So this is Christmas - Christmas Treats

Christmas Treats - there are many types of treats, those that you come to expect and those that are unexpected. One of the best treats that I remember from childhood is being taken into town (Brisbane city) to see the Christmas lights and look at the lighted shop windows in Queen Street. It all seemed magical to me at the time and fell into the realm of an expected treat.

Christmas Lights, Queen Street c1950s
John Oxley Library

The unexpected was being taken to afternoon tea at the Shingle Inn in Edward Street. This happened throughout the year I guess but Christmas Afternoon Tea was special. Decorations and Christmas music playing, fruit mince pies and shortbread shaped like Christmas trees.

Then there were the edible treats that my trusty Nan made. Dates stuffed with marzipan, coconut ice, candied orange rind, marshmallows (different colours), coloured marzipan cut in different shapes, peppermint twists, real butter shortbread, and sometimes a few gingerbread men. Nan had a marble slab in her kitchen that she used for baking and to watch her making peppermint twists was amazing - she would make white and red mixture then twist them together after rolling out the red and white mixture - had to be done quickly. My mother had an American cookery book and that had some great recipes for candy, different types of toffee and fudge and all sorts of interesting recipes. Mum was roped in to help her mother with the Christmas treat baking and making. I remember one year they made barley sugar twists with much hilarity and singed fingers with having to twist the barley sugar while still warm. I still love barley sugar.

After all the making and baking, some of the goodies were packaged up and decorated with ribbons etc. for gifts for neighbours and friends. So much activity in the weeks before Christmas.

Stay tuned for Christmas Dinner...

So this is Christmas - a letter & something for Santa

I am trying to remember writing a letter to Santa in my childhood and know that I did but am finding it hard to remember actually doing it. I know my mother put a stamp on my letter and said that she posted it to Santa at the North Pole. I wonder what she actually did with the letter. 

With my doll Christmas 1955 - Darwin

Well, recently my mother was clearing out some of her things and she came across two of my letters to Santa. These were written in the 1950s and apparently I was very keen to have a 'walking doll' in one of the letters and 'some pretty books & new ribbons' in the other one.

Do you remember walking dolls? They were just the thing in 1955 obviously. My doll was named Katie and I still have her tucked away in one of my cupboards, beautifully wrapped in an old pillowslip and tied with a blue ribbon. 

I carried on the tradition of writing to Santa when my son was small. I also put a stamp on the letter and posted it, under the watchful eye of my son. Don't know what happened to it. Now, of course, Australia Post has a service where you can write to Santa. I'm not sure if people get a reply though.

Official North Pole Mail

Came across this on the web - a site where you can get official Santa Mail. There are some enterprising people aren't there? However it would have been wonderful to receive a letter back from Santa in the 1950s.

Santa on his way

Now to the important bit. Leaving something out for Santa to eat on his journey. My grandfather always wanted a bottle of beer left for Santa. I wonder why! My grandmother on the other hand wanted milk as did my mother. So some years there was beer and the other years milk. There was also a variety of treats left out. Some years it was Christmas cake, others shortbread biscuits. Poor Santa, imagine having to eat Christmas cake all over the world. I can remember one year leaving popcorn because I said that Santa had enough Christmas cake. 

Of course, on Christmas morning there were crumbs and the dregs of the drink left behind just to show that Santa had been and enjoyed his treat. These traditions are wonderful and add to the mystical experience of children a Christmas. How I wish that those times were here again.

You can find information about the 2014 Christmas GeneaMeme at http://sharnsgenealogyhints.blogspot.com.au/

So this is Christmas - Christmas Music & Poems

Christmas Music - how it was magical. We seemed to start playing Christmas carols and music a few weeks before Christmas. No CDs or tapes in the 1950s. Records - hard black ones - played on the record player that was the go. 

My grandfather loved Bing Crosby and Percy Faith so they figured prominently in the Christmas list. My mother was an accomplished pianist and we would have a sing-a-long around the piano. You know - White Christmas, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, Silent Night, Oh Holy Night.

We also had The Nutcracker Suite, Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Handel's Messiah - these were in boxed sets of records in an album. Lovely music.

In later years we listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Christmas music and then Carols from the Kings College Choir in Cambridge.

My mother would read me Twas Night Before Christmas - you know the one - 

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there ....

This was read to me every Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember - did you have this read to you as a child? I read it to my son when he was young and he read it to his daughters - a lovely tradition. I still have the illustrated book from my childhood.

Merry Christmas to all



Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) wrote the poem Twas the night before Christmas also called A Visit from St Nicholas in 1822.

So this is Christmas - Christmas Dinner

Well, by now you would know about my grandmother, Nan, the doyenne of all things Christmas. So it would not surprise you that Christmas Dinner was a BIG event in our family.

Mary, my grandmother's housekeeper had Christmas Day off to share with her family so much preparation occurred on the day before. I loved to be at Nan's house on Christmas Eve. Nan had a large kitchen with a large pantry off the side. Her stove was a fancy American item, with two ovens and eight hot plates, cream enamel and side by side. Her sink was also china, white and deep - no dishwashers in those days! 

We did not have turkey, I don't know if turkey was even available in 1950s Brisbane but do remember in later years my grandmother saying she did not like turkey so maybe it was and Nan didn't like it. Two large - and I mean large - chickens were roasted, with Nan's special stuffing - how I loved her stuffing mixture. A large leg of ham was baked with  decoration on it - you know -

a diamond design cut into the fat and cloves inserted - then the ham was basted with a mixture of honey, orange juice and mustard - yum! Then the roast vegetables - potato, pumpkin, carrot, parsnip - and of course peas (they weren't roasted! My Nan made the best roast potatoes - crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside - bliss. Then the gravy - it too was wonderful - made from the roasting pan.

So the dinner started at about 1:30 pm with individual seafood cocktails in lovely stemmed glasses - prawns and oysters and my mother's patented seafood sauce. Then out came the ham, chickens, vegetables and gravy. These were placed on the dining room sideboard and then passed around the table. My grandfather was the expert carver and I always wanted a wing from the chicken. My mother & her sister were the ladies who passed everything around and saw that we were all served. Then after the main course as I have already said in a previous post we had Christmas pudding. In those days we had sixpences and threepences in the pudding and strangely I always got one of each in my serve!

The tablecloth

Of course we had Christmas bonbons - there had to be crepe paper hats and silly jokes to share. The Christmas table and the sideboard were decorated with sprigs of holly and candles in silver candle holders - each candle holder held 5 candles and there were four of them. The dining room curtains were always closed so we could have candlelight. Strangely I don't remember being hot but it must have been I guess - I certainly enjoyed the cold watermelon later in the afternoon. The table was always covered in a brilliant blue cutwork tablecloth - which I used with my family for many years. At my grandparents Christmas table there was usually 12 or 15 people - it was a big table.  

So this is Christmas - Christmas Cocktail Party

So this is Christmas - must be time for my grandparents Christmas cocktail party. My maternal grandparents had a large home in Constitution Road, Windsor, Brisbane and every Christmas during the 1950s and before had a cocktail party for their friends - both family friends and business friends.

Unused invitation found in a box

This occurred in the week before Christmas, usually around the 20th December. Much preparation happened of course with my indefatigable grandmother once more directing traffic. Nan had a live-in housekeeper, Mary, who helped organise the food and of course serving the food at the party. Mary would be all dressed up in a black dress with white starched apron and a frilly cap on her head and always had a sprig of holly pinned to her dress when she served the guests.

Devils on horseback

The menu for the cocktail party always included: devilled eggs, cheese straws, Swedish meatballs, pinwheel sandwiches (I loved these), cheese squares & cocktail onions (coloured) on toothpicks, Devils on Horseback and Angels on Horseback. For those of you who may not know, devils on horseback were prunes wrapped in bacon and heated in the oven and angels on horseback are oysters wrapped in bacon and also heated. Yum!

Nan had a wooden tray affair - shaped like a mexican hat - with sections around the brim where savouries could be placed and a wooden pineapple thing with holes in it for the crown.  Very handy for putting the cheese and cocktail onions sticks - Mary would make sure everything was replenished.

Drinks - now that was the fabulous thing. There would be a large silver punch bowl with rum punch: this was her recipe - 1 bottle rum, 2 large bottles ginger ale, 4 cups orange juice (or pineapple) 2 oz fresh lemon juice, ice, slices orange & lemon to garnish in bowl. It was some punch - I remember it from the 1960s when I was allowed to taste it.

Then there were the cocktails, my grandfather's young brother Uncle Bill and my mother were in charge of the cocktails. Favourites were martini, gin & it, tom collins, and singapore sling. They all looked fabulous - lovely in glasses, lovely colours.

I was allowed to be at the cocktail party for one hour - from 5:30 to 6:30 - on show to the guests I guess. I used to have my own cocktail - a tall glass with ice, orange juice and grenadine - non alcoholic of course - the grenadine was a lovely red colour and made me feel quite grown up - I was probably 5 or 6 at the time.

The men all wore dark suits, some with bow ties, and the women colourful cocktail frocks. As the family was in the clothing business, I guess their friends were often also in that business. My favourite dress was one my grandmother often wore, dove grey lace over a taffeta under slip. She looked lovely. 

These Christmas cocktail parties carried on until the early 1960s when my grandparents retired to their beach house at Surfers Paradise. 

So this is Christmas - Christmas Presents

Christmas Presents - what a topic. The anticipation as a child in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The letter to Santa. The decorations. The Tree. The hints to grandparents, aunts and cousins. All this lead into the expectations and anxious time just before Christmas.

Would Santa come? Had I been good? Had my mother let Santa know just what I wanted? What if Santa didn't come?

Christmas 1930 at Denmora

My mother told of Christmas when she was a girl. Her grandparents had a large Christmas party in the week before Christmas at their home Denmora in Cowlishaw Street Bowen Hills. Decorated tree outside on the lawn and Santa in person. Of course, later she had worked out that it was her Uncle Vic but it had taken a few years to work that out. All her cousins were there and presents galore. These two pictures - hand coloured - are of the 1930 Christmas.

Christmas 1930 at Denmora 

I am so happy to have these photos of that time, my grandmother fortunately kept everything - my mother however does not and I inherited my grandmothers photos and memory books. My grandmother is on the far left of this photo with a small boy holding on to her. My mother is just behind the girl standing in the front on the left of Santa.

So to get back to presents. I used to be given 10 shillings to buy presents. My grandmother would help me buy my parent's gifts and my mother my grandparent's gifts. Much thought would go into these gifts and some of them were truly horrible. I used to love Penney's in Queen Street in Brisbane. There were always some cheap gaudy things on sale there. I remember years later when I was about 30 my mother cleaning out her cupboards and saying what am I keeping this thing for? and my answer I gave that to you when I was 9. My mother of course immediately backtracked and said of course and put it back in the cupboard. It was a truly horrible china dish with bright red and green flowers - I must have thought it was wonderful when I was 9.

So this is Christmas - Christmas Cards

1901 card to my great grandmother

Christmas cards - well haven't they changed over the years? I remember being given six Christmas cards by my mother (I was in primary school) and being told that I could choose the recipients. Such power, I spent hours making a list, crossing out names, adding more, crossing them out again until I got to the magical six. 

1903 card to my grandmother

Then there was the decision about what to write on the cards. Just Merry Christmas love Helen. Or Happy Christmas love Helen. Or just love Helen below the verse. Decisions, Decisions... When I had finally decided I sat down and very carefully, with pen and ink, and a blotter at hand wrote inside my allotted six cards. I asked my mother to address the envelopes for me though I did stick the stamps on.

1890 card to my great grandmother

My grandmother, the champion of Christmas as I have mentioned previously, had a great system of Christmas cards. Nan had a blue covered notebook in which she recorded the following: who sent cards last year; who she sent cards to last year; and most importantly who didn't send a card last Christmas. If that happened two years in a row the unfortunate person was crossed off the list with a notation attached to the name . You seriously didn't want to be crossed out and noted.

My mother had learned the important Christmas card protocol from her mother and had her own card notebook. Her's was red. Just as her mother did, Mum agonized over the Christmas card list. Should she send a card to the nice lady around the corner who always had a smile & a wave? Of course the butcher, the milkman, the bread man and any other tradesman got a card, including the rubbish man. The rubbish man always got a bottle of beer with his card - supposedly because if he got a bottle of beer he wouldn't spill the rubbish!

1898 card to my great grandmother

Now, how where they displayed? My Nan had red cord that was strung across the lounge windows - which ere curved - and small pegs to attach the cards. Once again there was a specific order to the cards of course.  Cards from family were all together, then other relatives, then friends and so on. Mum on the other hand pinned the cards to curtains all around the dining room and lounge. She was more artistic - cards that looked good next to one another etc.

1899 tag to my great grandmother

After Christmas I was allowed to pick out some of the prettiest cards from both Nan's  and my mother's collection so that I could cut out pieces and put them in my scrapbook.

So you can see how cards looked in the late 19th century and early 20th century, very different to how they look today. 

I am lucky to have these few precious items from times past. Thanks to Sharn White for reminding me of these Christmas memories.

By the way, the first Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole and illustrated by John Callcott Horsley in London on the 1st of May 1843. Two batches totaling 2,050 cards were printed and sold that year for a shilling each. (Thanks to Wikipedia)

Merry Christmas 2014

So this is Christmas - Christmas Food - Christmas Pudding

Christmas Food - part two - Christmas Pudding. The saga of the Christmas Pudding. My grandmother - you know the one - the expert of all things Christmas - was the production manager of the Christmas pudding. 

Preparation began at least two months before Christmas - in October usually. Similar to the Christmas cake the fruit was weighed and measured and socked in brandy overnight before the adding and stirring of the other ingredients. I always made sure I was at my Nan's house at some stage of the pudding making saga. Again, I loved to lick the spoon. 

Hanging puddings

A calico pudding cloth - saved from year to year - was wet and squeezed out, laid on the table and sprinkled with flour in a circle in the middle. The pudding mix was put in, tied tightly with string and knotted at the top. Then a plate is put in the boiler and a wooden spoon tied to the pudding - across the pot - to stop the pudding touching the bottom of the pot. Then into the boiler for about six hours - watched carefully - the water topped up if need be.

All cooked and ready for hanging in a cool, dry place until Christmas.  Nan used a broomstick balanced between two cupboards in her pantry room - it was a big room. Nan made four puddings every Christmas so it was quite a production.

Flaming brandy

On Christmas day the pudding was gently boiled for two hours - again watched by my Nan of course. Nan always poured brandy on the pudding and it was carried to the dinner table all lit - we used to turn out the lights - so exciting. There was a sprig of holly on the top of the pudding - real holly - I don't know where she managed to get holly but Nan had holly everywhere at Christmas.
The pudding was served with custard and or ice cream. Nan didn't like brandy butter apparently.


Stay tuned for the Christmas treats ...

So this is Christmas - decorating the Christmas Tree

As I said in the post - what kind of Christmas did you have as a child - I spent most of my Christmases at my maternal grandparents house. My grandmother was a great follower of Christmas - all the trimmings, all the foods, all the customs that must be followed.

G D McCann & watermelon c1950

Also in that post I talked about watermelon - that remains one of the highlights of the day.  Doesn't it seem strange today when we have watermelon all year. Here is another photo of my grandfather enjoying his slice of melon along with his portable radio. I just found this one so thought I would include it - he is caught just taking a bite.

We always had a "real Christmas Tree", bought just before Christmas Eve and decorated by all of us with strict instructions from my grandmother about where her beautiful collection of hand-blown ornaments were to be placed. They all had a strict hierarchy, known only to my grandmother of course. Woe betide one of us who dared to place the blue bird with real feathers for a tail anywhere but on the right hand side of the tree just below the multi-coloured twisted bauble. It all made absolute sense to my  Nan who obviously had a preordained plan in her head. As the favoured granddaughter I was allowed to direct where the sparkly tinsel went - much against my cousins wishes.

Some of the surviving baubles

Then there were the lights for the tree - goodness me the fuss every year over the lights. They always seemed to have been mysteriously tangled after they had been put away and were always the subject of much discussion between my grandparents. You know the sort of thing - if only they were put away properly after last Christmas Doug ... of course my grandfathers response went something like - it must have been the elves who got in and tangled them. Then they had to be tested, any bulbs replaced etc before being put on the tree and with my ever watchful grandmother giving instructions as to how they were strung.

I forgot to mention that "the tree" had to be placed in a bucket of wet sand, on a special circular mat and had to be at least 10 foot tall - the house had 15 foot ceilings and of course it had to be spectacular. If my grandfather had not chosen the correct tree I think he would have had no Christmas Dinner.

So on Christmas Eve all was done - the tree looked beautiful - the house sparkling - and the Salvos outside on the back of a truck singing Christmas carols. It was magic ...

Of course the tree had to stay up and all the decorations until the 5th January the day before Epiphany - you know the twelve days of Christmas.

You can find information about the 2014 Christmas GeneaMeme at http://sharnsgenealogyhints.blogspot.com.au/

So this is Christmas - what kind of Christmas did you have as a child?

Thanks to Sharn White for her 2014 Christmas Genealogy Meme - the first being - what kind of Christmas did you have as a child?

Well growing up in Queensland it was always hot I guess but as a child it never seemed to bother me. Christmas was so exciting. We always had Christmas with my maternal grandparents at their house in Windsor (Brisbane). I loved the anticipation, what would Santa bring ...

What I remember most about Christmas was the watermelon - we didn't have watermelon all year then as we do now AND it tasted better. Yes, I know things always look better in hindsight. 

My grandfather would go the markets to choose the watermelon for Christmas and sometimes, if I was lucky I went along as well. He would pick up the melons, tap them, pick up another and so on. Very scientific. Apparently he could tell whether the melon would be good by this tapping. And, he was always right.

Then, home with the melon. On Christmas day the melon would be in one of the laundry tubs with ice to keep it cool and covered with a wet hession bag. The other laundry tub would have the drinks, also with ice and the wet hession bag - no wine, just beer and soft drinks. Apparently the hession bag was mandatory.

Watermelon, my aunt & grandparents Christmas c1950

After a hot Christmas dinner it was time to go into the back garden and enjoy the cold watermelon - this was after hot Christmas pudding of course!  Then there was the competition of who could spit of the seeds the furtherest - yes they had seeds. My grandmother would be worrying about me swallowing the seeds and had this bit of advice - don't swallow the seeds or you will get a watermelon vine growing inside you. Of course I believed her and tried to win the seed spitting competition each year. My grandfather usually won.

You can find information about the 2014 Christmas GeneaMeme at http://sharnsgenealogyhints.blogspot.com.au/

So this is Christmas - Christmas Food - the Christmas Cake

Christmas food - all the special treats that appeared only at Christmas. Things were different then, foods that we have all year now were only available at Christmas time or had to be specially ordered at other times during the year.

As you would know by now my grandmother, the doyen of Christmas, of course had a list of 'must have' Christmas food.

Preparation for Christmas started early. 

The Christmas cake had to be baked well before Christmas as it had to 'mature'. My mother was the cake baker. Every Christmas she made eight Christmas cakes. Two for us, one for my grandparents on both sides, one for her sister, one for her grandmother & aunts, one for a neighbour, and I don't remember who had the last one. Perhaps it was a reserve in case we ran out of cake! The recipe was an adaptation of a 1948 Women's Weekly recipe. 

Soaking the fruit

Ready for baking

No packets of mixed fruit here. All the ingredients had to be separately added. Sultanas, raisins, currants, dates, orange peel, apricots etc. All measured out, weighed and put in a large basin overnight with rum. What a luscious smell. Mum made two cakes at a time so the process was lengthy and time consuming. I had the job of licking the spoon before Mum washed up. When they cakes were baked in round 'soldiers tins' more rum was added - a skewer in the top to make holes - and small amount of rum added - the brown paper was folded over the top and the lid sealed. The round 'soldiers tins' apparently had been used during the war to send cakes overseas and my mother had eight of them. They were useful as they were lined with greased brown paper - no baking paper in the 1950s - and could then store the cakes safely until Christmas.    

Adding more rum

The plastic Merry Christmas

Once the cakes were sealed - with elastoplast around the top and sides I seem to remember one year - they were stored in the cupboard until the week of Christmas. Then they were brought out for when neighbours called in for a Christmas drink. I can't image having a Christmas drink of probably beer and Christmas cake but they did. The cake usually had a pattern of almonds on the top - placed there just before putting it in the oven. Then Mum had a plastic Merry Christmas that she placed on the cake. For some reason we never seemed to have an iced Christmas cake. My aunt, my mother's sister, sometimes iced her cake with almond paste icing - I loved it!  However my mother, who had her instructions from her mother, never ever iced her Christmas cakes. It seemingly would not have been 'right'.

By the way I have Mum's recipe but haven't the energy to do all the preparation I'm afraid. Thanks to Google images for the photos - unfortunately I don't have pics of my mother's cakes.

Stay tuned for the Christmas pudding ...