat out on the porch opposite the neighbour's house with a coffee, exhausted, and waited until the little girl was brought out in the early morning light. The sound of incredulous glee and excitement of that little girl lives with me to this day. And I have to tell you, so much so that I am practically choking up in telling the tale right now. Now THAT was a Christmas!
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by trsullivan »

Noush, I teared up a bit reading your post. That WAS a Christmas!

Thanks, Tom
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Re: Childhood Memories of Christmas

Post by Noush »

Thank you Tom. When we talk about "the magic of Christmas", well we found some for that little girl.
To me that is what it's all about.
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