[Maddison Dwyer]

Christmas Competition!​

We are so excited to launch our final competition of 2022! This one is extra special because it’s Christmas themed for the holidays AND we are drawing it in the first week of December, so the winner can use their $100 voucher to either Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA to help with the Christmas shopping!

Entering the competition is simple! All we want is to hear about your favourite Christmas memories. It can be any Christmas you remember. Maybe it was your childhood Christmas. Or maybe, it was last year’s Christmas. Whatever it was, we want to hear about it! The person with our favourite Christmas memory will win a $100 voucher to the supermarket of their choice (Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA!)

So get storytelling members; it’s time to get into the Christmas Spirit!

​

 

[featherfour]

My favourite Christmas memory was when we lived at Nana's house. It was our last Christmas there and I was 9. The day was perfect and sunny and we'd laid out trestle tables in the back yard. Mum, Nana, and the aunties were in the tiny, steamy kitchen, filling plates with carved up roast chickens and ham. There were salads and Mum's always perfect, crunchy roast potatoes. As well as home-made shortbread and Christmas cake, there was the Christmas pudding that Mum and Nana had made weeks ago, containing sixpences and thruppences, saved up for the whole year because decimal currency had come in. We had bowls of fresh fruit picked from our apricot and nectarine trees, and best of all, cherries picked from our two cherry trees. All of us cousins ran around the big back yard. Decorating the tables were bunches of Nana's glorious hydrangeas. For me, hydrangeas will always be the ultimate Christmas flower, something I celebrate every year in my own garden.

 

[featherfour]

My mum loved to make a Christmas pudding, cooking it weeks before Christmas and letting it hang so that the flavours could develop properly. She had diligently saved a purse-full of sixpences at the beginning of decimal currency, so that she could hide them in the pudding, and would swap them out on Christmas day.

Once or twice there were…issues though. There was the year that Mum had hung the pudding in Dad's shed, and the dog found it and ate the lot. You wouldn't think a corgi could fit a whole Christmas pudding in there. When Mum put those sixpences into the pudding, she would count so that she knew how many there should be. She got back every single sixpence that the dog ate and boiled them for a very long time on the stove. She swears she never used those ones again, but…how would we know?

Then, having learnt her lesson with hanging the pudding where the dog could get to it, the next year she hung it up high, in the laundry. Laundries are damp places, it went mouldy.

The year Mum hung the pudding in the kitchen, all seemed to be going well. It was far too high for the dog to reach, and the kitchen was open-plan, nice and airy. But something seemed odd about the pudding. It looked a little flat on one side, and kind of sunken at the top. Mum poked a finger against the cloth and it sunk beneath her touch. She lifted it down and it seemed lighter than it should be. She opened the cloth and an enormous, fat mouse took one look at her from the middle of the hollowed-out pudding and ran for its life.

Despite the setbacks, there was always a delicious, home-cooked pudding on our Christmas table and everyone found room for a slice, despite having eaten far too much. Nana was small as a bird, but after eating up her slice of pudding, complained that she hadn't found sixpence and would have to have another slice. I watched as Mum cut the next slice and we both exchanged a glance as we saw the shiny side of a sixpence going into the piece for Nana's plate. Five minutes later another complaint from Nana: "No sixpence!" Mum never did get that one back.

 

[maryfern33]

My Christmas memories go way back to India when I was a kid. We didn't have much to celebrate in the way we would have liked to, but with what we had we made the most of it. Come Christmas time, shopping was first on the list. How we loved roaming round the shops finding it more and more difficult as to what to buy, what colour, what design and of course the all important, Price. Finally with shopping out of the way, we would get a branch to decorate, strip the leaves and paint the tree all white. What pleasure it was to hang all the decorations and the brightly coloured baubles and the lights making the tree look truly magical. I remember the folk from the neighbouring houses come around just to look at our tree! How proud we were of our simple but lovely tree! We had our clothes stitched by the tailor and after several trips, till we were fully satisfied that all was as we wanted, we couldn't wait to wear them on Christmas day and go to church. What happiness to see everyone in their finery meeting and greeting each other after the service. Come home for a modest breakfast and then go round the houses of our friends and neighbours with the homemade delicacies which my mother had made with us pitching in to help [and sample!] . These memories are as strong as they were yesterday. They were days of happiness brought on by simple pleasures. It taught us that money is not everyting but that love, sharing and kindness were all that was needed to make a lasting memory.

 

[featherfour]

There was never much money when I was a kid, we certainly couldn't afford to buy any sort of Christmas tree, so Dad, a carpenter, made one. The trunk was a six-foot length of two-by-two, with ten holes drilled up all four sides, and lengths of dowel inserted into the holes. Mum got green crepe paper which she cut into shaggy edges and wrapped around each length of dowel, and up the main trunk. Every two or three years, Mum would lash out and buy a new pack of crepe paper so that our tree could have fresh "pine needles."

We had one set of those little lights. The kind that if one bulb blew, the lights would all go out. Every year, setting up the tree meant first untangling those lights and then the search for the one bulb that had inevitably died during the year.

Sitting on top of the tree was a wonky little fairy who had once possessed a halo of fragile ornaments that gradually dwindled to nothing over the years. She's my fairy now and I love perching her on top of our own home-made tree.

 

[Deniseb59]

I find it hard to even come up with a story as brilliant as what you girls have written. My memory of Christmas is my grandsons going bizerk with all the sugar they had eaten. If only that energy could be harnessed, it would have powered our place for days!

 

[Tootie]

My favourite Christmas memory goes back to my childhood and early adulthood. Getting the tree on Christmas Eve, decorating it, and heading off to church for Midnight Mass. Going home afterwards to the aroma of pine from the tree. Christmas Day lunch - 4 courses with the family, then opening the gifts. They were the best Christmases of my life!

 

[Jan Robbo]

Oh what memories, there are tons.
my memory when we were kids we all went to the park Xmas eve where there was raffles, rides barbeques , fairy floss. Carols by candle light. The excitement when Santa came in the fire brigade, police cars or ambulance then came around the children handing out sweets. When he left, we had fire works for about 10 minutes. then home to await out presents next morning, this is if Mum could get us to settle down
My favourite as an adult was when we had 48 for Xmas lunch, everyone brought a plate and we had it in our back yard as we had a large allotment. Santa, my husband, and myself as the elf delivered all the kids toys in our ride on lawn mower with a trailer full of presents. It was the best. The kids still talk about it today

 

[Jethrotull]

We didn’t have much, growing up.. Mum was a widow and didn’t have a lot of money.. but, my older brothers renovated and old bike, which I received for Xmas when I was around 11.. best present ever, still brings tears to my eyes ..

 

[@valentid1960]

My sister and I always looked forward to the lead up to Christmas. Mum would have made the Christmas pudding and would be hanging in the carport under the house. On the 13th December, Dad, my sister and I would go to the nursery to pick a Christmas tree. Dad had a special pot to put the tree in. Carrying the tree in was my sister, dad and I. Mum would hold open the curtain and dad would hold the tree, so mum could see it best, and then dad would put it in the pot. Next came the decorations and dad would put the lights on the floor to see if any lights needed replacing, and then put them on the tree. Mum and dad would then decorate the tree while my sister and I would hand them to our parents. My sister with dads help put the angel on top of the tree.
Christmas morning my sister and I would wake up early and bang on our parents door and then race into the lounge room to see what Santa left us. We would then go and pick up our Aunty and her mother and on the way back home we would tell them what Santa left us. Arriving back home Bing Crosby was playing on the turntable and the Christmas lights were on. By mid morning our aunts, uncles, and cousins had arrived and the smell coming from the kitchen of ham and pudding was intoxicating.
I miss those days.

 

[Singomate]

My Christmas memories is the same as the ones I entered in the Nostalgia competition is it

 

[Majiqual]

Christmas Competition!​

We are so excited to launch our final competition of 2022! This one is extra special because it’s Christmas themed for the holidays AND we are drawing it in the first week of December, so the winner can use their $100 voucher to either Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA to help with the Christmas shopping!

Entering the competition is simple! All we want is to hear about your favourite Christmas memories. It can be any Christmas you remember. Maybe it was your childhood Christmas. Or maybe, it was last year’s Christmas. Whatever it was, we want to hear about it! The person with our favourite Christmas memory will win a $100 voucher to the supermarket of their choice (Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA!)

So get storytelling members; it’s time to get into the Christmas Spirit!

View attachment 8129​

 

[Majiqual]

when I was little Dad was in the army. When they had the children’s Christmas party they had army duck rides. It was awesome and the presents were amazing. I got my first camera for the army Christmas party.

 

[LadyMoonlight]

Myself and my brothers and sister grew up very poor (1950s poor, not today's poor). One of my brothers and I saved our money (washing bottles we collected and returning them for the deposit - South Australia) and bought my mum a Christmas gift. Being so young, we were so proud of ourselves. We bought her an expensive set of pearls! We wrapped the pearls around her neck, full of joy. What we thought were pearls, were Christmas tree decorations (the tinsel of the day). My mother and father were going out that night to a friend's house for a couple of hours, and (as I was told many years later) my father said something like "You are not going to wear them, are you?" To which my mother replied "Yes, I am." I was also told many years later, that she wore them all night. She loved the "pearls", given as they were with love.

 

[Suzanne rose]

I remember enjoying Christmas as a child which seemed so much more simplified back then .
It was all about family time and giving thanks for the birth of Jesus .

Lunch was roast lamb and vegies then dinner was salads , leg ham and different dishes that family members made .

Kids opened gifts which were not extravagant but that we loved and all of us outside playing games.
Christmas was just so much more similar back then including gift giving

 

[Dennis]

Christmas Competition!​

We are so excited to launch our final competition of 2022! This one is extra special because it’s Christmas themed for the holidays AND we are drawing it in the first week of December, so the winner can use their $100 voucher to either Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA to help with the Christmas shopping!

Entering the competition is simple! All we want is to hear about your favourite Christmas memories. It can be any Christmas you remember. Maybe it was your childhood Christmas. Or maybe, it was last year’s Christmas. Whatever it was, we want to hear about it! The person with our favourite Christmas memory will win a $100 voucher to the supermarket of their choice (Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA!)

So get storytelling members; it’s time to get into the Christmas Spirit!

View attachment 8129​

One Christmas that always comes to my mind at yule tide every year was a joke I played on my late wife, before migrating to Australia I worked for the Prudential Insureance Company my area was the district of Meadows one of the outer districs of Nottingham and one of my customers owned the butchers shop and in the last week before Xmas I called in for his yearly payments for insurance, sitting on his choping block was this pigs head chopped of at the neck and I could see there was still plenty of meat on the neck, I said to George our much do you want for the pigs head and he said being it is xmas I will let you have it for 5 shillings, so I bought it he wrapped it up and put it in a paper carry bag, when I arrived home my wife was out shopping and I thought I would have a bit of fun with her ( my biggest mistake ) I found the sharpest knife in the house and slashed as many cuts i could on the pig, put an apple in his mouth, and stuck him in a dripping pan and put him in the oven, when my wife arrived home I said there is an xmas gift in the oven for you, she opened the door and let out the biggest scream I have ever heard and all the neighbours must have thought I was murdering her, but the next day the 22nd Dec. was our wedding anniversary and the gift I had bought her eased the atmospher a bit. My wife passed away on the 8th Dec. 2weeks before our 65th wedding anniversary and Christmas has never been the same for me.

 

[Ena]

Well my Christmas memory was when I was a lot younger. Ever year we would have Christmas day at a different family members until everyone had done a Christmas day ,then at the end of all family members the following Christmas we would spend at our own home s and then we would start all over again , there was a 5years sycial the 6 year everyone stayed home. They where great time's

 

[Dragon1210]

My Christmas was special for 48 years then it stopped. My husband cooked dinner for family all those years my job was to make things look Christmas's. Then he passed away. Time is not the same
hasnever been sameqq

 

[Scottloch]

My most memorable Christmas memory was 1973 my husband daughter and I were in Kenya. I always carried a Stylophone on our travels, Christmas morning we were at the beach called Twiga Lodge, my daughter and I went down onto the beach and sat under a palm tree and started singing Christmas carols, within a short space of time we were surrounded by a crowd of people all singing along in their own language, this lasted for almost an hour. When we had finished the people gave us a resounding ovation and said how much they had enjoyed Christmas morning

 

[Vin]

Christmas Competition!​

We are so excited to launch our final competition of 2022! This one is extra special because it’s Christmas themed for the holidays AND we are drawing it in the first week of December, so the winner can use their $100 voucher to either Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA to help with the Christmas shopping!

Entering the competition is simple! All we want is to hear about your favourite Christmas memories. It can be any Christmas you remember. Maybe it was your childhood Christmas. Or maybe, it was last year’s Christmas. Whatever it was, we want to hear about it! The person with our favourite Christmas memory will win a $100 voucher to the supermarket of their choice (Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA!)

So get storytelling members; it’s time to get into the Christmas Spirit!

View attachment 8129​

Christmas Competition!​

We are so excited to launch our final competition of 2022! This one is extra special because it’s Christmas themed for the holidays AND we are drawing it in the first week of December, so the winner can use their $100 voucher to either Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA to help with the Christmas shopping!

Entering the competition is simple! All we want is to hear about your favourite Christmas memories. It can be any Christmas you remember. Maybe it was your childhood Christmas. Or maybe, it was last year’s Christmas. Whatever it was, we want to hear about it! The person with our favourite Christmas memory will win a $100 voucher to the supermarket of their choice (Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA!)

So get storytelling members; it’s time to get into the Christmas Spirit!

View attachment 8129​