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!