Christmas pudding, Father Christmas, Christmas films and happy memories of Xmas

I was never really much of a party-person, not even as a child, but there were some things I enjoyed about family Xmas parties, mainly the food! I admit I used to love eating mince pies and Xmas cake.

I remember it was fun dressing the Xmas tree too. My family had a real one for many years. We always had fairy lights and baubles to hang on it and plenty of coloured and silver tinsel. Best of all though were the chocolate animals and Father Christmas figures wrapped in silver foil and hung on the Christmas tree branches. They were something to look forward to like Christmas gifts!

We used to have a Xmas dinner party of sorts too and would all pull Christmas crackers and put on the colourful paper Xmas party hats they contained. I remember the daft little jokes on slips of paper and the novelties and gifts such as a small fake silver elephant charm or maybe a balloon.

Pulling Xmas crackers were part of the celebrations at Christmas dinner with my family. We would do this after eating the roast turkey or chicken dinner with roast potatoes, stuffing and parsnips.

After the main course and the crackers my mother would serve the Xmas pudding with white cornflour to pour all over it and a dash of brandy. This was an especially enjoyable moment for me and I often had second helpings.

I used to go to many Xmas parties as a teenager and into my twenties but as I got older they became more an excuse for drinking too much. Of course, I always used to hope that a Christmas kiss under the mistletoe would be the beginning of a relationship but it never did.

After Xmas dinner we all used to watch the TV for most of the rest of the day. My mum used to insist on quiet while the Queen was on and fortunately this wasn't for very long because it always bored me to tears.

There were usually some good films on and also I used to love watching the special Xmas edition of Top of the Pops. I admit I used to follow the charts and it was interesting to see which act made it to the coveted number one for Christmas.

There were a lot of pop songs that became Christmas hits and got churned out year after year and still do. Classic songs! Some of them are really good you have to admit whatever you may think about Christmas. Songs like John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War is over) or happy fun-filled ones like Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.

Then there were the Chrismas films that were on every year. I lost count of the number of times i watched the original Wizard of Oz but it never lost its magic. I would happily watch it again!

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.