Folklore: Old Fashioned English Christmas

Subject: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: jaze
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 01:11 PM

Next year, I want to do something different for Christmas. I've thought about having an old fashioned English Christmas(as a theme) How do you Mudcatters in Great Britain celebrate Christmas. I'm thinking along the lines of Plum Pudding and things like that. Hope you all have a Merry one. Jaze

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 01:26 PM

The thing with "old-fashioned" is, when is that? I mean Morecombe and Wise and the Queen on the Telly is old-fashioned now - "They don't make Christmasses like that these days"

Christmas Pudding and Turkey with the trimmings and Christmas Crackers and funny hats are still very much with us.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Les from Hull
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 02:37 PM

Most people think of old fashioned Christmas as a Charles Dickens type Christmas. So maybe that's a start.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: harvey andrews
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 03:53 PM

For me an old fashioned Xmas would mean waking up in a freezing cold bedroom to find a small pillow case full of wrapped presents at the foot of my bed. My stocking would contain an apple, an orange, a piece of coal,a string bag of chocolate coins and a hand held game that necessitated trying to get five small silver balls into five small holes in a picture.
I would unwrap my few presents, mostly books, and then go downstairs to light the coal fire. I would then make a pot of tea for my parents to have in bed.
Mother would then get up to put the vegetables on to boil for six hours, and light the gas oven for the chicken to cook.
As a special treat we would have our xmas dinner in the very rarely used front room with another coal fire. We would pull crackers that rarely cracked and read unfunny mottos before self-consciously putting on coloured paper hats.
Mother would bring in bowls of steaming mush, dad would carve the chicken, and pour his first pint. Mother would tut and pour the gravy.
In the afternoon dad would fall asleep, mother would wash up and tut some more. I would read my books.
Television would start at about 6 o'clock with one channel which we would all watch whilst toasting crumpets for tea on a big fork in front of the coal fire.
Mother would open her box of chocolates.
Dad would pour his final pint.
I would be allowed to stay up until the television played the National Anthem.
Then I would go to bed in my freezing cold room with a hot water bottle, not forgetting the hidden torch so I could carry on reading underneath the bedclothes.
Happy Xmas one and all!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 04:01 PM

That's it, harvey. (Mind, you must have had bigger stockings than me to get all that in...)

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 04:42 PM

Ye Gods Harvey - are you my sister in disguise?

I remember getting a hot water bottle for Christmas one year, and being very disappointed that it was empty and cold.

But the description of dinner is exactly as I remember mine, except we didn't pour the gravy - the way my mother made gravy, you had to ease it out with a spoon or just cut a slice out.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST,Fleur
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 06:58 PM

Bread sauce??? That white cat sicky looking stuff, that appeared on the side of your plate, and congealed there.

Fizzy drinks...well lemonade and possibly ginger beer, it was the only time of the year we had them. Along with a bottle of egg flip for making snowballs.

Orange and Lemon jelly slices....come on, no one can like them.

Family Circle tinned biccies, with those lurid pink wafers that you can never decide if you like or not.

Bunty Annual, or at a pinch Judy....the new papery smell was exquisite.

The obligatory box of dates, sitting on the sideboard looking all exotic, with it's faraway label.

And hopefully new flannelette pyjamas, with pockets, so you could fill them with custard creams, and have a munch whilst reading the Bunty under the blankets... I always found the trick was not to let any part of my skin come into contact with the near freezing air in the bedroom.

Happy Daze.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Emma B
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 07:03 PM

Oh my God! I thought I had succeeded in repressing all that in a glow of nostalga. I was nearly 20 before I realized that sprouts were supposed to remain round when they were served. I remember the gift of an umbrella too and my poor sister waking up early and breaking a tooth on the piece of coal in the stocking by mistaking it, in the dark, for chocolate.
I wish you a throughly modern, international Christmas. I, for one, will be eating wild boar cooked Tuscan style with chocolate and pine nuts STUFF THE TURKEY

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 07:09 PM

An essential feature as I recall (c 1955) is to prop Granny in the armchair by the fire, so that she could watch the Queen on TV and then loll, dribble and gurgle fro the rest of the day. She always had one glass of sherry(the rest of the year she was a staunch methodist teetotaller). It may be that you do not have a suitable Granny in your family, but there is probably some sort of Re-enactment Society who can help out:there will also be professional agencies who can supply this kind of thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 07:25 PM

Here in Nottingham, NEW Hampshire (USA), we try to remember the toast to absent friends.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST,Seaking
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 07:41 PM

After opening the presents (Harvey Andrew's rcollection of pillow cases,oranges and string bags of chocolate coins brings it all back), I recall years of watching Leslie Crowther (and was it Peter Lowe ?) on the BBC handing out presents on Christmas morning at one of the Children Hospitals.

My Father had a 'tradition' of drinking a can of Pale Ale on Christmas morning which he would share with my brother and I. Forty on and when I am able to be at home for Christmas I still buy and drink a can of Pale Ale on Christmas morning and share it with my children.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 08:24 PM

Being very, very poor (in Illinois, USA) we awakened to the warmth of a match in our poor but honest bedroom. It was all the warmth we could afford, and then only on Christmas, but epitomized the season.

Down the stairs (we slept in our clothes, as the quilts and blankets were threadbare and held in more cold than heat) to a kitchen redolent with the smell of bread porridge -- if there was any money for frivolities we might have a raisin in it. To church then, to offer thanks.

And then! Home to open our presents! A new stick was always enjoyed, and sometimes, if the weather was warm, we didn't have to burn them until mid-February! A rock. Perhaps an orange that wasn't completely moldy. A coat with one sleeve in nearly perfect shape. A new rubber boot for the four of us children to share.

Hmmm...maybe I'm lying.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 08:31 PM

Watch the Queen on telly? Wrapped presents? Luxury, bloody luxury. We got newspaper wrapped coal in our stockings to remind us to light the bloody fire.... all we had was a radio, so we listened to Christmas carols and the Queens speach on it. I tell you, people dont know how bloody lucky they are these days....

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 08:33 PM

Radio? Television? We listened to the neighbors yelling at each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 08:44 PM

You had neighbours?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 08:54 PM

Crackers on Boxing Day, for pity's sake!! Gotta have crackers on Boxing Day!! (Rap, you gotta be lying....)And, I LIKE turkey, esp. if I don't have to cook it.....

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Dec 03 - 09:09 PM

Me? Lie? If anything I'm only telling about the good parts.

We found a way to keep the wolf from the door...we ate it.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: harvey andrews
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 03:11 AM

Okay, Monty Python has a lot to answer for!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Phot
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 04:08 AM

When I left the RAF in 96, my then girlfriend and I, spent the week over Christmas on a narrowboat crusing the Llangollen canal, we reached Llangollen mid morning and the scene will stay with me always.
Nothing apart from the canal was moving, there was an inch or two of fresh snow over everything, the smell of roast lamb from the cabin, you couldn't ask for better...........

On Boxing day the engine wouldn't start, and the next day the canal froze and we had to be rescued by car! Still a good Christmas though.

Wassail! Chris

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Menolly
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 04:43 AM

Were you all to poor to remember, just before Christmas, sticking lots of strips of coloured paper into interlinking circles, to make the decorations that were hung across the ceiling of front room, that was normally never used?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: smallpiper
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:03 AM

Arrrrrgggggggg Repressed memory overload! I hated making those decorations!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:11 AM

We're still making paper chains like that. Probably too labour intensive for modern children.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:20 AM

Were you all to poor to remember, just before Christmas, sticking lots of strips of coloured paper into interlinking circles, to make the decorations that were hung across the ceiling of front room?

Not too poor, maybe, but at least one day at the end of primary school (roughly, kindergarden) was always spent making these chains.

I've looked for any kind of streamer for the last couple of years and no-one seems to see 'room-length' streamers any more (ok, I don't usually start looking until about the 20th of December, and I don't look very hard...)

Our 'stocking' was always a piilow-case at the end of the bed. I remember one Christmas in particular getting a 'Build-it' set and making a working model of the Tower of London with my father.

(A quick Google search doesn't show anything quite like it. It consisted of coloured plastic rods of square cross-section and varying lengths, together with two kinds of 'wheels' into which these could be stuck. Yellow wheels formed a tight fit and red had a looser centre hole to allow a kind of hinge or pivot. You can think of it as a more limited, plastic form of Meccano.)

The other building toy we sometimes got was Bayko

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST,CrazyEddie
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:32 AM

"We couldn't afford no tinsel for our Christmas-tree,
So we'd just wheel old Grandad in & make the old bloke sneeze...."
(Thank you Keven Bloody Wilson)


Merry Christmas all,

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:08 AM

You must have been posh folks, Harvey. Gas fire ? - our coal fires has to be lit with newspaper and firewood (which either my brother or self had chopped the night before). On Christmas we would usually have a fire in both of the downstairs rooms - normally there was only one in the back room. Rather than straight light ale, we'd be allowed a glass of shandy made from beer out of a quart bottle with one of those rubber screw stoppers - the lemonade bottles were similiar. We would usually pop into the neighbours on either side for drinks (more shandy) and by then it would be time for the dinner, for which we would probably be joined by gran and a couple of other relatives.

My parents kept poultry during the post-war rationing, so we always had a chicken of some kind. If we'd had a new clutch of chicks the previous spring, there was often a cockerel amongst them which would have been 'caponised' by forcing a large hormone pill down it's throat and then fattened up on a diet with plenty of maize in dad's greenhouse. Otherwise we'd probably knock off any hen (sometimes two) which wasn't up to scratch on it's egg-laying schedule, hang it up in the shed for a week or so to make it more tender, then put lots of stuffing in it to make it go further. One of our traditional christmas vegetables was runner beans which my mother had preserved by salting down during the summer. A batch of Christmas puddings would have been made in the previous weeks and cooked in a tower steamer. We always had two on the day - one of which would have been made the year before. We never had brandy butter - it was always rum butter. There was usually clotted cream - received through the post in a sealed tin, having been ordered during our holiday on the Isle-of-Wight the previous summer.

We would watch the queen's speech on the 9" screen black and white television - the neighbours who didn't have a TV would usually come in for this and all the chairs would have to be set up in rows with us youngsters on low stools at the front.

We would then have some party games - "Sqeak Piggy, Squeak", "Postman's Knock", "Pass the Parcel" etc until it was tme for tea. This would be a grand affair with ham and other cold meats, cheese and an assortment of pickles (which with the exception of the walnuts would be home-made) crowned off with mince pies and Christmas cake.

We would then watch the christmas television show - the BBC usually had a pantomime in which nearly all the TV faces had parts - even the news readers, announcers, and weather-men. By that time, due the the fact that we'd have woken up early to open our presents, and helped by the shandies, and probably port (well empire wine or Taragona) and lemonade we were well ready for bed. Any way we wanted to be up early on Boxing Day, because that was the first chance we'd have to play with any larger toys - there was never enough time or room on Christmas day.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:59 AM

Australians were good at old fashioned English Christmases. And many still do 'em. "England" was Home (note the capital) for generations of Australians. 15 years ago my father's cousins (third generation Australians in their 60's) asked me if I had been Home. No, I said, I've never been to England.

Baking turkeys, vegetables & chickens, & christmas cakes, boiling puddings in cloths - all in a heat wave!! And let us not forget the Christmas bushfires adding their bit to the season.

Crackers & party hats & silly mottoes, large family gatherings, excited kids running amok and/or getting sick from too much food & excitement, female rellies washing up, male rellies drinking beer & sleeping after lunch, cricket in the yard - madness in a hot climate.

Oops, I forgot Santa in his red suit, & all the cards & decorations - snow-decked scenes, robins, Victorian villages & toyshops ...

bah humbug

To round out the picture, many Australians have a mix of hot & cold food & spend time at beaches or pools.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Folkiedave
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 07:16 AM

It is no good accusing Harvey's family of being posh folks when you were feeding perfectly good Xmas food to fatten up an bird!! And ham!!! We had to make do with tongue! And a TV.......we still haven't got one!!

There is a great Xmas card a friend sent us - It has a curmudgeon sat in fron of the fire and his wife is stood behind him saying to her next door neighbour, "Fred doesn't like Christmas so we have decided to compromise".

Above the fireplace is a banner saying "Merry Christmas. Now piss off".

Dave
www.collectorsfolk.co.uk

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 07:48 AM

What about an oldfashioned usage not of England, but of the freshly christianized German tribes? On the 25th you drink Christ's love, on the next day St John's love, and on the third St Stephen's love, accompanied by roast beef, pork and sausages of all kinds. The drinking of the loves (Middle High German: minne) may proceed until you pass out.

Cheers, and merry Xmas to you all!
Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 07:48 AM

Ah, Sandra,
you forgot the WATERMELON! - Seed fights... aching tummies...

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: kendall
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 08:04 AM

Rapaire, you had blankets? we would have killed for a blanket.
Seriously, we were very poor; used to envy the kids who got toys at Christmas. We got things like knitted socks and mittens hand made by mother and aunt. We lived in a drafty old house over 100 years old, and slept in an unheated chamber wher we could see the tips of thew nails that came through the roof. In winter they would be all white with frost. I remember one winter in particular, it was 48 degrees below zero one morning. I don't know what that is on the celcius scale, but celcius and farenheit agree at 40 below.
Our decorations were all hand made and the tree was taken from a neighbors land. He didn't mind.
Old fashioned Christmas? I think I'll pass.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 08:16 AM

The thing is, the difference between the Monty Python style parody and the reality is pretty thin. Tell it like it actually was, and younger people are likely to think you are exaggerating.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 08:22 AM

Actually, truth to tell (and just one truth, not a truth and a half, or three quarters of a truth), we really didn't have much.

Our bedroom was cold, because the heater duct was closed -- the heat was diverted to my Grandmother's room, next to our. We had a register to the kitchen, but it did little. Many mornings I awakened and found that the glass of water on the desk next to my bed was frozen. And it was WONDERFUL to snuggle down into the quilts when it was so cold.

We made those ring strings, and also strung popcorn and (once, because they cost more than popcorn) cranberries.

Christmas dinner was often wild duck or wild rabbit, and you ate around the shot. In that time and place the Depression lingered on, and "a gun behind the door means food on the table." My uncles had the guns.

Grandmother raised chickens, and both I and my brothers helped catch them for her -- and held them while she wielded her little red hatchet.

We usually had at least a couple of toys, the less expensive knock-offs of that years' most popular ones. One year we got a steel-string guitar; eventually my youngest brother learned to play it. (Okay, so we didn't get some new toilet paper and a toothless comb.)

We survived, though. No father (killed in a construction accident when I was five), and all four kids graduated from college and one got a graduate degree (another did everything but the last essay for an MPA). My youngest brother traveled with a Toby show, learned to put up BIG tents in a wind, and won (local) acting awards -- when he and his son were in "Bleacher Bums" a few years back THREE generations of the family had acted in that Little Theatre group.

We wuz poor, but we was honest.

(Couldn't help it...one uncle was a cop.)

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 08:23 AM

Robin - I've never liked watermelon, so it slipped my memory!

I also forgot to mention sunburnt bodies, all bright red & soon peeling.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 01:03 PM

Can jaze be one of our old colonials getting a bit lonely after all that independence stuff and hankering after an English Christmas?

But seriously. One of the best description of a traditional English Christmas was written by an American, Washington Irving. It is   quite as atmospheric as anything by Dickens. It is taken , I think, from the later additions to his 'Sketchbook' and usually appears in book form either as 'Old Christmas' or 'Christmas at Bracebridge Hall' or simply 'Bracebridge Hall'. The last has a lot of other non-Christmas stuff in it, but the chapters to read are those on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Christmas Dinner.

This is Christmas at a country house c.1820 with a lot of 'gentry and peasant' stuff that may now seem a touch un-PC, but it was clearly written from experience and it is beautifully observed - even tho' he doesn't seem to know, for example (and why should he?) that the dancers who call at the house, are morris dancers.

The way to read it is in one of the late Victorian or Edwardian editions with pictures. But don't think that this has any connection with Christmas as experienced by Brits today. Television, rubber turkey and computer games are what we do now. And, of course, swapping stories about the hard times we had as kids, climbing chimneys.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: IanC
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 01:06 PM

Jaze

Have you got plenty of time?

If you're thinking of celebrating an old-fashioned Christmas English style, then it'll take you 12 days (that's since Charles 2nd reduced it to 12 days as having Christmas till Candlemas was getting out of hand, he thought).

Or are you just thinking Christmas Day (just presents and overeating, then quietness when the kids allow)?

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 04:08 PM

Here's a song from The Yetties, which encapsulates much of what constitutes an old fashioned English Christmas nowadays.

The lyrics are by Bonny Sartin, as are the notes in quotes at the end.

The tune is (I think) Monk's March.

LFF

GATHER ROUND THE FAMILY

Sartin/Traditional

There's been months to prepare for a day beyond compare,
You're going to have a very merry Christmas day.
When the kids get up at four and come bashing on your door,
You're going to have a very merry Christmas day.

Chorus:

Gather round the family, gather round the tree,
Gather all the neighbours in perfect harmony,
Do what you please, throw your troubles to the breeze
And have yourselves a very merry Christmas day.

When the kids make lots of noise bashing up each other's toys,
You know they've had a very merry Christmas day.
When they chew till they can't swaller and they all begin to holler,
You know they've had a very merry Christmas day.

When Mum and Aunty Flo play strip poker in the snow,
You know they've had a very merry Christmas day.
When father can be seen blowing kisses at the Queen,
You know he's had a very merry Christmas day.

When you see dear old Gran drinking pints of Black and Tan,
You know she's had a very merry Christmas day.
When Granddad full of glee hangs his teeth upon the tree,
You know he's had a very merry Christmas day.

And now it's Boxing morn and you're feeling rather worn,
You know you've had a very merry Christmas day.
But though you're feeling drear, you'll do the same next year,
And have yourself a very merry Christmas day.

"OK, I know your family isn't like this and nor is ours really. Although, now I come to think of it, I've got an uncle who is just the sort to hang his false teeth upon the tree complete with tinsel and there's also an aunt who is definitely a bit too partial to home made wine and….."

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 04:23 PM

Turn off the telly and unplug it, and you are half way there.

You know - that thing in the living room you used to watchg before the Internet.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Joybell
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:12 PM

Streamers made into chains and all the other things Sandra and Robin mentioned except that we also had holly-decorated silver milk bottle tops from a week before Christmas. The milk was delivered by
"Milk-O!" with his horse and cart. (There was also "Icy!" who brought ice for the ice box, "Bottle-O!" who collected empty bottles, "Rubbish-O!" and several other "-Os!"). Anyway the silver tops could be shaped over a lemon squeezer - those old-fashioned glass ones that are still around - into little silver bells for the Christmas tree. We made fake snow with soap powder.
My family who had, like Sandra's, been in Australia since the 19th Century - 1848 actually, also called England "Home". It was the songs of Stephen Foster that we sang, though, the American minstrels had left their mark here. After all the carol singing we went back to Stephen Foster on Christmas night. My father had never been able to aford a piano although he had always been able to play well, but he led us with his voice. On Christmas Eve I'll loop a tinsel strap to the front gate to tie up the reindeer in honor of my Dad. We did that for years after I no longer believed in Father Christmas. Joybells

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Jeanie
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 05:21 PM

I know the request was for an old-fashioned *English* Christmas....but do have a read of this wonderfully atmospheric piece of writing:
A Child's Christmas in Wales - Dylan Thomas

I don't mind how many times I read this - it is superb.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Peg
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:01 PM

I was just thinking of Thomas' great work; have you ever seen the film version starring Denholm Elliott? It's also very wonderful.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Jeanie
Date: 22 Dec 03 - 06:13 PM

I haven't seen the film, Peg - but I do know the adaptation for the stage, which is magical. I did a shortened version last Christmas with my drama class of 11 year olds, who acquired some very convincing Welsh accents - I was so proud of them !

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 03:34 AM

Sorry to put a damper on the interesting memories of Christmas past, I hear on BBC News this morning that in the past week, 2,500 people have died in England and Wales as a direct result from cold weather.
The report says that this is a higher number per head of the population than Norway or Russia.

This is really a throw-back to Christmas past, and it shouldn`t happen,old people frightened to put on an extra bar on their Electric Fire in case they cannot meet the bill.

Tony Blair spent billions on an unecessary war while the citizens of his own country die of the cold. Christmas past indeed. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 05:41 AM

FolkieDave - The reason that we had maize to fatten up the odd chicken, was because we got a chicken food ration instead of an egg ration. Our hens got fed on household scraps which were minced up and mixed with "Balancer Meal", but needed to be fed some grain. Fowl that we were intending to eat, got a slightly better diet.

We never had a proper christmas tree, but we did have a small evergreen shrub in a tub, that was brought in from the garden and decorated - the first coloured lights we ever had on it were made (by my brother and I) from torch bulbs inside coloured bottles (I think there were 5) and worked from a lantern battery - so we couldn't leave them on for long. We had a collection of decorations which were brought out each year including some made from 2" wide strips of crepe paper which mum had sewed down the middle on her hand sewing machine.

After I was about 11, I was usually rather well-off financially at Christmas because I went carol singing. I used to know all the verses of the carols which I sang and sometimes played a recorder introduction. I like to think that I put on a very professional performance. Various people that my mother would meet during her daily shopping would ask if I was coming round to sing for them that year, and sometimes I'd even get pre-bookings if they were having a party. My mother was a little awed be the amount of money I made and I had to share some of it with my brother (who wasn't a singer) and put a reasonable percentage into my post office savings account - and of course I was always able to buy her a more expensive present. She once confided to me that I'd earned more money one week than my father - who didn't know about these first paid gigs ! After Christmas, we'd go round collecting empty bottles and taking them back to the off-licence to claim the deposits. A few years later I had a Saturday baker's round and one year made nearly £15 in Christmas Boxes - a fortune in those days.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Folkiedave
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 07:32 AM

To be serious regarding the old people who are freezing.

I am not a defender of the labour government - why is Ken Livingstone the only person trying to get into the Labour Paty when everyone else is trying to leave? - BUT one of the decent things they have done is the winter fuel allowance.

My mother 91, lives in a reasonably modern well-insulated house (not central heating but storage heaters) and she is still frightened to turn the fire up even though her winter fuel allowance is about what she spends through the year!! No matter how much I try to persuade her, there is a folk memory of saving fuel because it is expensive and she is frightened of big bills that she can't pay coming in.

Regards,

Dave
www.collectorsfolk.co.uk

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 10:59 AM

Before I was about 11, the only heating in my parent's house was usually the coal fire in the living room, although the kitchen was would be warm if there was any cooking going on. On a few occasions when one of us was ill, my mother might light a fire in the bedroom fireplace - I wonder how people would feel about that from the safety aspect these days ! On a cold night we'd have china hot-water bottles in our beds - to push down slowly with our feet as we got into bed, and on a very cold night we'd have a rubber one to cuddle as well. In the morning it was quite usual to have frozen condensation on the inside of the windows and we'd make peep holes with hot coins.

Children getting up early to watch TV on a winter's morning is a relatively new phenomena - in my childhood you'd never want to get out of a lovely warm bed into a cold house - and anyway there wouldn't have any programme on the TV - just the test card.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 02:12 PM

Dave, What you say is true regarding your mothers fear of running up a bill, the old people still live in fear of not being able to meet their payments.
The sad reality is the report on the News that an old couple aged 89 and 86, were found dead in their home as their gas supply had been cut off by British Gas, and the estimate that 50,000 people will die of cold this winter, this is beyond belief, it dosen`t seem possible that in the year 2003, we don`t seem to have the answer to this spiral of poverty.
Sorry again about bringing this up, but I feel it is in line with the theme of this thread. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 02:38 PM

My Old Fashioned Christmas happened early this year - on Sunday, I had some friends round for supper after the last night of their Christmas tour - the house was all trimmed up with tree, lights, holly and ivy, we had a simple meal because I'd had to prepare something that could just be warmed up when they got in from the gig, we had mulled wine, candlelight, a brazier burning out in the garden for hardy souls to go and warm their hands (and other bits) on. One of my friends sat on the settle in the corner of the kitchen and got his lowland pipes out and started playing, then out came a fiddle and a concertina....wonderful, wonderful

(The piper concerned actually also played at Claudia Schiffer's wedding - what's good enough for Claudia...)

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST,jaze
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 02:49 PM

Thanks for the memories. And I'm sorry to have stirred up so many unhappy ones. I guess what I really was going for was something-simpler, you know? Maybe I'm over romanticizing the idea of an English Christmas. I'd just like Christmas to be more meaningful and less about the mad rush and stress. By the way, how does one "mull" wine?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 02:56 PM

Mulling means heating. Wine is normally heated up with the addition of some sweetener(I use brown sugar, you can use white sugar or honey. In no circumstances use arrificial sweetener). Plus a few spices--cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon are standard. A little orange juice, and some bits of arange and apple floating about are good. A bit of brandy as well is nice addition. Most people use red wine, but I've had mulled white. You put it in a big pan on the stove, keep it hot, and have a ladle to serve it to guests in glasses. (That's the wine, guests who dont wear glasses are allowed mulled wine).. There you go, youre ready for your pre-Christmas party now.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 02:57 PM

Mulled wine - well, take some red wine (you can get away with cheap stuff), warm it with cinamon, nutmeg, slices of orange and apple - serve warm. Yummy!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 03:43 PM

And I'm sorry to have stirred up so many unhappy ones.

They didn't read like unhappy memories to me mostly, jaze. There's great pleasure in remembering hard good times, and knowing things are a bit more comfortable these days. People who haven't got that kind of thing in the background area must miss a lot of the fun of being warm and well-fed and all.

And in spite of everything, there's still stuff you miss from those kind of times.

It ought to be possible to get the best of both worlds, and I imagine that's what you'd be aiming at.

Here's a Christmas Song -

Paper chains, paper chains,
held together by paper chains,
Seasons pass, and times may change,
but we're held together by paper chains.

Paper chains from a far-off night,
with the Christmas moon so round and bright
We were tired and busy and on our way,
but the paper chains made us stop and stay.
Paper chains, paper chains,
held together by paper chains,
Seasons pass, and times may change,
but we're held together by paper chains.

There's a chain of ladies, and birds in pairs,
and a chain of fat little Russian bears,
they were cheap and flimsy to throw away,
but those paper chains are still here today.
Paper chains, paper chains,
held together by paper chains,
Seasons pass, and times may change,
but we're held together by paper chains.

Well they're worn and mended and torn and tied,
but they still cling on every Christmastide,
and it seems each time that they'll break and tear,
but they still hang on for another year.
Paper chains, paper chains,
held together by paper chains,
Seasons pass, and times may change,
but we're held together by paper chains.

All round the room like a chain that binds,
and we're safe inside for another time.
And the small birds kiss, and the bears hold paws,
and the chain of ladies can dance once more.
Paper chains, paper chains,
held together by paper chains,
Seasons pass, and times may change,
but we're held together by paper chains.

Then it's time to fold them and lay them by,
and turn once more to a world that flies,
while Christmas waits, with the paper chains,
God keep us safe, till we meet again.
Paper chains, paper chains,
held together by paper chains,
Seasons pass, and times may change,
but we're held together by paper chains.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Joybell
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 04:30 PM

What a lovely song McGrath. Is it yours?
I remember the paper streamers that we held when we saw a relative off at the dock. 1948 it must have been. Passengers on the ship held one end of each streamer while someone on the shore held the other. As the ship pulled away the streamers broke one by one and everyone cried. I don't remember the relative who visited us but paper streamers make me cry. So do draught horses and big sailing ships and more and more songs that are not necessarily sad. Must be getting old and silly. Also I think I've told the ship and streamer story before. Old and silly it is!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 04:37 PM

Take no notice, Jaze! We are not all coal mining ferret owners...

Having a Polish Dad, English Mum and Russsian, Polish, English and Welsh granparents was very confusing for a young lad growing up in the50's and 60's. Once I got my own family and friends we decided to take bits of tradition to make our own traditional Christmas. So, this is a good a traditional English Christmas as you will get!

We always get up early (7am-ish) to open prezzies. Breakfast, usualy 'bacon butties' comes a couple of hours later. Shower and Dress. Those of religious inclination go to church. Those with a more secular disposition slob out. Church goers back about noon. I begin preparations for Christmas dinner.

Turkey is usualy cooked the night before so it is all preparing the veg and trimmings. Oh - and start sampling the wine you are going to serve. Very important! Eventualy get everything starting to come together about 3pm (Queens speech - make the excuse that you have to check something in the kitchen.) Everything is ready usualy a half hour or so later. Allow for forgotten bits - say 4pm. Sit any number between 7 and 14 down to 'dinner'...

2 hours later, load the dishwasher and leave the table groaning about never eating another thing. An hour later go back to kitchen for bits of cold turkey, chocolates, christmas cake, blue Stilton or whatever takes your fancy. Groan about never eating another thing again. Repeat process every 30 - 60 minutes, washing things down with port, brandy or whisky until you realise that you can no longer focus...

Go to bed.

Boxing day. Get up. Start again:-)

What more can anyone want?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 04:50 PM

You might have told it, Joybell, but I've missed it. It's a wonderful image there. The paper streamers breaking away as the ship pulled out - and in those days that was likely to mean parting for life. I wonder if that was something that often happened. Now that would make a song all right.

Yes, the song I posted there is one of mine. We've got these paper decorations we bought years ago, and they still go up each time - stuck them up last night. The songs about the importance of fragile things.

We bought most of them in the old Soviet Union gift shop they had in Oxford Street. Who'd have thought they'd outlast the then mighty USSR?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: harvey andrews
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 06:44 PM

Jaze, those aren't unhappy memories, just memories of a simpler time when there wasn't the pressures of today. Personally, now that the boy's a man I let Xmas slip by as easily as I can.It's for kids really. I wonder sometimes why people don't see through the sham and commecialism of it all, abandon the mad spending and go back to the simple spending of time with family. All this over-consumption is no good for anybody except shareholders.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: C-flat
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 07:08 PM

Harvey, you described Christmas just exactly as I remember them. Thank you for stirring up memories of a happy and more simple time of my life.
My daughter will wake to a heap of presents on Christmas morning but I don't think I could ever recreate the excitement my brothers and I felt as we groped, in the freezing darkness, to the foot of the bed in the hope of a pillow-case full of treats.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 07:18 PM

As McGrath and Harvey said,jaze: those were definitely not unhappy memories. Very good memories.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST,Fleur
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 07:20 PM

Love the paper chain song....real christmassy feel good factor,all wrapped up with a worthwhile message, will be sharing that with my three year old tomorrow.

Also love the image of the streamers tearing apart from the dockside, how evocative is that....or am i just getting seasonally sentimental, either way, Thankyou both very much for those.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: jaze
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 10:42 PM

That's a beautiful song, McGrath. Thanks. And thank you DtG. I guess sometimes I just long for a simpler Christmas. Nostalgia, you know? I guess things weren't always so easy back then. I, too have memories of Christmas at an orphanage. But truly some of the most beautiful memories are from that time. I think sometimes, in the rush of things those times get forgotten. I want my kids(who know nothing of those kind of times) to see something else other than the latest electronic gadget. Maybe it's because families aren't as close in some respects as back then. Maybe it's because we revel in what we have. When we had nothing, it was being with each other, meals and songs that made Christmas special. Maybe I'm just longing for something that is gone. Thank you all for sharing memories--heres hoping they weren't all bad or sad. Merry Christmas, everyone! Jaze

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: mouldy
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 03:40 AM

I remember making the milk bottle top decorations to hang on the tree. They used to be strung onto parcel string with knots in between them. Also the paper chains. You could buy ready cut & glued strip packs at the newsagent. One year (around 1960) my mum saved up tokens and a bit of money and sent off to Cadbury's for a 3 foot silver foil artificial tree, the biggest tree we'd ever had. It looked magic with the lights reflecting on it. It lasted for years!
I remember snuggling under the quilt and not wanting to emerge because of the cold, even though I could feel my stocking on my feet at the bottom of the bed. I always had a fisherman's stocking - my mum was brought up to believe that pillowcases were "greedy"! Anything that didn't fit in was laid on the bed too. Luckily I never got bought a bike!
We always had chicken for Christmas dinner. Easter was another time we had that treat. In the days before battery farming, unless you reared your own, those families on a shop assistant's wage found beef cheaper, especially as in our case there was only 3 of us, and we weren't huge carnivores!

I had 2 southern hemisphere Christmases. I couldn't adjust to wandering around in summer clothes - something just didn't feel right. The following year we were en route to the UK and spent the day in northern Zaire. My husband slaughtered the 2 scrawny hens he bought on the local market, and we marinaded them overnight, then spit-roast them. One of my favourite photos is my filthy kids aged 4 & 5, grinning happily, playing on the ground with the 2 toys they each got that year. They each got a toy we bought and hid before the journey, plus a plastic car that we got from a local shop.

Traditions evolve.

These days, now the kids are grown up, even the one that appeared on the scene after we got back, they don't get pillowcases any more (I let mine go down the pillowcase route), and we don't open up until breakfast is out of the way. Neighbours come round for drinks at 12, when the Christmas barrel is sampled, and then I get on with dinner while the rest of them go across the road to the pub.

On Boxing Day we go down to Nottinghamshire to a session at a pub that was the traditional dance out spot for the late Mansfield Morris Men. When the side folded several years ago, the session continued. After that we go and visit friends in the area for the rest of the day. Traditionally that finishes with everybody "daggers drawn" playing games around the kitchen table. I always drive home.

Tonight (Christmas Eve) I have to take my youngest to her friend's for the evening, then later on I will be ferrying a carload to a pub several miles away. I'll be going back to our village (picking up daughter on the way and drop her off at home) a bit later to unlock the church, light 150 candles and get set up for the candlelit Christmas Eve Communion service at 10. After this I will go back to the pub and slide 'em all out - maybe I'll get time for a quick coke! It's a good job I don't drink!

My day starts shortly when I get off the computer, get dressed, and go into Selby to fetch the turkey.

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 04:37 AM

Ahhh,
I forgot the Milk bottle top bells - ours came in different colours... we would put them on cotton strings individually, and hang them on the tree.

My mother's sister married a US serviceman after WWII. Some time in the early 1950's I remember we went down to the wharf on the Brisbane river, and the paper streamers breaking - I think there was a band - as they sailed back to america.

A few years later they came back to Australia in the 1960's - I think they flew back to the US that time...

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 05:23 PM

Here is an account of this kind of thing, in 1914:

"Before sailing, down on the wharf and on the decks, vendors with trays had been selling coils of coloured paper streamers. When the gangways were down, people threw the streamers to one another while holding one end. Most of those thrown from the wharf fell into the water, but those thrown from the ship were eagerly caught or picked up by their friends.

It was a sunny day in Sydney Cove as the Macangus family left and there were so many coloured streamers it was impossible to see the other end of the SS Orama.

Karl Klosman held the end of both a red and a blue streamer, one of which had been thrown down by Carlino and one Karl had managed to throw up to him...It was great to tug and feel the tug back through the paper ribbons. Tears swelled up in people's eyes when all the streamers had been let out as the boat went further away until they had to let go, or it tore and fluttered up in the air, the tugging back and forth as a last physical contact lost until the travellers' return.

According to a caption on this site, "Australia was the first to use coloured paper streamers. After a street vendor saw two women holding a silk ribbon between ship and shore, tugging their last goodbye, he sold paper ones, and suddenly it was the way to say farewell to loved ones."

I've never heard of this - I wonder how widespread it was in other parts of the world. I wonder if the Titanic went off from Cobh like that?

It's an extraordinarily powerful image.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 07:25 PM

No, not 'bad' memories - just memories. The past truly is another country and although I might like to revisit it isn't really tourist territory. The present is my time as it is for todays children. I don't envy them (this night of all nights) their materialism and loss of 'community' but I am thankful for all the advantages we share.
The opportunity to be part of this wider 'community' is something I treasure and could never have imagined in those far off impoverished days and I would like to take the opportunity to wish all those who share it Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Gareth
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 07:34 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: ard mhacha - PM
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 02:12 PM

Dave, What you say is true regarding your mothers fear of running up a bill, the old people still live in fear of not being able to meet their payments.
The sad reality is the report on the News that an old couple aged 89 and 86, were found dead in their home as their gas supply had been cut off by British Gas, and the estimate that 50,000 people will die of cold this winter, this is beyond belief, it dosen`t seem possible that in the year 2003, we don`t seem to have the answer to this spiral of poverty.
Sorry again about bringing this up, but I feel it is in line with the theme of this thread. Ard Mhacha.

What Ard M has not quoted was that -

1/. The couple concerned has £1,400 in thier current bank account.

2/. And that the 'Lecy Co pretended that they could not tell social sevices that they had cut the juice off - As was thier moral duty.

Ard M - You haver a fanatical view of us Brits - Perhaps you could convert it to facts rather than fanatasicm.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: ard mhacha
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 03:19 AM

Your Welsh friend Sian gives a figure of 2500 deaths from cold last week, and forecasts 50,ooo more over the winter, have all of these unfortunates hoards of money . Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: ard mhacha
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 08:49 AM

This tailpeice from a Guardian Leader spells out clearly the plight of the aged in the UK,
" The Public Health Faculty pointed to three factors for the excessive number of winter deaths - poor housing, inadequate heating and "fuel poverty", defined as any household which has to spend more than 10% of its income to keep warm.
Ministers should review their current priorities, under which they pay out £1,9bn a year in winter fuelallowance, but only £400m on their "warm front" programme that installs better housing insulation and heating. But the fundamental problem remains pensioner poverty, Inequality among the retired is even grimmer than among the working population.

The top fifth of pensioner couples now have a retirment income averaging £45,000 a year, yet one quarter of all pensioners- 2 million people - still live below the poverty line [a mere £5,800 for a single person].

It is time a government which is committed to ending child pooverty by 2020, set targets for the abolition of pensioner poverty too.

These numbers are the highest proportions of excess winter deaths in the European Union."

.

I wish a Happy Christmas to the cold and hungry of the world. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 03:20 PM

Bah, humbug. The cold and hungry of the world have themselves to blame. If the were not so feckless they would have plenty of fuel, drink and warmth.

Like me. I am full of feck and have no problems...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 11:41 PM

From your heart-rending accounts of miserably poor-but-honest Christmases, I surmise that the monarch was Victoria?

Seriously, I think my family probably would have been considered poor by most standards, but we had a farm and grew most of our necessities, so in that sense we were very well off.

I can match your deprivations in one way: We had no Christmas tree at all! I was 9 years old the one year a small tree was set up on the library table, having been collected by my 16 year old sister,and that was the only year we had one. I don't know if my parents didn't believe in Christmas trees because it was 'pagan' or if it just was a bothersome thing. We certainly had enough suitable trees in our woods.

My sisters had us youngsters cutting and pasting rings of colored paper for a week ahead of Christmas and then they tacked them on the walls and swooped them across the ceilings and around the corners. Our paste was homemade- I think it was the same kind of paste my mother used for wallpaper: gray, somewhat translucent and not very sticky. But messy. I remember the goopy floor; a sister would always mop the floor after we finished our creations each evening.

We each got one present on Christmas morning from a to-this-moment-secret someone who had "gotten your name" in the large-family drawing a month before and who watched with bated breath as you opened it to see if you liked the gift they had chosen- it was an exciting morning. We always had lots of food -usually a turkey, sometimes a goose, and lots of pies and oranges set out on the cupboards and bags of hard candy that my father doled out in a most miserly fashion. I suspect he got a lot more of the candy than we did.

Actually, I remember thinking that there probably really was a Santa Claus but my parents, being Amish, just didn't know it. I remember feeling a little protective of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 02:25 AM

Dave the gnome

>Bah, humbug. The cold and hungry of the world have themselves to
>blame. If the were not so feckless they would have plenty of fuel,
>drink and warmth.
>
>Like me. I am full of feck and have no problems...

Burn your feck, do you?

I sincerely hope, My Son, that you never receive "The Blessing Of Understanding Thru Personal Experience" - it's not a curse - really!!...

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Penny S.
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 05:38 AM

We used to hang one of my Dad's old hiking knee-length socks at the end of the bed. However, there were three of us, and at least six old socks, a fact which we did not entirely take on board. Father Christmas would cunningly obtain the remaining three socks and fill them, before sneaking in briefly to swap over without our noticing.

Years later, when the whole family assembled as adults, we used to obtain the socks from the airing cupboard, and hang filled socks on our parents' bed.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 10:32 AM

Pun, Robin! Full of feck. What could feck be confused with? So full of F?ck as in full of bollocks? Yes? Oh, never mind. Probably not worth telling if I need to explain it;-)

May you live in intersting times.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 10:39 AM

PS - I already have the benefit of personal experience. I distinctly remember, with no fondness at all, having no money for the gas and electricity meters in the middle of December and having to get my eldest son a toy from a charity shop because we could afford nothing else.

If I realy did believe the that the cold and hungry brought it upon themselves I would argue that if I could get through it, they could. But I don't so I won't:-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 01:29 PM

This is a great thread; full of really interesting, well-written, and often poignant memories. My mother grew up in England during WWII, and a lot of the stories above have a very similar ring; thanks so much for sharing.

Hope everyone's enjoying a happy & relaxing Boxing Day!

D.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: jaze
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 06:22 PM

Speaking of things English--what exactly is Boxing Day?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Penny S.
Date: 26 Dec 03 - 06:25 PM

The day for giving all the servants and tradesmen their Christmas box, or annual tip. Why box, I do not know.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Dec 03 - 02:14 PM

Could be the day that the 'poor boxes' were opened and their contents distributed to the poor. So I heard, but who knows?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Fashioned English Christmas
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Dec 03 - 06:58 PM

"The awakening at 4am to inspect your stocking; the quarrels over toys all through the morning, and the exciting whiffs of sage-and-onions escaping from the kitchen door; the battle with enormous platefuls of turkey, and the pulling of the wishbone; the darkening of the windows and the entry of the flaming plum pudding; the hurry to make sure that everyone has a piece on his plate while the brandy is still alight; the momentary panic when it is rumoured that Baby has swallowed the threepenny bit; the stupor all through the afternoon; the Christmas cake with almond icing an inch thick; the peevishness next morning and the castor oil on December 27th -- it is an up-and-down business, by no means all pleasant, but well worth while for the sake of its more dramatic moments." -- George Orwell (1946)

I hope that, at decimalization, you Brits hoarded enough threepenny bits to see you thru subsequent Christmases.

Here is my Christmas reading list. It contains some more English people:

James Agee, "Lines Suggested by a Tennessee Song", in _The Collected
Poems_, pp. 71-75
W. H. Auden, "For the Time Being", in _Collected Poems_, pp. 269-308.
John Betjeman, "Christmas", in _Collected Poems_, pp. 153-154
Rudyard Kipling, "Christmas in India", "Eddi's Service", in _Verse:
Definitive Edition_, pp. 53-55, 512-513
Matthew 1-2; Luke 2
David McReynolds, "The Bowery: A Ghetto without a Constituency", in
_We Have Been Invaded by the 21st Century_, pp. 38-43
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver", in
_Collected Poems_, pp. 177-184
Ogden Nash, "I Remember Yule"
George Orwell, "As I Please", in _The Collected Essays, Journalism and
Letters_, Vol. 4, pp. 256-259
Jean Ritchie, "Brightest and Best...The Ritchies Take Christmas", in
_Singing Family of the Cumberlands_, Chapter 10, pp. 146-178

The last (obMudcat) contains a number of Christmas songs, plus "Barbara Allen", chosen because it was the longest song they knew & might see them thru the dishwashing. For all of being rural & American, it joins on well to Mr Orwell's description: by no means all pleasant, but well worth while.