Tuesday 15 December 2020

Christmas

 Christmas has an altogether different feel to it this year and many people, me included, will be spending the day alone.   And I shall probably miss Tess most of all  - we have spent many Happy Christmasses together - she was such a companion.  Expect you will miss Winnie too John - yes both of these dogs had lived out their natural life span but they are still there in our minds.

Memories are powerful things aren't they.  I watched Mortimer and Whitehouse Going Fishing Christmas Special the night before last.  It is a gentle programme which I enjoy immenseley - full of gentle humour, pathos, words of wisdom - the lot all mixed in with a spot of fishing on one of the Northern rivers.   Do watch it if you get a chance.  Seven of my childhood Christmasses were spent during the Second World War.    My brother was a serving soldier, my parents must have been worried sick about him (he was at Dunkirk) but they always managed to make Christmas a happy one for me.

Our Christmas tree had the same ornaments on each year with one new one.  Do you remember the ornaments from your trees?   We had a little silver cottage with red windows, a silver swan, two small trees with silver stars on the top and a lot of red candles in red clip-on   candlesticks.    I wonder what happened to them.  They were very breakable in those pre-plastic days.

Lovely sunny day here today.   I have got quite a lot of jobs done which makes me feel positive.   Only another five days to go to the shortest day - then get Christmas over and we shall begin to see more light again.   It can't come soon enough can it.

31 comments:

Debby said...

Do you have any of the ornaments from your childhood tree still? I have a plastic green one. My parents got married in 1956, and I came along in 1957. My mother was pregnant with me. My father, in an effort to save, decided that they didn't need a christmas tree. My mother cried. They got a little tree and a box of cheap plastic ornaments. I have one of them all these years later. I treasure it.

su-zee said...

We still have a few of my grandparents glass baubles-probably pure-war in the original box. I have seen a full set for sale somewhere and it said they were sold in Woolworth's in the 1930s. There was one shaped like a house as you described. It survived until about 10 years ago. It was so old and fragile it simply fell apart.

John Going Gently said...

I set out three meals tonight
Instead impressed two xx

John Going Gently said...

Instead of two

angryparsnip said...

I had several old ornaments but lost them all in the fire. I changed how I decorated the tree and home after that and made some newer memories.
cheers, parsnip

justjill said...

My new header is my Christmas card. For you too. x

Heather said...

There are no surviving decorations from my childhood Christmas trees, but there are still two or three which must be about 60 years old from my children's Christmases. I used to love Christmas when I was a child and my own children were small, but now it doesn't have the same magic. However, I still have a tiny tree and put up a few decorations. I look forward to the New Year and hope we have all learned something from this one to carry us forward into hopefully better times.

Tom Stephenson said...

I remember the smell of the cupboard where the tree decorations were stored. It was unlit and contained floor polish and all sorts of things. The glass baubles and glass, golden trumpets which used to make a honk if you blew them. The plastic lantern covers for the lights which always fell off as they got warm, covered in years of old sellotape repairs by my father. And the tinsel! It was made from pure lead - very heavy!

Ellen D. said...

I do have several of the ornaments and some of the decorations from when I was a little girl. When my sister and I cleaned out my parent's home, my 3 siblings and I got to take turns picking what we wanted from the ornaments and decorations that my Mom still had. It always brings back lovely memories when I unwrap them each year. I am looking forward to a relaxing Christmas since I won't have any large gatherings to rush to or cook for. Merry Christmas to you, Pat!

Red said...

I often think about parents during WW II and wonder about how much terror they went through even if their boy came home . My son was in the reserve here and when the gulf war happened I was stressed that he would be involved. He was in signals.

Virginia said...

How stressful it must have been for parents, trying to keep up a brave front for the sake of the children, but fearful inside. We still have a few Christmas tree ornaments from the early 1950s, which are ever so carefully places where they are less likely to get knocked. They're certainly fragile. This year our grandson saw the jointed, paper Fathe Christmas decorated by his father in 1985, and wanted to make one too. He took it in to show his teacher, in much the same room his father was in all those years ago. The new one is certainly brighter and less ragged, but it was lovely having them together.

Helen said...

Greetings from Bend Oregon .... I'm one of those followers who reads, and thinks about you but I don't comment often enough. My Sister living in Ohio is recovering now from cellulitis ... not serious enough for hospital, but major antibiotics. She is over the worst of it. She tore skin on her lower leg working in her yard.
I was born in 1941 and yes, I have seven or eight glass ornaments from childhood. I cherish them. Last year I broke one, and thought I would never stop crying.
Are you able to have a holiday with friends and/or family over your computer? We are having a big Zoom celebration this Sunday and later next week I am joining a Google Meet gathering. I hope that might be an option for you.
Stay healthy and continue to heal,
I care ...
Helen

Susan said...

Christmas will be different this year for everyone. Despite the lack of family gathering, I am cooking my traditional roast and baking my gingerbread cake. The champs and wine will flow. I decorated as I always have done. I have vivid memories of beautiful German made glass Christmas ornaments from my childhood. I do wish my family held on to them and passed them down. I can only hope someone else is enjoying them.

Joanne Noragon said...

We had strings of bubble lights, long glass tubes with colored filling and bubble came up. When we tried them out years later on the Christmas tree, they still worked.

Eileen in Fla. said...

I enjoy personal accounts of ordinary life during historical events like Dunkirk. Thank you for remembering and sharing. It's a reminder that people have been through much worse than 2020. Merry Christmas and wishes for continued improvement of your health.

Gail, northern California said...

Your posts are such an inspiration. You're an amazing woman. I have a feeling you've always been so. Sending best wishes for a Merry Christmas, no matter how simple. I love your memories of Christmases past.

Bettina Groh said...

we didn't have ornaments until we were in the US. Our tree in London had glass prisms from a chandelier and white candles...

Salty Pumpkin Studio said...

Happy Holidays!

Iremember the cat climbed into the tallest tree we ever had; and the sound of ornaments getting closer as cat and tree fell on me watching TV on the sofa. Cat was so scared I had to nearly pry her off the trunk. I felt so bad for her.

AK Coldweather said...

Happy Holidays Pat!
I too will be spending Christmas alone. And I still purchase glass ornaments. They just seem to have an extra shine and sparkle. However, I hang them much higher up off the floor where the cats can't possibly reach them. :) -A.K.

Cro Magnon said...

I shall be cutting down, and bringing in, our tree today. Like you I buy one new decoration each year. Yesterday I bought a beautiful red Apple for the tree (actually I bought 2), which I will ask the boys to place where they wish. We used to have those clip-on candle holders too; it never crossed our minds that they might be a fire hazard!

Bonnie said...

What lovely Christmas memories you have. I remember the ornaments from the tree we had when I was a child. My Mother used to set up a small little Christmas Village under the tree. I loved it. I don't have any of those items but I do have a set of her small ceramic elves. I put them out every Christmas and remember my Mother.

The Feminine Energy said...

No, it can not come soon enough for me either. Christmas just isn't the same this year and personally I'll be happy when it's over and we start moving through the season of winter. ~Andrea xoxo

Doc said...

It is indeed going to be a different sort of Christmas. Each one of our tree ornaments has a special memory for us and our family. We had to put a stop to any new ones or it meant getting an even bigger tree.

Librarian said...

My parents still have some ornaments from when my Mum was a child, but most of what we use these days is from my and my sister's childhood plus a few acquisitions over the years.
We will spend Christmas Eve as a family, like we have been doing for as long as I can remember - my parents, my sister and I. That's three households and under 10 people, and still within the restrictions of our current lockdown (exceptions for the 24th to 26th are in place, otherwise only two households and max. five people).

Heather said...

I was born in 1958. I remember clip on red candles and holders on our Christmas tree which was a small fake tree which used to sit on our piano in the fairly large hall. They were never lit though, just for show. Later we had fat coloured lights.

Bovey Belle said...

All our glass Christmas baubles from childhood were broken (mum was a bit clumsy with them), but I remember them as Tam buys old baubles when she finds them - some to sell on, others to keep. I remember the little tin crocodile clip candle holders too - heavens, it's a wonder trees didn't go up in flames! Happy memories with the special decorations we have bought down the years.

Christmas will be very low key here as just the three of us, but with a Skype present opening including our other daughter and son. I feel I could do without it interrupting things right now.

thelma said...

All my christmas decorations seem to be lost somewhere in the house. No tree to hang them from anyway but I shall invest in lots of candles and cut greenery from the garden.

Gerry Snape said...

Lovely thought Pat...every year I buy each of the five grandgirls another christmas tree bauble for their collection...these things are so important...memories.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thelma - what a good idea - I shall do the same.
Such lovely thoughts you all have of Christmas past - we must all make an effort to make this a good Christmas to remember.

Thanks everyone.

Mary said...

OMG those clip on candles - I guess most Brits had them back in the 40's and 50's - what were they thinking!!!
How about paper chains - nobody mentioned them yet. You recall them don't you Pat? Sitting for hours cutting up those strips of colored paper and gluing them into a chain and draping them to the corners from the center ceiling light in the living room. Then we stuck a bough of holly or some greenery above each mirror and picture - all very simple compared to what many of us do to decorate these days.
Lovely memories of childhood Christmas traditions here - which is another reason I love to visit you - we are so many in the same group who recall many of the same things!
Hugs, Mary

Midmarsh John said...

I had almost forgotten about the types of Christmas tree ornaments we used to use year after year. I still have most of them, each carefully wrapped in tissue paper, and stored in a cardboard box now in the attic. Unused for years. I remember they were all made from thin, fragile glass and beautifully decorated. Balls, bells, fruit and animals. The one I most remember from childhood was one in the shape of a pipe. It had a reed in the bowl and made a noise when I blew in the stem. Some would be older than me. Maybe collectors items now?