I have no idea where this Christmas tree decoration came from but it's old - they certainly don't make them like this anymore - it's exactly the same as those we had on the tree when I was a little girl.
I'm sure it didn't come from the time we cleared Dad's house - seems to have appeared more recently.
Back in the late 50's and 60's there weren't so many places to buy Christmas decorations - it was mainly Woolworths or the big department stores which we didn't have in small towns. Every year we would make those paper chains that loop one strip through another. They went from corners of the rooms to the light fitting in the middle. Then out would come the concertina/honeycomb paper decorations - a bell, a star and some round balls. They had to be clipped together with a paper clip to hold them open and folded very carefully on twelfth night. And there were always balloons.
We had a big beam across the middle of the room and as more things became available Mum collected some small sprays of artificial holly and silver leaves and similar bits and would pin them along the beam on each side.
We always had a real Christmas tree which would start shedding needles almost as soon as it was brought in - shoved in a bucket of builders sand - always plenty of that in a builders yard. Mum had some very old tree decorations including clips that could hold proper birthday candles - although we never had them alight. There was always a problem with the lights - multi coloured- with bulbs that screwed in and had to be checked one by one every year to find out which one had failed.
I can remember how bare the room looked when the decorations came down but I expect Mum was glad to get them out of the way - she hated dust and old houses with wood beams and open fires produced plenty of that and once everything was put away she could get the the duster and polish out again.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
Our real Christmas tree is covered in old decorations, made by my mother (now 92), my sisters and me. We also have old bought ones like yours Sue plus mini silk covered baubles and a 35 year old angel bought by one of my sons with his pocket money. So many memories!! Keep blogging! Anne
ReplyDeleteThe concertina/honeycomb decorations are back in fashion and sold in many shops as are paper chains! Nothing like making your own chains though.
ReplyDeleteOh Sue, we had those when I was a child in the 50s but when I was single in my 40s I cleared out all my Christmas decorations. Your blog always brings me pleasure and interest but today brought very happy memories too. Jill x
ReplyDeleteMy brother and I were reminiscing about our tree lights - dating from the 1950s I think, somebody had given them to us - they had little shades featuring Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and were proper Disney ones. He saw some similar online recently costing £100+,we wondered what happened to our family set!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds just like our house. As the smallest occupant it was my job each morning to take a dustpan and brush and crawl underneath the tree to collect fallen needles.
ReplyDeleteGarlands, coloured ropes, tinsel, honeycomb bells, ah! the happy memories of thumb tacks in the ceiling and walls! We had a white tinsel "feather" style tree. I picked up a bag of assorted vintage decorations for 50p in a rummage sale pre pandemic.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like my childhood Christmas. My Nana had a silver tinsel tree....it used to fascinate me. I guess she'd had her fill of the shedding needles over the years! Arilx
ReplyDeleteWe also had those very old clips to hold real candles which were never lit. We had a lot of old inherited stuff, like real glass icicles. As well as paper chains, we had home-made streamers; long strips of crepe paper machine stitched down the middle, which made them crinkly. I think my grandmother had probably made them.
ReplyDeleteI could hardly believe it when I saw a money saving tip for Christmas: don't buy new decorations every year. Who on earth does this?
That really is a lovely old decoration on the tree. Our branch from the dead tree from our garden survived a year in the loft so it’s up and decorated with handmade paper and wooden decorations. Catriona
ReplyDeleteWe had all of those things, apart from the paper chains. It was a lovely time of year when the rest of the year was quite 'ordinary'.
ReplyDeleteIn the 50's amongst the tree decorations there was a pair of angels, looked like a pale green plastic. My brother and I used to take them off the tree and hide in the meter cupboard to watch them glow in the dark, they must have been radioactive in some way.
ReplyDeleteI remember we had streamers with our bunches of balloons and getting those lights working 🙄 - an early lesson on electrical circuits though 🙂
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember all those decorations. Your blog today reminded me of decorations I had forgotten. My mum used to buy crepe paper cut it into strips, and crimp along all the edges and then twist them and hang them across the room. I have a rather lovely memory of it being bedtime and my dad lifting me up high to touch the chains before going to bed. Jean in Winnipeg
ReplyDeleteI love hearing how you decorated for Christmas with your family. The ornament is curious -- wonder where it came from. I like the older ones... and the memories with them.
ReplyDeleteI have several of the old ornaments that were on my family's tree when I was young. When we broke up my parents' house, we laid out the ornaments and my siblings and I took turns picking the ones we wanted so no one would feel left out. They bring back such sweet memories when I get them out each year.
ReplyDeleteThat is the thing that I love best about decorating the Christmas tree: pulling out those old ornaments. They are wrapped in memories, and I love them all. Every year, when my kids were home, they heard the stories of the ornaments. I wonder if any of them will remember the stories when I am gone. I wonder if they will even give a second look at those ornaments. Without the memories, they will just be shiny bits of glass and plastic and metal.
ReplyDeleteI remember making those long paper chains. We looped them around our classroom. Around our homes. I tried to interest my grandson n making them once. He was bored silly.
Your decorations sound so similar to the ones from my 60s childhood, except for the tree. We had the same little artificial tinselly tree year after year, which on photos now seems to me very minimally branched and very cheap looking. At the time though it seemed so magical. Christmas Day was the one day of the year that we had a fire lit in our bedroom fireplace so that we could play with our toys in the warmth and keep out of my Mum's way while she struggled to make dinner in our tiny little pantry sized kitchen.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we have a decoration very much like that from my parents' tree, which dates it at least 1960s or 1950s. We haven't got them out yet so cannot check.
ReplyDeleteI've just finished decorating my Christmas tree. All the decorations were bought when I was a child, some still in the original Woolworths boxes. I used to curse the job when I had to decorate it every year for my mother; now she's gone I still do it every Christmas. Sentimental old fool that I am!
ReplyDeleteFamily Christmas traditions are important and remembering them over the years brings fond memories from long ago. I also remember making the paper chains for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteYour childhood Christmas memories are wonderful. We had those same screw in bulbs on our tree lights. They seem so big compared to the tree lights we have now.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the other day about the cake decorations we had when I was a child, I can remember a little child in a white suit sliding down a slide and a father christmas. I think they were made of some sort of clay and painted.
ReplyDeleteBriony
x
Aah the Christmases of my childhood...the decorations and tree went up on Christmas Eve...and basically were gone after Boxing Day...thinking though... paper decorations and a twin tub washing machine creating steam probably weren't a good combination. Also no extractor fan above the Rayburn so with puddings and stews boiling there was a lot of steam in the kitchen. x
ReplyDeleteYour memories are lovely. How I enjoyed making those paper chains, never ever to be used on my dad's exquisitely designed [sometimes flocked white w the vaccuum cleaner] Tree, but I made them anyway. What is your ''old'', I was expecting early Victorian!--ornament made out of?
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely post, thank you Sue, sparked many happy memories. I remember all of these. Pam in Texas.x
ReplyDeleteI remember lots of those things happening in our house...Other than the paper chains. Thank you for the memories.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I only remember one tree while we lived in London ( late '40's early 50's) .. it was on our dining room table with white candles and crystals from a chandelier...very pretty.... that must be why I remember being 4 or 5.
ReplyDeleteWe always spent Christmasses with Dad's parents and the decorations were much the same from year to year. I simply loved arriving on Christmas Eve or the day before) and looking for all the old, familiar pieces - the tree decorations (always glass) and the concertine swags and objects. There were always some posh (we thought) paper chains for us to make and then they went up too.
ReplyDeleteOh, happy times. Thank you for the reminder. xx
Thanks for the lovely memories. I suppose it was being a child, but Christmas was so exciting. There were the paper loops, the 3d paper decorations and balloons in each corner of the room. Christmas was so special. We didn't have a lot of sweets or snacks throughout the year, but at Christmas (Mum saved up all year) the sideboard was filled with dates, figs, chocolates and goodies. There was cider - we were allowed a little - and my older sisters had babycham. There was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the television. Not sure why I always associate that film with Christmas lol.
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