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Christmas Traditions – What Were Yours Growing Up?

Stokkie said:
A tip for roasting goose or duck is to prick the skin then roast on a wire rack or trivet set inside a roasting tin. Pour off the fat during the cooking. The legs should be covered in foil or or cut off and cooked separately. Keep the fat as it makes wonderful roast potatoes. Geese are expensive, so buy well before Christmas and freeze the bird before careful thawing. It is a dark meat with a strong favour, but won't be dry.

Duck is easy to get, try a free range one. If it is wild - a shot bird, then look for pellets. Wild duck can taste fishy or muddy to some. For goose a farm or game dealer is best, they take a long time to grow.
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if the shooter is sticking to the law the shot should be none lead
  • wildfowlers must abide by the law and meet the standards described in this code, and show respect for the countryside, due regard to health
  • The use of lead shot for all wildfowling has been made illegal in England and Wales, and for all shooting on or over wetlands (including foreshore) in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
nothing worse than eating a bird full of shot:(
 
I remember the annual trip with my brothers into Birmingham city centre on the bus to see the Christmas lights and look at the window displays in the big department stores. Just before Christmas in 1968, we were taken into town in the late afternoon to see "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Although it was completely clear when we went into the cinema, it stated snowing hard while we were inside. when we came out into the dark night there was heavy snow on the ground and it was still falling. Being shown around the Christmas lights and shop displays in that atmosphere as a kid was truly magical. - Of course, if you could take a modern-day LED or fibre-optic light display back to that time you'd cause a sensation. You'd have people queuing around the block to see it.
 
Dinger said:
I remember the annual trip with my brothers into Birmingham city centre on the bus to see the Christmas lights and look at the window displays in the big department stores. Just before Christmas in 1968, we were taken into town in the late afternoon to see "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Although it was completely clear when we went into the cinema, it stated snowing hard while we were inside. when we came out into the dark night there was heavy snow on the ground and it was still falling. Being shown around the Christmas lights and shop displays in that atmosphere as a kid was truly magical. - Of course, if you could take a modern-day LED or fibre-optic light display back to that time you'd cause a sensation. You'd have people queuing around the block to see it.
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the barra boys carts all lit up with tilly lamps facinated me
 
Reading through everyone’s memories has proper warmed my heart — funny how all our Christmases were different but they all had the same magic about them.


When I was a kid, the Christmas tree went up whenever my dad finally gave in and tackled the box of tangled lights. We’d have the same old Christmas tapes on — the ones that had to be rewinded with a pencil when they got chewed up — and me and my brother would argue over who got to stick the star on the top. Tinsel everywhere… looked like the tree had lost a fight with a glitter bomb, but we thought it was brilliant.


Christmas morning, we weren’t allowed downstairs until everyone was awake, so we’d sit outside our parents’ bedroom whispering “are they awake yet?” The stockings always had the classics — satsuma, chocolate coins, and a little something wrapped in loads of Sellotape. Funny how those tiny things stick with you more than any big present.


Looking back, it wasn’t the perfect decorations or big gifts that made it special — it was the daftness, the excitement, the feeling that something magical was happening.


And I still stick Home Alone on every year. It’s not properly Christmas till Kevin’s screaming into the mirror.
 
zarabolen said:
Reading through everyone’s memories has proper warmed my heart — funny how all our Christmases were different but they all had the same magic about them.


When I was a kid, the Christmas tree went up whenever my dad finally gave in and tackled the box of tangled lights. We’d have the same old Christmas tapes on — the ones that had to be rewinded with a pencil when they got chewed up — and me and my brother would argue over who got to stick the star on the top. Tinsel everywhere… looked like the tree had lost a fight with a glitter bomb, but we thought it was brilliant.


Christmas morning, we weren’t allowed downstairs until everyone was awake, so we’d sit outside our parents’ bedroom whispering “are they awake yet?” The stockings always had the classics — satsuma, chocolate coins, and a little something wrapped in loads of Sellotape. Funny how those tiny things stick with you more than any big present.


Looking back, it wasn’t the perfect decorations or big gifts that made it special — it was the daftness, the excitement, the feeling that something magical was happening.


And I still stick Home Alone on every year. It’s not properly Christmas till Kevin’s screaming into the mirror.
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what lovely memories...much the same as my own..and even though i have just turned 72 christmas is not the same without watching home alone 1 and 2..even my grown up children still watch them :D

lyn
 
zarabolen said:
Reading through everyone’s memories has proper warmed my heart — funny how all our Christmases were different but they all had the same magic about them.


When I was a kid, the Christmas tree went up whenever my dad finally gave in and tackled the box of tangled lights. We’d have the same old Christmas tapes on — the ones that had to be rewinded with a pencil when they got chewed up — and me and my brother would argue over who got to stick the star on the top. Tinsel everywhere… looked like the tree had lost a fight with a glitter bomb, but we thought it was brilliant.


Christmas morning, we weren’t allowed downstairs until everyone was awake, so we’d sit outside our parents’ bedroom whispering “are they awake yet?” The stockings always had the classics — satsuma, chocolate coins, and a little something wrapped in loads of Sellotape. Funny how those tiny things stick with you more than any big present.


Looking back, it wasn’t the perfect decorations or big gifts that made it special — it was the daftness, the excitement, the feeling that something magical was happening.


And I still stick Home Alone on every year. It’s not properly Christmas till Kevin’s screaming into the mirror.
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Well, you must be one of our younger members with Home Alone :), we used to watch Christmas Carol on BBC in black & white and scare myself to death. BTW I still like to watch both of those although a Christmas Carol is hard to find anymore!
Thank you for sharing your memories!
 
The film I always try to catch at Christmas is the 1952 "The Holly and the Ivy" (often shown on Talking Pictures TV at that time of year). - It's so full of memories of a by-gone Christmas in Britain. Not putting up Christmas decorations until Christmas Eve, Sending a letter with the full expectation that it will arrive the next day. Proper Carol singers. A great cast of actors. I'm always particularly impressed by Denholm Elliott doing a convincing portayal of a youngster doing their National Service, yet he had been a Halifax bomber crewman in WW2, shot down and captured in 1942, a full 10 years before the film was made. A bit old to be doing National service! - But he pulls of the part very well.

 
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