Christmas Now and Then

Childhood memories from Marian Walsh

Watching TV recently, informing us our children could not possibly do without all of these expensive items on show, took me back to my childhood of the wartime, when we were grateful for anything on Christmas morning. My stocking (i.e. sock) would contain some nuts, a tangerine and a few chocolate coins covered in foil. We did not own a Christmas tree; ours was a branch dragged out from the hedge bottom. Mum would give me a ball of cotton wool to make into bits of snow, and cardboard was saved, cut into shapes and then painted by me, threaded to hang them onto the branch. You made your own paper chains and, living in a village, holly was in abundance. No twinkling lights!

Of course beneath this frugal tree would be a few presents from your relatives. Some of these I remembers well: Plasticine, skipping rope, Beano and Rupert annuals, a tin box of paints, jigsaw puzzle, dominoes, snakes and ladders, tiddly-winks, a cardboard fold-up shop with tin scales, draughts, painting books, a pair of slippers and a pinny to be worn on Christmas day. Now you must remember these items were over several Christmases, and because of rationing and most toys being made of cardboard their life-span was very short. One Auntie always gave me a box if hankies with my initial on. This ritual continued into my teens – she must have bought the whole contents of one shop!

Now Mom was a good Yorkshire cook who made her own pudding and cake, saving her coupons for dried fruit. No marzipan was available so the cake was just iced. When elderberry was in season we would go up the fields picking them to make wine. All of our food was home grown or made. We had a meat safe and Mom with our coupons and Granny’s would get extra bits for Christmas hoping it would not go off before The Day. She would pay so much a week at the Co-Op to have put on one side a box of Black Magic, a box of dates, a bag of mixed nuts, a bottle of ginger wine, if available with your coupons.

My father was in the Royal Navy so was very rarely home at Christmas, just Mom, Granny and I for Christmas dinner. No turkey – half a rabbit caught with Uncle’s ferret, the other half for his family. But with all the trimmings to me as a child it was a banquet. And those toys which had no life-span gave me hours of pleasure over the Christmas period, playing in front of the fire, no TV or Christmas lists asking for presents I knew I would not get. Because in a time of war you accepted what you were given, and would be thankful if there was no air raid to spoil it!

Marian Walsh
member of the Coleorton Heritage Group
December 2025

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