Oranges with peppermint sticks stuck in them...walking sodas. Cut an x in an orange through the peel. Then put a straight peppermint stick (preferably with small holes through the center) and squeeze the orange while sipping the juice out through the peppermint stick. That's one. Caroling with the church choir. We had a Sr. Choir and a Jr. Choir and we all went out caroling to members of the congregation's homes who couldn't get out. We also went around the neighborhood on our own without the choir when I was in Girl Scouts and Job's Daughters. In Scouts and J.D. we also went to nursing homes to carol. I lived in a Jewish neighborhood so we sang Hanukkah songs at the nursing homes as well. We always got cookies and hot cider afterwards at the church or the choir director's house or back at school with Scouts. I remember coming home from midnight mass after singing in the choir. There was a snowstorm (Minnesota, USA) as usual and one Christmas night I saw Santa Claus unpacking the trunk of his car and going into my friends house... We also used to go downtown Minneapolis on Nicollet mall to walk and look at the store window decorations. Going to the Christmas displays at the shopping malls was also fun when they were still doing them with animated figures and tiny Christmas villages. Mom was a church organist and choir director, so I was always singing in the choir. I mostly remember the music and companionship of the shared experience with my fellow singers. Very low cost, very memorable especially the candlelight services and carol services. My family would go to my sister's in laws after church for dinner after church. Karl Hanson would read the Christmas story from his bible in Swedish before dinner. After we ate, there was always the walk around the block before desert to look at the lights. Very cozy.
When i first married my husband 3 years ago, I hand drew Nisse and we split 24 of them to hide around the house and then look for on Christmas! We decorated the house with scavenged pine and cones from knocked down trees during a hurricane by a walk down the street. We put red items and white items from the house in groups to give a Christmas feel. Just unpacked the Nisse yesterday!
❤so cool, you're taking me down memory lane! I'll listen and comment every day until I run out of things to say ( never😂). We had a handmade nativity scene that my mother made of natural clay, framed by two candles. Leading up to Christmas every evening we'd light the candles and my mom would read us a Christmas story or part of one. 😊 I am so blessed to have had a wonderful caring mother. We had very little cash, but so much fun and love. Switzerland in the 60's. ❤
Oh Jane the blanket fort brought such a memory rush, my mum had a old wooden clothes horse, it was huge we used blankets it was amazing, thank you for that help in remembering that memory,I had a smile and a tear at the same time,❤
When I was a kid we would cut out paper snowflakes and then decorate the windows with spray snow window art. With my kids we always spend a day making and icing cutout sugar cookies.
I stumbled on the wonders of wallpaper. I bought clearance rolls and wrapped gifts. The paper was so sturdy that my son-in-law teased me until I stopped. The last of it has just gone to Good Will, a charity shop. Loads of savings for any wrap and definitely not flimsy. Always used many old tree ornaments. Passed on my old tree to my daughter when she said they could not afford a new tree. My grandson was delighted. Stretching the budget. With charm, grace and love.
Growing up my family’s main things were big family gatherings. Both sets of grandparents would have everyone over and us kids ran and played and we had delicious basic food. We did go to the woods to get our Christmas trees and we made a lot of our tree decorations each year. One aunt on my dad’s side - Aunt Velma- made the most delicious chicken pie. I wish now I’d learned how she did it. She only had one son much older than me and my sisters. Each year she’d give us three girls our favorite gifts. Always a some bubbie bath or bath oils in brightly colored balls, a night gown, underwear sets with the days of the week on them and or pencils with our names on them! We always looked forward to Aunt Velma’s wonderful gifts. I think she just had fun buying for girls. This isn’t exactly what you asked something frugal but reading the other comments just brought back that memory. My mom would make two toned fudge at Christmas and it was so delicious. I have the recipe it’s a layer of butterscotch and a layer of chocolate. I need to get out that recipe and make it!
There were whole towns that would decorate for Christmas, and we made it was our yearly Christmas treat to drive around to see the elaborate scenes that were constructed. Once we had visited the various neighborhoods, we would head home for hot chocolate. Our church choir members made a list of shut ins we would visit and sing Christmas carols. We also went to two nursing homes in the area and sing more carols. Those were the events I remembered most about Christmas in the 70s.
My whole childhood my family, plus several others, headed out to my grandparents 3 weeks before Christmas. We trekked up into the woods and cut down our own tree. Absolutely FREE. Added bonus strong possibilitie of snow up there. When my sister was 6, 7, and 8, she insisted on bringing in the family tree, so we had a scrawny Charly Brown as that was all she could drag down the mountain. When we got back my grandma's fresh cinnamon rolls were coming out of the oven. Best Christmas memories ever. Family, Friends, Food and Fun all for FREE!!
Such a lovely vlogmas video Jane and Mike. I love hearing your memories of bygone times. I grew up in the 60s. My favourite memory is when we went into the city to see the Christmas lights. This was always the first week of December not like these days when we are subjected to Christmas as early as September . The 60s were bleak and grey . Christmas seemed magical to us back then. It’s sad to see how consumerism has gradually taken over. Again many thanks for sharing your Christmas memories 🙏🙏🙏
My best friend and I went for a cold winter walk through a small local zoo today. It's her Birthday on the tenth, and I have to work. We both qualify for discounted entry due to being over 55. The animals were all out and busy. We were the only visitors and had a long chat with the woman in the office after our walk. She was so nice and let us hold and cuddle the Adorable Bearcat (Binturong ) named Belle. That was so fun and worth every penny of the thirteen US dollars we both spent. ❤
We used to have a church in our city that every year put on an outside living nativity. It was done in scenes, The costumes were so beautiful. The music really was nice. They would bring in animals sheep, donkeys, etc. It was sometimes really cold outside, but it was always special. Another church I attended used do a Living Christmas tree every year. They’d use risers and fir tree boughs on the platform to build a tree the choir stood in. It looked like the singers were in a real Christmas tree singing. The kids put on a Christmas program and had little parts to memorize and say. When the program was over the kids each got a Christmas bag with hard candy and a orange. It was really fun. Sometimes the really special memories are the fun and laughter shared together.
My sister and me made paper lanterns out of left over wallpaper, and glued the edges with a mix of water and flour. Mum hung the lanterns on paper chains looped from the four corners of the ceiling in towards the centre light. We oooohed and aaaaahed at the wonderful decorations we had produced. Happy days!
Lovely roll neck sweater 😊 When we migrated to Australia 🇦🇺 a selection of Christmas 🎄 decorations came with us, yes memories are relived every year ⛄️ Thank you Jane and Mike for another great 😊 video. Hello to the pooches.
We used to play boardgames or had a Jigsaw puzzle that we all worked at when I was a child. I always loved that. Even as a child I didn’t like snow and I still don’t like snow and ice. So I just love to stay home and read or put a puzzle on the table. Just me and the Christmas tree and some candles. I’m single and don’t have kids but I really don’t mind being alone at Christmas, I just like it a lot.
@gloriaincalifornia1911 I know but I can’t afford a cat anymore. My photo is from the last cat I had and he died in 2016. The vet costs are way too high for my income since 2005, so I got into a lot of debt in those 11 years that he lived with me. He was a rather sick cat when I took him in while he was only 4 years old. At that time I still worked and had a good income but after a year I got sick myself and lost my job and he needed a lot of care. That’s the main reason I got into debt, but I loved him so much. After he died it took me years and years to pay off my debt.
I now live in Florida and it's so nice to see all my neighboring apartment dwellers decorate their lanais! They are quite lit up and very festive. Some people put their Christmas trees on the lanai. Lots of wreaths on the front doors. Our apartment property management had a lovely holiday supper for us and set out some tables with wreaths and ornaments for us to decorate and bring home. When I lived in N Y we always went into the city to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza and go ice skating. Then we would walk down Fifth Avenue to see all the decorations in the shop windows. Always a stop for hot chocolate and donuts before heading home. Good memories.
When i was a teenager on boxing day my parents took us to Weston-Super-Mare where the dog had a good run and we were blown down the freezing beach. Then a picnic in the car from the cooler. Happy memories now i will be 60 in 2025😀
I just finished reading a newsletter from our Village Manager that listed all the free (of very inexpensive) activities going on in our town square this month. I had no idea we had so many activities. I wrote a few on my calendar that I’d like to do. I also have a small list of Christmas movies I’ve never seen that I’d like to watch this year. 🎄
Super video that focuses on "sharing good times together" !!! The week before Christmas, children were entitled to another more flexible organization: for example, dinners were replaced by a crepe party, or sandwiches, then hot chocolate as dessert or candys. Then we all discussed together what we would eat on Christmas Eve, to create small decorations and drawings and also choose music and songs. These less formal moments were our future memories to cherish.
Christmas Eve my mother always had a buffet supper for her sisters and family. Everyone would bring a dish to share. This was after the candlelight service at church. Christmas Day we visited in the homes of those same families. We kids would play games, dance and just have fun together. Miss those cousins!
My favorite Christmas memory growing up in the ‘80s was when on Christmas morning my father would bring us all to visit my grandparents. We would first pass by a fancy bakery to get some sweets (a real treat) to bring to the grandparents and just in front of the bakery there was a lovely nativity built over a small canal. The highlight for us was visiting that nativity over the water. Every time I go back to my home town and pass by that canal I remember those Christmas mornings.
I would make a very big batch of gingerbread men and the kids would sit down for a whole morning decorating then with all the colours that were available in the tubes of icing. They decorated them however they wanted to . Great fun. We did lots of crafts too which kept them occupied and excited for Christmas. Really miss those days, they're all adults now, but hopefully they will create the same memories with their children. Merry Christmas 😊
My great-grandchildren are too far away to visit, so I am. borrowing some other kids that my niece babysits. I will be making 8 or 9 gingerbread houses, just the basic construction, getting lots of candy and making lots of icing. The children will decorate them and take them home. And my niece will deal with the cleanup. Perfect, ha ha.
A really fond memory of my childhood Christmases is making paper chains with my little brother during Advent. My mum would get us little packs of strips of coloured paper and each individual strip had a lickable end similar to envelope closing glue. We sat (Primary school age) and linked them together after licking and squishing together each little paper link until we had dozens and then made chains to stick up across the ceiling in the front room. Corner to corner and again in the opposite corners until they crossed over at the central lampshade. We were absorbed in that for hours (mum wasn't daft!). Also a few brightly coloured balloons were strung together in clumps and added to each wall at ceiling level. We loved the finished look and knew it was a special time of year.
My favourite memory with my children is leaving a snack for Santa and his reindeer, then sitting in front of the fire eating toasted teacakes and reading "twas the night before Christmas........"
I still cherish the homemade ornaments my children & I made together for the tree. I have ornaments made from macaroni, plaster of paris, clothespins, pine cones, etc. I also remember making " snow candy" with my grandmother. She would boil maple syrup & pour it on a clean patch of snow to harden into candy. It was the best!
Old fashioned board games like Snakes and Ladders, Tell Me, Sorry, Happy Families etc on bad weather days, I still have them all and we play them with the grandchildren now, baking biscuits cut out in Christmas shapes, I just debated today whether to donate all my cutters to the local charity shop , but they went back in the cupboard, I’m not ready to part with them yet 😄
I'm still using the nativity manger that was mine as a child, and I'm 73 yrs old now! This morning before we had to take the grand daughter to school, she and I made a tray of gingerbread man cookies.
I recall as a young girl my parents would take my sister and I downtown to see how the large stores had decorated their Christmas windows.......this was before shopping malls so it was exciting to look forward to each year......as life progressed we would drive around neighborhoods to view decorations and have the cocoa in the car, particularly to see a huge decorated Pecan tree and houses in an affluent area......it was such a magical time which I passed to my own children.....thank you 😊💜
Mum and I used to like taking our Lakeland Terrier out of an evening over Christmas and looking at all the houses lit up. One in particular was always spectacularly decorated. This coming Sunday, four of us are off on a coach trip to Knaresborough where there is an itinerary of Christmas street events taking place which are all free of charge. Looking forward to that. 😀🎄🦌🎄🦌🥰
We go see Christmas lights pretty much every night I’m off work. My 5 year old loves it. There are a few homes in town that are known for their displays and they’re truly spectacular! It’s fun because there are lots of other families doing the same.
We would go and see the lights in the neighbourhoods, watch Christmas movies, go skating on a frozen lake followed by hot chocolate and roasting hotdogs. Some years the skiing was involved, sliding down hills depended on weather and amt of snow and cold.
Growing up in the Chicago area close to a very wealthy neighborhood, brought a drive every year to see their amazing Christmas displays! Police even had to direct the traffic as so many people would drive from miles around. Thank you for bringing back that memory!
I still use Christmas ornaments that I was gifted 50 years ago. My family likes to go see the Carol Ships, parading in the nights harbour (Vancouver, BC, Canada) and drinking hot chocolate. This year, we will probably get together to see our local heritage village lights ceremony.
My very favourite part of Christmas is the midnight communion, a really special, mystical experience. Bubble and squeak on Boxing day is another highlight - just love the leftovers!
I've had the tiny artificial tree in my Campervan since i was living in the Army barracks in 1996😂 the ornaments are all from when i was a child in Germany handmade by my family wooden, cloth or crocheted. I did buy an advent calendar with stationary surprises. I'll enjoy using those all year. Today's suprise was a pencil which is good because my current pencil is about 2" long now😂
My local libarary has several family and children activities celebrating Christmas and the holiday season. They also have a Makerspace Lab where you can make no cost and/or low cost gifts and decorations.
In NC we have not had snow in our area, middle Piedmont area,in over 3 years. This morning had a couple of inches and here all schools closed. By lunch it was mostly gone.
So loving the vlogmas videos but I NEED to ask about the third dog I’m seeing in the snow. I have 2 small dogs myself and I’m dog obsessed!!! Who is he/she? They’re all having such fun.
@@FrugalQueeninFrance it’s heartbreaking isn’t it. I’ve lost so many over the years (all rescued) but wouldn’t have missed a single second with any of them
Dear Jane, dear Mike, I am enjoying all of your videos. Since you started your Christmas Vlogs your videos do have an automatical acoustical translation. If this setting on TH-cam comes from you, I beg you to remove this setting.
Oranges with peppermint sticks stuck in them...walking sodas. Cut an x in an orange through the peel. Then put a straight peppermint stick (preferably with small holes through the center) and squeeze the orange while sipping the juice out through the peppermint stick. That's one.
Caroling with the church choir. We had a Sr. Choir and a Jr. Choir and we all went out caroling to members of the congregation's homes who couldn't get out. We also went around the neighborhood on our own without the choir when I was in Girl Scouts and Job's Daughters. In Scouts and J.D. we also went to nursing homes to carol. I lived in a Jewish neighborhood so we sang Hanukkah songs at the nursing homes as well. We always got cookies and hot cider afterwards at the church or the choir director's house or back at school with Scouts.
I remember coming home from midnight mass after singing in the choir. There was a snowstorm (Minnesota, USA) as usual and one Christmas night I saw Santa Claus unpacking the trunk of his car and going into my friends house...
We also used to go downtown Minneapolis on Nicollet mall to walk and look at the store window decorations. Going to the Christmas displays at the shopping malls was also fun when they were still doing them with animated figures and tiny Christmas villages. Mom was a church organist and choir director, so I was always singing in the choir. I mostly remember the music and companionship of the shared experience with my fellow singers. Very low cost, very memorable especially the candlelight services and carol services.
My family would go to my sister's in laws after church for dinner after church. Karl Hanson would read the Christmas story from his bible in Swedish before dinner. After we ate, there was always the walk around the block before desert to look at the lights. Very cozy.
When i first married my husband 3 years ago, I hand drew Nisse and we split 24 of them to hide around the house and then look for on Christmas! We decorated the house with scavenged pine and cones from knocked down trees during a hurricane by a walk down the street. We put red items and white items from the house in groups to give a Christmas feel.
Just unpacked the Nisse yesterday!
❤so cool, you're taking me down memory lane! I'll listen and comment every day until I run out of things to say ( never😂). We had a handmade nativity scene that my mother made of natural clay, framed by two candles. Leading up to Christmas every evening we'd light the candles and my mom would read us a Christmas story or part of one. 😊 I am so blessed to have had a wonderful caring mother. We had very little cash, but so much fun and love. Switzerland in the 60's. ❤
Oh Jane the blanket fort brought such a memory rush, my mum had a old wooden clothes horse, it was huge we used blankets it was amazing, thank you for that help in remembering that memory,I had a smile and a tear at the same time,❤
Thanks
When I was a kid we would cut out paper snowflakes and then decorate the windows with spray snow window art. With my kids we always spend a day making and icing cutout sugar cookies.
I stumbled on the wonders of wallpaper. I bought clearance rolls and wrapped gifts. The paper was so sturdy that my son-in-law teased me until I stopped. The last of it has just gone to Good Will, a charity shop. Loads of savings for any wrap and definitely not flimsy. Always used many old tree ornaments. Passed on my old tree to my daughter when she said they could not afford a new tree. My grandson was delighted. Stretching the budget. With charm, grace and love.
Growing up my family’s main things were big family gatherings. Both sets of grandparents would have everyone over and us kids ran and played and we had delicious basic food. We did go to the woods to get our Christmas trees and we made a lot of our tree decorations each year. One aunt on my dad’s side - Aunt Velma- made the most delicious chicken pie. I wish now I’d learned how she did it. She only had one son much older than me and my sisters. Each year she’d give us three girls our favorite gifts. Always a some bubbie bath or bath oils in brightly colored balls, a night gown, underwear sets with the days of the week on them and or pencils with our names on them! We always looked forward to Aunt Velma’s wonderful gifts. I think she just had fun buying for girls. This isn’t exactly what you asked something frugal but reading the other comments just brought back that memory. My mom would make two toned fudge at Christmas and it was so delicious. I have the recipe it’s a layer of butterscotch and a layer of chocolate. I need to get out that recipe and make it!
There were whole towns that would decorate for Christmas, and we made it was our yearly Christmas treat to drive around to see the elaborate scenes that were constructed. Once we had visited the various neighborhoods, we would head home for hot chocolate. Our church choir members made a list of shut ins we would visit and sing Christmas carols. We also went to two nursing homes in the area and sing more carols. Those were the events I remembered most about Christmas in the 70s.
My whole childhood my family, plus several others, headed out to my grandparents 3 weeks before Christmas. We trekked up into the woods and cut down our own tree. Absolutely FREE. Added bonus strong possibilitie of snow up there. When my sister was 6, 7, and 8, she insisted on bringing in the family tree, so we had a scrawny Charly Brown as that was all she could drag down the mountain. When we got back my grandma's fresh cinnamon rolls were coming out of the oven. Best Christmas memories ever. Family, Friends, Food and Fun all for FREE!!
Such a lovely vlogmas video Jane and Mike. I love hearing your memories of bygone times. I grew up in the 60s. My favourite memory is when we went into the city to see the Christmas lights. This was always the first week of December not like these days when we are subjected to Christmas as early as September .
The 60s were bleak and grey . Christmas seemed magical to us back then. It’s sad to see how consumerism has gradually taken over. Again many thanks for sharing your Christmas memories 🙏🙏🙏
My best friend and I went for a cold winter walk through a small local zoo today. It's her Birthday on the tenth, and I have to work. We both qualify for discounted entry due to being over 55. The animals were all out and busy.
We were the only visitors and had a long chat with the woman in the office after our walk. She was so nice and let us hold and cuddle the Adorable Bearcat (Binturong ) named Belle. That was so fun and worth every penny of the thirteen US dollars we both spent. ❤
We used to have a church in our city that every year put on an outside living nativity. It was done in scenes, The costumes were so beautiful. The music really was nice. They would bring in animals sheep, donkeys, etc. It was sometimes really cold outside, but it was always special. Another church I attended used do a Living Christmas tree every year. They’d use risers and fir tree boughs on the platform to build a tree the choir stood in. It looked like the singers were in a real Christmas tree singing. The kids put on a Christmas program and had little parts to memorize and say. When the program was over the kids each got a Christmas bag with hard candy and a orange. It was really fun. Sometimes the really special memories are the fun and laughter shared together.
My sister and me made paper lanterns out of left over wallpaper, and glued the edges with a mix of water and flour. Mum hung the lanterns on paper chains looped from the four corners of the ceiling in towards the centre light. We oooohed and aaaaahed at the wonderful decorations we had produced. Happy days!
We've always done a frugal Christmas! I am still using my parents tree ornaments from the 1950s!
@@janefoley5184 love that
I just bake cookies for friends and also include some chocolates
I remember driving around the neighborhood to see Christmas lights
Lovely roll neck sweater 😊
When we migrated to Australia 🇦🇺 a selection of Christmas 🎄 decorations came with us, yes memories are relived every year ⛄️
Thank you Jane and Mike for another great 😊 video. Hello to the pooches.
Love your sweater!!
I'm in the US, and I take my kids to the public library events. We also attend our towns christmas parade and tree lighting.
That's super
We used to play boardgames or had a Jigsaw puzzle that we all worked at when I was a child. I always loved that. Even as a child I didn’t like snow and I still don’t like snow and ice. So I just love to stay home and read or put a puzzle on the table. Just me and the Christmas tree and some candles. I’m single and don’t have kids but I really don’t mind being alone at Christmas, I just like it a lot.
Lovely memories
You're never alone when you have a cat!
@gloriaincalifornia1911 I know but I can’t afford a cat anymore. My photo is from the last cat I had and he died in 2016. The vet costs are way too high for my income since 2005, so I got into a lot of debt in those 11 years that he lived with me. He was a rather sick cat when I took him in while he was only 4 years old. At that time I still worked and had a good income but after a year I got sick myself and lost my job and he needed a lot of care. That’s the main reason I got into debt, but I loved him so much. After he died it took me years and years to pay off my debt.
Lovely ideas Jane 🌲how I miss blanket forts ❤
Reading books to my children in front of the Christmas tree is one of my best memories.
How lovely
I now live in Florida and it's so nice to see all my neighboring apartment dwellers decorate their lanais! They are quite lit up and very festive. Some people put their Christmas trees on the lanai. Lots of wreaths on the front doors. Our apartment property management had a lovely holiday supper for us and set out some tables with wreaths and ornaments for us to decorate and bring home. When I lived in N Y we always went into the city to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza and go ice skating. Then we would walk down Fifth Avenue to see all the decorations in the shop windows. Always a stop for hot chocolate and donuts before heading home. Good memories.
When i was a teenager on boxing day my parents took us to Weston-Super-Mare where the dog had a good run and we were blown down the freezing beach. Then a picnic in the car from the cooler. Happy memories now i will be 60 in 2025😀
Great memories
I just finished reading a newsletter from our Village Manager that listed all the free (of very inexpensive) activities going on in our town square this month. I had no idea we had so many activities. I wrote a few on my calendar that I’d like to do. I also have a small list of Christmas movies I’ve never seen that I’d like to watch this year. 🎄
Super video that focuses on "sharing good times together" !!! The week before Christmas, children were entitled to another more flexible organization: for example, dinners were replaced by a crepe party, or sandwiches, then hot chocolate as dessert or candys. Then we all discussed together what we would eat on Christmas Eve, to create small decorations and drawings and also choose music and songs. These less formal moments were our future memories to cherish.
That's absolutely lovely
I walked around the block last night to see all the Christmas lights. So many have decorated this year! It was lovely.
We used to do that when I was a child. It was so special as a child to see the magic of Christmas.
How nice
I see lots of lovely lights and outdoor decorations on my commute home from work. No need to spend extra gas to see them!
Christmas Eve my mother always had a buffet supper for her sisters and family. Everyone would bring a dish to share. This was after the candlelight service at church.
Christmas Day we visited in the homes of those same families. We kids would play games, dance and just have fun together. Miss those cousins!
My favorite Christmas memory growing up in the ‘80s was when on Christmas morning my father would bring us all to visit my grandparents. We would first pass by a fancy bakery to get some sweets (a real treat) to bring to the grandparents and just in front of the bakery there was a lovely nativity built over a small canal. The highlight for us was visiting that nativity over the water. Every time I go back to my home town and pass by that canal I remember those Christmas mornings.
That's a treasured memory
I would make a very big batch of gingerbread men and the kids would sit down for a whole morning decorating then with all the colours that were available in the tubes of icing. They decorated them however they wanted to . Great fun. We did lots of crafts too which kept them occupied and excited for Christmas. Really miss those days, they're all adults now, but hopefully they will create the same memories with their children. Merry Christmas 😊
My great-grandchildren are too far away to visit, so I am. borrowing some other kids that my niece babysits. I will be making 8 or 9 gingerbread houses, just the basic construction, getting lots of candy and making lots of icing. The children will decorate them and take them home. And my niece will deal with the cleanup. Perfect, ha ha.
Have fun!
A really fond memory of my childhood Christmases is making paper chains with my little brother during Advent. My mum would get us little packs of strips of coloured paper and each individual strip had a lickable end similar to envelope closing glue. We sat (Primary school age) and linked them together after licking and squishing together each little paper link until we had dozens and then made chains to stick up across the ceiling in the front room. Corner to corner and again in the opposite corners until they crossed over at the central lampshade. We were absorbed in that for hours (mum wasn't daft!). Also a few brightly coloured balloons were strung together in clumps and added to each wall at ceiling level. We loved the finished look and knew it was a special time of year.
My favourite memory with my children is leaving a snack for Santa and his reindeer, then sitting in front of the fire eating toasted teacakes and reading "twas the night before Christmas........"
Gorgeous memories
I still cherish the homemade ornaments my children & I made together for the tree. I have ornaments made from macaroni, plaster of paris, clothespins, pine cones, etc. I also remember making " snow candy" with my grandmother. She would boil maple syrup & pour it on a clean patch of snow to harden into candy. It was the best!
Snow candy! what a poetic treat!
Thanks for sharing
Old fashioned board games like Snakes and Ladders, Tell Me, Sorry, Happy Families etc on bad weather days, I still have them all and we play them with the grandchildren now, baking biscuits cut out in Christmas shapes, I just debated today whether to donate all my cutters to the local charity shop , but they went back in the cupboard, I’m not ready to part with them yet 😄
I love a jigsaw over the Christmas break
I'm still using the nativity manger that was mine as a child, and I'm 73 yrs old now! This morning before we had to take the grand daughter to school, she and I made a tray of gingerbread man cookies.
How lovely
I recall as a young girl my parents would take my sister and I downtown to see how the large stores had decorated their Christmas windows.......this was before shopping malls so it was exciting to look forward to each year......as life progressed we would drive around neighborhoods to view decorations and have the cocoa in the car, particularly to see a huge decorated Pecan tree and houses in an affluent area......it was such a magical time which I passed to my own children.....thank you 😊💜
Lovely memories
Mum and I used to like taking our Lakeland Terrier out of an evening over Christmas and looking at all the houses lit up. One in particular was always spectacularly decorated. This coming Sunday, four of us are off on a coach trip to Knaresborough where there is an itinerary of Christmas street events taking place which are all free of charge. Looking forward to that. 😀🎄🦌🎄🦌🥰
Oh wow!
@@FrugalQueeninFranceJust realised Jane, it's Knaresborough, not Keswick. 🙈😆 Equally as nice though. 🎄🤗
We enjoy driving around after dark and looking at people's decorations in their yard. When our kids were young we went to the local parade.
Great fun
We go see Christmas lights pretty much every night I’m off work. My 5 year old loves it. There are a few homes in town that are known for their displays and they’re truly spectacular! It’s fun because there are lots of other families doing the same.
Love it!!
We would go and see the lights in the neighbourhoods, watch Christmas movies, go skating on a frozen lake followed by hot chocolate and roasting hotdogs. Some years the skiing was involved, sliding down hills depended on weather and amt of snow and cold.
How wonderful
Growing up in the Chicago area close to a very wealthy neighborhood, brought a drive every year to see their amazing Christmas displays! Police even had to direct the traffic as so many people would drive from miles around. Thank you for bringing back that memory!
That is awesome!
Sounds great!
I still use Christmas ornaments that I was gifted 50 years ago. My family likes to go see the Carol Ships, parading in the nights harbour (Vancouver, BC, Canada) and drinking hot chocolate. This year, we will probably get together to see our local heritage village lights ceremony.
Thanks for sharing
My very favourite part of Christmas is the midnight communion, a really special, mystical experience. Bubble and squeak on Boxing day is another highlight - just love the leftovers!
Lovely
We have always watched Charlie Brown Christmas on Christmas Eve around the Christmas tree. Even though Tavish is 21 we still continue this tradition!
That's fun
I've had the tiny artificial tree in my Campervan since i was living in the Army barracks in 1996😂 the ornaments are all from when i was a child in Germany handmade by my family wooden, cloth or crocheted. I did buy an advent calendar with stationary surprises. I'll enjoy using those all year. Today's suprise was a pencil which is good because my current pencil is about 2" long now😂
That's great
My local libarary has several family and children activities celebrating Christmas and the holiday season. They also have a Makerspace Lab where you can make no cost and/or low cost gifts and decorations.
That is awesome!
In NC we have not had snow in our area, middle Piedmont area,in over 3 years. This morning had a couple of inches and here all schools closed. By lunch it was mostly gone.
Thanks for sharing
So loving the vlogmas videos but I NEED to ask about the third dog I’m seeing in the snow. I have 2 small dogs myself and I’m dog obsessed!!! Who is he/she? They’re all having such fun.
Old old video, years ago, two long dead.
@@FrugalQueeninFrance it’s heartbreaking isn’t it. I’ve lost so many over the years (all rescued) but wouldn’t have missed a single second with any of them
Dear Jane, dear Mike, I am enjoying all of your videos. Since you started your Christmas Vlogs your videos do have an automatical acoustical translation. If this setting on TH-cam comes from you, I beg you to remove this setting.
You can remove it and return to original
@FrugalQueeninFrance I know, but the setting has to be changed for every single video.