General Chat

Our local chapel normally has 4-6 serving missionaries aged between 18 and 24 who have come from different parts of the world and are away from their families at Christmas.
Without getting too heavily religious,as a family we decided to put Christ back into Christmas and refused to use the word Xmas.
Every Christmas eve, together with my elderly parents who would be visiting me, we would sit round the tree, and take it in turns to read the story of Christ's birth and sing carols inbetween every few verses.
Then it was into the dining room for a really nice buffet and free calls home for them to their families. They would also be given a stocking each with lots of little presents. I miss those days.

Just wanted to add :))

I found the Cadbury's miniatures...in Poundland :))

Also does anyone remember making little 'bells' out of the milk bottle tops, pressing them over a thimble...Or was that just us ? lol

and not forgetting sugar mice in the stocking...I never ate them they just sat there looking cute lol

xx

One Christmas tradition which won't be practised this year is putting a box of 'Cadbury's miniatures' in sons stocking , as they always were in mine :( they seem to have discontinued them, 50 years on :(

xx

Hi,
Wen, I carried on the tradition of a mandarin in the toes of my four kids stockings, until they said they were fed up. So the next year I put a banana in - well, you should have heard the cries and wails! They all agreed that it just wasn't the same and wanted it back to normal. I carried that on until they each left home lol

Jenny

When I was little my mum used to make the trifle and I would decorate it with hundreds and thousands, but since I was about 15 or 16 I have always made the trifle . . .


The Hurst Christmas Trifle
1. On Christmas Eve, take four trifle sponges, slice lengthways, spread with jam, put back together and cut in half.
2. Place sponges in base of glass dish, drizzle sherry over it, drain tinned fruit (usually pears or strawberries but I have used raspberries before) and put on top of the fruit.
3. Pull a block of Hartley's (used to be Rowntree's!) jelly to bits, drop into a jug, add 3/4 pint boiling water, stir until dissolved and pour on the trifle. Leave in the dining room to set.
4. In the morning, make up half a pint of Bird's custard, let it cool and stir it so it looks wobbly. Layer it over the jelly.
5. Before serving dinner, beat half a pint of whipping cream until it's quite stiff, spread over the cold custard, sprinkle on hundreds and thousands (if there are some to hand!) and serve with extra whipping cream poured on the top.

And then my mum will often do her Vicar of Dibley impression with the last sprout . . . holding it up on the fork to show everyone before it goes in!

Dear All

Hello

Another small tradition in our house is to get the Radio Times and TV Times books and mark around the programmes we want to watch or maybe record.

Every year it is the same.........."the viewing was much better years ago!".

Best wishes
xx

Ummm -not sure if i should mention this one.
Apparently - according to my children, Christmas day isn't Christmas day until I've got to such a frazzled state, I say 'Merry Bl**dy Christmas'.

I know I said it once, when they wouldn't stop arguing.
They've since confessed that the Christmas Day 'game' every year was to make me say it!!
That would explain their behaviour then!! LOL

....and they wonder why I like to spend Christmas alone now they've grown up!

I forgot my Christmas tree decoration! How could I?

It is made of fibre glass (I think) and is in the shape of a little house. It must be over 50 years old.

I always lift this out of it's tissue lined box every year and think of Mum and Dad and those lovely Christmas mornings back in the '50's. Unwrapping my presents in my parents' bed, freezing cold but deleriously happy.

Happy Days!

Birdi

Ta Maggie !

Dear Rambling Rose

Hello

This is usually read in our house at some point:

"When the Christmas candles are burnt out, the carols have died away, the star is set, all the radiant song-filled night has passed, Thou alone, the Eternal, remains, and Thou art enough.

Remain with us, more beautiful, more real than any of the romance that clusters round thy birthday".

Feedin the birds on Christmas day and going to a football match on Boxing day.

Best wishes
xx

Putting the same fairy on the tree that has been with us since out first married Christmas (she is 49 years old this year. She has been pensioned off and is under the new fairy now but still on the tree.

I think a few may do this but we always have one present each from each other on the tree ( a small present) in the evening Christmas day.

My Mum always used to give me a box od milk tray and after she died my sister carried on, but I have her pressies this year and I don't think she has done it this year.

~~~~~~ all,

I still have the bulbs to the Christmas lights we had when I was little, can't bear to throw them away , they don't make them like that any more :(

Birdi, a Christmas Carol is always worth reading ( and it wouldn't be Christmas without watching at least one version on tv )

Stray I think that's lovely :))

Maggie, don't forget those maltesers lol 16 or not , there are some things than you don't grow out of :)) which reminds me.... I have to look for a box of cadbury's 'miniatures' , always used to get them at Woolies :(

xx

Carrying on the sherry theme, ours is putting the tree up, while listening to the Now Christmas album, with hubby smoking a Hamlet cigar and drinking sherry.

mine is a tatty bit of tinsel!!! its about 20 cm long if that and about 1/2 cm thin, its tht old lol and it has a 5 cm gap were it is just cotton lolol red n gold
if u seen it you would lyaoooooo
it was my nans and every xmas its the first thing i get out the xmas box, iv got it out first since i was tiny,

Times and traditions are changing in our family. Now our youngest lives near the sea, a walk on the beach before dinner is becoming a new 'tradition'.

When the children were small we used to take them for a run in the woods after dinner.

Oh, I still read A Christmas Carol every year. I'm reading this aloud bit by bit to my husband this year. He's dyslexic and finds reading hard work.

Birdi

are special to you or your family in particular ( as opposed to the things everyone does) for example mine is reading 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' Dylan Thomas , on Christmas Eve.

xx