Category: christmas decorations

Driving home for Advent

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Assuming everyone has been good this year, you should all be expecting Santa to visit.  If you’ve not been good, expect your chimney to suddenly develop large cracks in its masonry.

As a child, waking up in my Balham flat, I would eagerly look forward to what Christmas Day would bring (preferably in the form of presents). 

One year I remember receiving the Rupert annual.  I was never a fan of his column (obviously not written by him) nor of the Daily Express in general; they seemed to be obsessed with finding Martin Bormann (the Nazis’ answer to Reggie Perrin). 

I was quite disappointed – I had wanted the Supercar annual and it was on that Christmas morning I decided to invest in a decent pen and start an “improve your hand-writing” course.

Christmas lunch would be held one floor down in my flats at my Nan’s.  She was an excellent cook. Although, in later years, she would mistakenly place threepenny bits in the turkey, rather than the Christmas pudding.  Many a Christmas afternoon was spent at the emergency dentist. 

I was always allowed to have a glass of Pimm’s.  There was little alcohol in it; this was replaced with more fruit than you’d find on a Carmen Miranda hat.  

The evening was spent playing Newmarket, with many halfpennies up for grabs.   I would get very involved and still wake up screaming “Whose got the ace of spades?”. 

Hoping not to get the 2026 Rupert Annual – or his distasteful trousers – this Christmas.

Happy Advent.

Bubbling over

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It is thought to be unlucky having decorations still up after Twelfth Night. 

But, with all the paperchains; miniature mangers and Christmas tree fairies back in the loft/garage/recycling bin, all potential curses can vanish and normal service can be restored; although possibly not mealtimes.

As a kid growing up in the “Gateway to the South” I questioned if it was deemed to be tempting fate by still serving some form of cold meat, so frequently, up to and well after January 5th – and also, whether my mother had been sponsored by the creators of bubble & squeak?

I assumed she had been given Mrs Beeton’s “A million and one things to do with cold meat” for Christmas, as this seemed to be a daily serving (in various guises) at mealtimes before I returned to school.  I often wondered if my school books smelled of bubble & squeak due to its constant preparation throughout my holidays?

I had this irrational fear, usually during double chemistry, that the teacher might ask accusingly if anyone had brought sprouts or cabbage into the school?  While I knew bringing Player’s Number 6 in wasn’t permitted, had a sudden rule been introduced where no pupil could bring in anything which had been fried and several weeks old?

So, when someone says “bubble & squeak is not just for Christmas”  – they’re not lying.

Antlers & Decking

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It’s that time of year when you open your Christmas cards with apprehension.

Will they contain exploding glitter? Will it open to Away in a manger being played on a Stylophone (too soon)? Or will it contain a round-robin letter?  Personally, I’d prefer to have shards of glitter imbedded into my face rather than receive a letter from a frightful family I’d met on holiday in 1968.

Cards are more imaginative these days.  The actual card is certainly less flimsy. 

In the early ‘60s, deposited through my Balham flat letterbox, would be an envelope.  Inside was a card featuring a robin, covered in snow, chewing a sprig of holly; the card also felt like it could disintegrate at any moment.

I’ve friends in Germany and have received cards which, when opened, played oompah music to the tune of Jingle Bells. 

I felt like I was in a Bavarian beer house, especially as there was scratch ‘n’ sniff Glühwein on the envelope.

I’m lucky that I wear glasses as some cards open out with such force, it could have my eye out – and no one wants to be in A&E at Christmas asking for a pretend antler to be removed from both pupils.

And now I have to write to all my “friends” to tell them about how Melissa and Persephone are now doing Grade 4 castanets and the pet Labradoodle is nearly fluent in Esperanto. 

Partridge in a Pears’ Cyclopaedia

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If we were still living in the ‘60s, as we approach Christmas, so we’d be getting ready to welcome Perry Como into our houses.

What did he do the rest of the year?  What happened to all those jumpers?  Did he sell them to Val Doonican? When we watched Val Doonican’s Christmas Specials, was he wearing Perry Como’s hand-me-downs?

Were round-robin letters describing the events of the year a thing in the ‘60s?  Did we read them by the light of our fibre-optic lamps?  (I think I have one of the fibres still stuck in my foot).

My great aunt, who also lived in our Balham flats, owned a Pears’ Cyclopaedia.  I didn’t need a letter telling me about “Melissa and the girls finding a lovely inn in rural Tuscany” to enlighten me as to what had happened in the previous year.

More and more Christmas cards are sent electronically.   It’s not quite the same having a PC dangling overhead on a piece of string.

I wonder if I’ll still be scared of the Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol? In recent years, I’ve found Miss Piggy scarier.

And so, as Tiny Tim (the Dickens character, not the singer) would say, “God bless us, every one” – even those sending round-robin letters.

Annuals of history

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Every Christmas, during the ‘60s, I would be given, alongside two tangerines; a handful of walnuts and 2-packets of last years’ dates, the mandatory annual.

Which subject would my parents choose?  Had they been listening to me throughout the year to get a feel in what I was interested in?

As, for several years on the trot, I received the Rupert annual, they clearly hadn’t.  Unless they thought I was a secret Daily Express reader, I was always slightly disappointed.  I didn’t possess a matching pair of distasteful yellow scarf and trousers – if I had been posher, I might have had; but this was Balham in the ‘60s, so that was never happening.

I’d have liked to have got the first edition, published in 1936, featuring stories where Rupert trains with Jesse Owens and Hitler invades Nutwood, with the pretence that there were German speakers living there.

After a while of the annuals still being in pristine condition the following December, my parents changed tack.

The Coronation Street annual was never the same after 1964, as it no longer featured pictures of Martha Longhurst.

I was thrilled, in 1967, to get the Man from U.N.C.L.E. annual – I’d always wanted to be Illya Kuryakin and had, as a teenager, an interest in east European female gymnasts.

My parental procurement of my annual annual stopped in 1972.  Aged 15, you really don’t want your mates coming round to your place and seeing The Clangers annual taking pride of place on your bookcase.

There were some great soup recipes inside, though.

Roy Wood, would you?

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You could have been on Mars for several years and returned, not knowing what day it was, until you walked into a shop only to hear Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you” and know it was approaching Christmas – or, in some shops, early October.

It seems that Christmas music being played in shops is introduced ever earlier – it does beg the Band Aid question, do they know it’s Christmas?

I’m not sure, while looking for the mandatory bath salts for my mum, that I want Noddy Holder screaming at me; nor do I need to be reminded of the unnecessarily long car journey Chris Rea’s embarking on – move house, Chris!  Or, get an Uber.

Would I, as Roy Wood might suggest, wish it could be Christmas every day?  No, as I’d a. be skint and b. there isn’t a factory providing an infinite amount of bath salts that’s yet been built.

I’d happily rock around the clock with Brenda Lee, except I’ve developed plantar fasciitis – which is not the Latin for cactus.

It’s handy, if you’re looking for a row at Christmas, to know all the lyrics to the Pogues’ Christmas offering; if this is the case then “Step into Christmas” would be renamed “Step outside”.

And Dean Martin’s “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow” would have been banned by the BBC in 1962.

Halfpenny for your thoughts?

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Boxing Day in the ‘60s for me meant an early introduction to gambling and the chance to win my bodyweight in halfpennies.

We would travel from Balham to Wimbledon Chase (which sounded more like a horserace than an actual place) to visit a family who’d previously lived in my block of flats, but had emigrated to SW20 – could have been Borneo, it seemed that far away.

At the end of the four-mile journey south down the A24 would be the largest ever collection of bottled beer, two packs of cards and a pile of halfpennies, which to me looked like Everest (the mountain, not the double glazing).

The game we played was Newmarket; it was simple and easy for a ten-year-old (me) to play.  The games would seemingly go on long into the night (probably about 9.30!) and amidst the continual clinking of light ale bottles, you stood to have a pile in front of you, if you were lucky, adding up to nearly a shilling.  I’d never felt so rich – plus I had already been given a £1 Premium Bond at birth – surely only members of the Royal Family were better off?

The lady who lived there looked very much like Dusty Springfield (this was preferable than looking like Myra Hindley, as my Auntie Vera did), so it was no coincidence her songs were played throughout the evening. 

When the beer had run out, and the halfpennies usually in one person’s sole possession, we began the trip home – back to wonder how easy it was to mend a broken Action Man. 

Who’s got the ten of spades?

The postman only rings after playtime

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In December, during the ‘60s, in my Balham primary school, there would be a temporary post box put in the playground. 

Its use was for pupils to put our Christmas cards into, It was purely for our fellow pupils – although some didn’t realise this and those with relatives in far-away countries were quite disappointed that Auntie Gladys in Brisbane would moan she’d  not received a single card for years.

The cards would be delivered; unless you had siblings at the school, you tended to get twenty-nine cards – from your fellow classmates. 

I realised, after I’d finished full-time education, that you only tended to know your actual classmates, apart from the boys’ names announced at the Monday morning assembly announcing anyone with any sporting prowess or were (yet again) on detention.

Receiving so many cards was great, the problem was was that twenty-nine also had to be written.  I got very bored signing everyone “Happy Christmas, Mick” and so mixed my signature up with people I’d seen on TV or were sporting heroes.  I’d sign many as “John Drake” or “Amos Burke”; many girls in my class would wonder who Gerd Müller was, and several boys would get excited thinking they’d got a card from Nancy Sinatra or Mandy Rice-Davies.

This Christmas I shall be confusing friends and family with my Christmas signature of “Be lucky, Pol Pot”.  Confusing as a. he’s dead and b. wasn’t terribly Christian.  You certainly wouldn’t have wanted to sit on his knee, let alone enter his grotto.  Be lucky, Mick.

That’s a cracker!

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crackers

In 1847 Christmas crackers were invented.
As a child, in my south London flat, a disturbingly cheap cracker would sit next to my turkey dinner. As I grew older, so I realised what a massive disappointment its contents awaited me with its unveiling.
Coupled with the shock of the noise from the actual cracker (the cheaper the cracker the more likely you’d get second degree burns from the errant sparks) was a useless plastic toy.
For someone who takes pride in their hair, the thought of covering it with a flammable paper hat was abhorrent. When this occurred you hoped there’d be a temporary wig inside rather than a compass which was clueless about where magnetic north was!
Less than an hour after the last cracker had been pulled (despite the awaiting disappointment you still wanted to be pulling with an aged relative and thus claiming two-thirds) the remnants would be gathered up and thrown away, sometimes in a bin, sometimes, if your host was particularly myopic, into the cold meat and bubble for the next day!
The only evidence there’d been any crackers was the most elderly relative still wearing theirs who, when suddenly waking up, would ask which one was Morecambe and which one Wise? The answer being neither of them as neither appeared in The Great Escape.
I always knew that Christmas crackers were fundamentally wrong as you never saw the Queen delivering her message wearing one or reading, from a small piece of paper, that a mince spy is the person who hides in a bakery at Christmas.

Cards on the table

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robin

It is that time of year when Christmas card arrivals gather pace.
In my Balham flat, growing up in the 60s, my mother would hang cards over hastily-erected pieces of string which, the more cards we received, the greater the chance of being garrotted!
In those days you’d buy a box of mixed cards, marginally heavier than greaseproof paper adorned with various winter and/or biblical scenes; the hierarchy of your friends and family would be determined by whether they got the (un-Christmassy) robin, a snowman in the shape of a wise man or the baby Jesus surrounded by donkeys, incense and virgins.
However, something which has crept into Santa’s postbag is the round robin letter from people you’ve not heard from since exactly a year ago!
Sadly, and this might be an only child thing, I couldn’t give a toss about the successful summer’s holiday, how (insert your own pretentious child’s name here) has integrated into the local Kindergarten or how the entire family is learning Italian – such was the triumph of the aforementioned trip to Tuscany and everyone now knows how to correctly pronounce the word Latte.
Also enclosed in the envelope is a picture of the entire family (many of whom you’d not have babysit your own kids) all dressed in the same onesie taken at Christmas last year; which begs the question: why do people dress normally for 364-days of the year only to have a total sartorial brain aberration at Christmas?
Happy Christmas, mine’s a Latte and Arriverderci, Roma.