Christmas traditions

pansyface

Admirers of MR James will know that he wrote his academically-based ghost stories as Christmas presents.

He wrote one each year and invited his students at Cambridge University to come to his rooms on just one evening to listen to him read the one for that year.

Some time ago I bought myself a Christmas present in the form of two little wooden houses that light up. They are on the living room table now.  My OH has just looked at them and said that he thinks he saw a little face at one of the windows.



I can no longer look at them without thinking of James’ story The Mezzotint.

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMOMn3z0WD4

 

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pansyface said:

Admirers of MR James will know that he wrote his academically-based ghost stories as Christmas presents.

He wrote one each year and invited his students at Cambridge University to come to his rooms on just one evening to listen to him read the one for that year.

Some time ago I bought myself a Christmas present in the form of two little wooden houses that light up. They are on the living room table now.  My OH has just looked at them and said that he thinks he saw a little face at one of the windows.



I can no longer look at them without thinking of James’ story The Mezzotint.

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMOMn3z0WD4

 

very nice

Joyce Goldenlily

I  think family Christmas traditions nearly always have a story behind them specific to the family. A treasured memory or incident. 
I still make homemade marzipan stuffed dates and petit fours which my grandmother used to make, some of my decorations have stories behind them, made by a particular child or free with petrol one year. That is what Christmas is about, nostalgia and memories.

pansyface

I still have a couple of the glass Christmas tree baubles that my parents bought for their first Christmas tree in 1940. Hand blown glass and rather “maungy” colours - a word in Sheffield that means a dull or miserable colour. 🙂

Sadly, several have got broken since I inherited them about thirty years ago.

And I have about half a dozen tiny ones that I bought in the village corner shop over sixty years ago. 🙂

Red maple

I have a little pink fairy that sits on the top of the smaller tree (she just looks lost on the bigger one). She is about 75 years old, but the netting dress she has is still very pink, her wings still very silver and her eyes still very blue, so all in all, she’s wearing rather well. My parents bought her for my elder sister and brother to put on the little silver tree they had back then,  then passed her to me about 35 years ago. 

WhiteRabbit

That's the first time I've heard the word 'maungy' in many years!  It was always used to describe sulky, miserable children when I was growing up.  As in 'He's a maungy little b*gger!'
Sorry, that wasn't a Christmas tradition, but I just had to thank you for mentioning it!

pansyface

Maungy and mardy. A fine line between the two. 😊

KT53

My mum always used to make her own mince pies. Even for many years after I had married, that continued until one year she clearly got something wrong and they could have been used for ice hockey pucks.  Sadly she died before the next Christmas so didn't have the opportunity to redeem herself.

pansyface

Ah well, at least you remember the good years. 😁

My neighbour is beginning to develop a little Christmas tradition here. She’s been making apple chutney (using the apples from our tree that I sell for charity) for the last few years and giving us a jar of it each December.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that I loathe chutney in all its forms. 🥴

coccinella

Oh you put a smile on my face @pansyface. I don't like the stuff either, but it is always, always nice to receive home made presies. 
I have in the cellar pieces for a crib made by my grandfather. I used to make a crib for the children, haven't bothered since they left the nest years ago. 

coccinella

The BBC used to have adaptations of ghost stories at Christmas. Some were excellent, one of my favourite is "Remember me" with Michael Palin. We were all hiding behind the sofa.
This year there is a Christmas special of Inside n 9.