What do you miss most about 'old' Christmas?

Incense at midnight mass.

That can be arranged, Rusty_Spanner.

Lots of ‘my dad’ answers here, so for those of us with Dads probably worth putting a little extra effort in if you take them for granted (speaking for myself).

Me – the excitement of the Radio Times and the films. Mrs still buys the Christmas Radio Times but I reckon it’s not even been opened the last few years.

I still get into the spirit of it, I only miss the things I used to do because I was a kid. School plays and presents mainly.

We’re skint so my budget for a christmas present this year is £13 same as the wife. Kids will do ok though, which is the important thing.

Boxing Day Hunt. 😳

I’m a bit more enlightened now, but as a kid growing up in the countryside it was a marvellous event to be in the middle of. I didn’t really put together what they were actually ‘doing’.

Snow, great drifts of snow. I’m sure it was actually January but time blurs the memory.

Could you not simply recreate the festive sentiment by nipping out and beating a kitten to death with a shovel?

My mum is from Germany and she insisted on lighting real candles on the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. I miss that, and the terrifying anticipation of the whole house burning to the ground, with all our presents.

Saxon Rider, I remember walking down High Street at Christmas and that stretch would be a cacophony of colour. from the top of Fore Street all the way up to Sidwell Street.
and the Christmas specials at the ABC cinema….fk I AM old!

It only lasted a couple of weeks 😉

Free pint in the local Xmas day morning – one and only time in the year.

The main thing I miss is my mum – she passed away whilst my sister and I were still quite young, so the excitement about Christmas had yet to expire. She was a great cook and always good a fab dinner, but I miss the turkey and ham pie she made with left overs on boxing day. Bloody brilliant.

The last Christmas we had with her was awesome – my grandparents and favourtie uncle all came and had to stay longer because we got snowed in! We lived in the middle of the Dalby forest at the time.

I do miss how excited I’d get. I was a bugger for getting up super early to go and rifle through my stocking. We had to wait until everyone was up for the main presents though.

My little ‘un is just getting to the age where he’ll start to be excited about it. Can’t wait.

Found the Brexiteers!

Morecambe and Wise.

The whole country sat and watched it together.

We weren’t allowed to watch ITV, that was for the commoners….

selection packs in the shape of a boot covered in mesh, full of spangles and marathon bars, not these plastic trays covered in more plastic.

Also the original snowman, although the snowdog has grown on me. My eldest is six and is hopping up and down with excitement. Understandably he loves presents, but he loves to see his family too.

selection packs in the shape of a boot covered in mesh, full of spangles and marathon bars, not these plastic trays covered in more plastic.

They were plastic long ago too.

The whole traditions we had and the people.
For 40+ years Christmas dinner was held at my Mum and Dad’s, cooked by my (much) older brother. So in the morning me and my sister would open our presents from Mum n Dad, then in the afternoon the rest of the local family would turn up and we’d eat till we couldn’t move, then open presents that they’d brought with them. The evening spent playing “parlour games”. As we moved out and had families of our own, we still went to Mum and Dad’s for Christmas dinner, bringing inlaws with us if they were at a loose end. So my kids got to experience it. This all stopped 4 years ago with the death of my mum, we now all do our own thing on Christmas day. We passed Dad between us until he died last year and with my divorce my kids are having to get used to 50:50 Christmas day. My daughter said last week “I miss the Christmas traditions we had”.

I miss the build up. It seems incredibly rushed right up until the last minute so on Christmas day itself you are wasted. It’s still great but just not in the same way

ninfan – Member
Starving Ethiopians?

You stay classy now, you hear?

I miss the excitement of being a kid on xmas morning.

My lad is 10 and announced the other week he doesn’t believe in Father Xmas any more 🙁

So next year I think we will throw 2 fingers up at a traditional xmas and bugger off on holiday instead 🙂

Don’t know about you but reading all these post, it’s getting quite dusty in here…..

I should really do some work!

Snow…and sledging/snowball fights

Snow…and sledging/snowball fights

Hard to believe it’s 5 years.

Lack of choice. It can be a good thing. It’s like vinyl vs. Spotify. When I was 17 all the pubs were closed on Christmas Day so it’d be a big deal when you could escape to one on boxing day, even though you had to walk for miles to meet your mates, because there were no buses. Same with films. I don’t know what families do today but with everybody with a tablet and headphones presumably they are all doing their own thing, whereas it used to be the Great Escape or James Bond for everybody – Granny to youngest kid – take it or leave it. Not the best film, but a communal experience. You can still create that for yourself today with a much better choice but it would take some creative discipline.

+1 for snow and also looking forward to watching films on tv that I havent seen at the cinema. Also kids tv on in the morning over the christmas period.
Money in the christmas pudding in school

My grandparents.

Christmas used to be great when I was a kid. Because:

I was a kid
We used to have my mum’s sister over, or go over there
My parents liked a drink, as did they – always enough to get really happy, no more
My cousins were young adults
Everyone got along really well
We had a succession of Aussie cousins coming over on grand European tours, as young adults

So we’d end up with a dozen or more people having a proper good time.

Now my folks are too old to behave like that, my auntie and uncle are at my cousin’s with her family, my sister’s kids are a pain so they have Christmas morning at home and we only go over later, they argue loads, my sister spends her whole time in the kitchen, and whilst it’s a good family day it’s not a party any more. Usually just six of us Christmas morning.

We’re all having an 80’s vinyl and boardgames christmas party at our mates house on Friday night. Somewhat counter-intuitively the people who are genuinely most looking forward to this are my 12 and 9 year old daughters. I dug my vinyl out the other day, and they honestly didn’t know what it was! Seriously! 😯

To them CD’s are ancient, olden days stuff. God I feel old! 😥

My dad. Never seen a slim man eat as much as he did for Christmas. Despite his cultural background – a traditional roast was pretty much his favourite, especially with an old fashioned pudding. As Christmas dinner is that x1000, he loved it.

My grandparents. They always knew how to make Christmas special… Christmas at their home was lovely when I was young.

I miss the magic of it when I was a kid. Now I work in retail my whole experience of Christmas is somewhat tainted. We have Christmas meetings in July where Christmas jumpers are encouraged and the real message of Christmas is how much money can be emptied out of people’s pockets.

Chocolate selection packs – mainly when bought half price in Woolies on boxing day

My kids have started to like board games. Still junior ones currently, but it’s a start 🙂

Literally don’t know where to begin stop so I’ll just say my grandparents.

*Edit – And a proper Chocolate Orange.

Oh I remember the days of circling films & TV programmes in the Radio Times!

As kids we used to go to my aunt & uncle’s; they were very traditional and my aunt was quite strict. So Christmas Dinner would always be the full turkey (carved by my uncle, as instructed by my aunt… 🙂 ) and we’d do family board games and go for A Family Christmas Walk. All very traditional but great fun and they had a huge house & garden that we could play in.

My aunt was a brilliant cook except for sprouts which were boiled senseless from about December 20th. Never been able to eat them since.

Getting hammered in the longhouse as we waited out the impassable seas of winter until spring arrived and it was pillaging season again!

I miss the build up.

you are kidding aren’t you? Christmas songs have been playing for the last 6 bloody weeks!

I miss having a massive feast on Christmas eve, allowing us all to be very idle on christmas day and as a kid, actually enjoy opening presents and playing with them.
Then it was flour bombing on boxing day – literally throwing bags of flower at a target from a cessna, done at Leicester Aeroclub. havn’t done it for 20+ years so not sure if it’s still done.

Edit – it is! http://www.leicesterairport.com/flying-leicestershire/members-evenings/

I miss getting my big brother’s knackered old hand-me-down bike, while he got a new one. And so did my little brother cos he was too much younger to get my hand-me-downs although by the time both his big brothers had finished with em they were knackered anyway.
2 shiny new bikes and one shitty old one. That’s what I miss.

Queens speech (yawn), Goldfinger, and two three year old blockbuster films (ET, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) competing for the title of “the big Christmas film”. A chocolate orange. A real orange. Lego. Turkey roast. Turkey sandwiches. Turkey “curry”.

Mostly I miss the fact that it never seemed like a grossly overcommercialised shopping fest.

2 shiny new bikes and one shitty old one. That’s what I miss

Surely your Kinesis and Yeti will fulfil two of this triumvirate? 😉

😀 4 lovely bikes and 1 shitty one just isn’t the same

Christmas trees with coloured Christmas lights. I have put a vote in for coloured lights for the last few years, but the rest of my family vote for white. Bah!

I miss when it started on christmas eve and finished the day after boxing day instead of this 2 month farce we now have.