Family
Memories

Birmingham
Childhood

Christmas


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We used to put up Christmas decorations on Christmas Eve and no sooner. We tried to pick some holly as well. Cards were hung on ribbon around the room together with paper streamers or homemade paper chains. You could buy packets of strips of sticky paper to make paper chains. We used to have a real Christmas tree and my father always tried to get one with roots and put it in a pot of soil in the house. When Christmas was over he used to plant it in the garden but it never grew. The decorations stayed up till twelfth night when they were taken down.

Christmas day was usually spent at home or at my Gran’s house, two doors away. Sometimes we used to go and visit my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins in the morning. My Gran cooked the chicken, usually a boiler fowl, which was boiled and then roasted with stuffing.. Fat bacon slices were put over the bird to moisten it and sausages were cooked around the bird as well. We had sprouts and roast potatoes for vegetables. My father had a tin of salmon as he didn’t eat chicken. A tin of salmon was a luxury in those days. In the afternoon, another Uncle, Aunt and Cousin used to come and we used to play games like cards, monopoly, careers or cluedo.

Us at a Christmas Party
A Christmas Party
Boxing day was often spent at my Aunt and Uncle’s - the ones who had come to our house on Christmas day. They sometimes had a turkey, which was a luxury. My aunt was good at cooking fancy cakes.


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