Category: christmas decorations

Do you want to build a cardboard snowman?

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advent

When did Advent calendars become the monsters they have?
Gone are the days when you’d have a flimsy piece of cardboard, as near as you could get to being homemade, adorning your mantelpiece.
In my Balham flat, in the sixties, the moment December arrived I’d erect mine (Advent calendar) and wait, with childlike anticipation, until the 24th (the night before Christmas when I’d also be hurriedly, and badly wrapping, my mum’s Bronnley bath salts).
However, my brain must have been like a goldfish as, when the 24th came, the only number with a double door, behind which was always the same: the baby Jesus lying in a manger. You’d be lulled into a false sense of security all month as you’d open one each day to reveal a picture of a snow-covered post-box, a robin, an old fish (if you’d got your calendar free from that month’s Trout and Salmon magazine) – items vaguely relevant to Christmas and then, bang! The baby Jesus again.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour of the baby Jesus being there – certainly in preference to a dead trout. However, these days the windows are no longer pictures of sugar cane sweets, holly or an immolating Christmas pudding, but actual gifts.
They are now as big as houses and many theme-based.
The Wise Men weren’t in Frozen, but if you were to look at any Advent calendar today you might be fooled into thinking that Elsa, Anna and Olaf were the bearers of gifts.
In 4 BC you’d have not been able to take Myrrh or Frankincense back to the Bethlehem branch of John Lewis!

Sponge, anyone?

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tommy baldwin

Growing up in the 60s, Balham Woolworth’s was the place we’d get our Christmas tree each year.

They weren’t as easy to nick as the contents on the Pick ‘n’ Mix on the counter, so temptingly near the entrance, so we bought ours.  This was also the place where we’d also purchase our decorations: which, because they were so fragile, by the time we’d get them back to our flat, and with an attrition rate of around 67%, we’d leave a trail of shattered glass/plastic in our wake along Balham High Road.

The biggest argument, however, was what to put on the top of the tree. As a small child we’d have a fairy/angel and then a star as I got older.  Upon entering teenage years there was a perennial internal family fight as to what perched at the top of the tree.

We all had varying hobbies and interests: my mum wanted a packet of JPS, my dad, despite being a massive Chelsea fan, wanted a picture of Vanessa Redgrave and I wanted a model of Gerd Müller.   We compromised, and for several years the pride of place atop our tree was a model of Tommy Baldwin wearing a Germany shirt made from old cigarette packets.

Blob on the landscape

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blobby bow tie

The record which topped the charts during my first Christmas, in 1957, was Harry Belafonte singing Mary’s Boy Child which is When a child is born played backwards.  It wasn’t until 1967 with The Scaffold’s Lily the Pink, that the Christmas songs became novelty songs – you’ll never hear the choir of King’s College Cambridge singing Ernie during any of their Nine Lessons & Carols services.

1956 had Johnnie Ray singing Just a walkin’ in the rain – if he’d had released that during Christmas 1962 he’d have had to have changed the words to Just a walkin’ in the snow as Britain witnessed its worst winter since the Black Death.

Is it, that at Christmas, peoples’ music tastes change so dramatically that they are bound to buy the worst record that week?

Why would you buy Long-haired lover from Liverpool (1972) sung by someone who’d rarely travelled outside of Utah?  In my view the 1980 hit There’s no one quite like Grandma is correct – my maternal grandmother had no teeth, stockings which were never fully pulled up properly and the most vituperative person ever.  And Mr Blobby (1993) – if Mr Blobby’d been one of the three wise men, then fair enough, he deserves a Christmas No. 1; but he wasn’t unless there were actually four wise men carrying gold, frankincense, myrrh and a yellow, spotted bow-tie.

Bring back Johnny Ray singing Just a walkin’ in the disturbingly mild for the time of year.

Vinter Vonderland

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snowball

“Holidays are coming” says the Coca Cola-fuelled TV ad six times, as the British public awaits the now famous ads for Christmas.   Growing up in south London in the sixties there was never that anticipation of exciting TV ads – mainly because there was only one commercial TV station and the only thing anticipated was how much Cinzano Leonard Rossiter might spill over Joan Collins or the shock of the inarticulate Lorraine Chase talking about Luton Airport.  (Says he who bunked off elocution lessons when 10).

However, there was one which I remember vividly and was in that box of things (like dates) that you only devoured at Christmas; that was promoting Advocaat (particularly the brand made by Warninks – pronounced with a “V” as if you were playing a German in Hogan’s Heroes).  Suddenly a snowball wasn’t something you remembered making in 1963, or a leading character in Animal Farm, here was something your parents gave you in an effort to put you off drinking alcohol at Christmas – and subsequent decades.  It’s like if custard was alcoholic!

My favourite Christmas ad from times gone by still remains the one marketing various forms of fragrances for Morny’s talc – although rather than the line: “Morny – the natural choice for Christmas”, I’d have preferred: “Because everyone suffers from chafing sometime”. Probably why I never made it in a creative department of any ad agencies in which I worked.  To which I say “Bols”.

Blind dates

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DATES-BOX

My fear of heights precluded me ever becoming the Milk Tray man.  As Christmas approaches, thoughts turn to what we can possibly buy which will heighten our bad cholesterol count as we contemplate the annual purchase of a box of dates.

1968 saw the first Milk Tray man ad on TV and ran, with several actors, into the mid-2000s.  I was 11 in 1968 and watched as the man leapt from building to building, through numerous avalanches, combating three-headed dogs along the way to delivering his milk chocolate selection box.

If I’d been better at PE at school, I would have quite fancied that – black is my favourite clothes colour; in my mind, I was halfway there. The SAS-type training being the other half, was an aspect which needed work! I couldn’t vault over a horse during PE, so there was no way I’d be seen on UK TV screens across the land with my important package (my own personal important package being my main concern whilst attempting to leap over a wooden horse in my Tooting school gym).

“And all because the lady loves Milk Tray” – really?  Even “Perfect Praline” which isn’t perfect as so few people know what praline is?  I’m surprised this hasn’t been discontinued as it is the only one which remains in the box after the decorations are put away, the cards taken down and box of dates stored back in the loft.

Milk Tray has been around since 1916; coincidentally the sell-by date on my box of dates.

A verruca is not just for Christmas

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nurses-2

In the seventies, I sang in a church choir in Balham (anything to get a place in Heaven). At this time of year we would visit the now extinct St James’s Hospital (I accept no blame for my singing being the catalyst for its closure).

I never had fond memories of the hospital; I was in constant fear of having to remove my clothing as we walked and sang (who said men can’t multi-task?) between wards. This fear stemmed from having to go to St James’s to have a verruca examined, only to be asked to take off all my clothes.  It was mid-Winter and I’ve never looked my best naked when there’s a chill in the air.

We would sing for an hour and then rewarded with mince pies in the hospital refectory; although, it was reward enough (as a teenager) sharing a table with loads of nurses to whom I’d have willingly demonstrated my verruca in true St James’s investigatory style. However, a teenage lad with mince pie crumbs round their mouth and all over their Christmas jumper was unarguably unattractive.

After the hospital we’d convene to The Hope on Wandsworth Common (mince pies can be very dehydrating). A consequence of this visit ensured that during Midnight Mass at least one choir member, at the beginning of each verse of “Once in Royal David’s City”, popped out to the topically holly-infested outside toilets of St Mary’s Primary school.

These were the days before pub closing times were extended, so the church was packed (with a third of the congregation wondering why the band wasn’t terribly upbeat and why were too many songs about donkeys on the juke box?). Although they were soon topped up with a Communion wine sharpener – certainly the ones who didn’t fall down the (particularly if you’ve had a few ) steep chancel steps.

This year I’ve asked Santa for a nurse’s outfit. Knowing my luck, it’ll be delivered by someone who was once in Emergency Ward 10 as they’ll be 100!

Happy Christmas, mine’s a verruca.

Having the decorators in

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paper chain

Balham Woolworth’s was the only place worthy of buying Christmas decorations from when I was growing up in the sixties.

The choice was a pack of lick-it-yourself paper chains and, well, that was it really, unless you count baubles for Christmas trees made out of material which would decompose before Twelfth Night.

Nowadays houses are decorated with lights brighter than ones used at Colditz and festooned with various Christmas-related mammals on rooftops – Reindeer, Snowmen, Father Christmases or, if you lived near pagan arsonists, Wicker Men. These decorations are in evidence shortly after Easter or, at worst, after the clocks have gone back – thus taking full advantage of the darker nights.

In the sixties, my task was to stick the paper chain paper together.   It was probably the only colourful thing in our flat, unless you include the yellow ceiling courtesy of mum and dad’s JPS and Senior Services respectively.  Thankfully I wasn’t colour blind, so the lead up to Christmas (or Advent as Latin speakers call it) was like Joseph and his limited-coloured dream coat.  Only primary colours were used with these aforementioned paper chains.  But what you did get, and only for Christmas, was dehydration.  Even though we were only in a small flat, to create a chain going from the four corners of the lounge, took a lot of licking.  I’d have been more hydrated if I’ve polished off a packet of Jacob’s Crackers.

We did have a nice tree though, although neither parent got the timing of the flashing lights right and when anyone visited they’d be handed a card saying: “this lounge features strobe-lighting”.  The speed varied between the North Foreland Lighthouse to a club in Ayia Napa!

Wonder if Chris Rea’s set off yet?