not in any particular order, but these are mine;-
1 My Gran letting me have snowball
2 tangerines
3 making paper chains
4 my grans trifle
5 searching mum s bedroom when she went out prior to the big day
6 trying to stay awake and see santa
7 bringing games in school last day
8 listening to the Queen because you had to
9 watching Jason and the Agronauts
10 hiding from your aunt who said give your Auntie Alice a big kiss, yuck!

1. Dates, even though I never ate them.
2. Masses of nuts and fruit.
3. A roaring coal fire at night whilst stuffing my face and watching telly with the family.
4. Christmas Dinner (lunch).
4. Tea (meal) on Chistmas Day - with loads of everything and eating masses of celery and cakes.
5. Car getting snowed in late at night on Christmas Day night / Boxing Day night at my grandmas. Must have been 1963 I suppose.
6. When little coming downstairs before anyone else to open my presents and then taking them upstairs to show Mum and Dad.
7. When a teenager getting up hours after everyone else and irritating them by getting my breakfast before opening my presents.
8. Being allowed sherry on Christmas morning.
9. The neighbours/my auntie/uncle/cousins coming round late morning for a drink and for the kids to see each others presents.
10. Eating - chocolate all morning, massive dinner (as a teenager two plate fulls including a 16lb turkey's leg, massive cold tea, immediately after tea getting the sweets, fruit, nuts out and eating continously until about 10pm when we had turkey butties. Nowadays after lunch I can't eat anything for the rest of the day and about about 3 times the weight as I was a kid.

1. Midnight Mass and watching all those who were a bit 'merry'
2. That bottle of 'Yellow stuff' came out the drinks cabinet with the crust round the top.
3. Having a nip of sherry,port or brandy from the 'decanter' that never saw the light of day again until the following Christmas.
4. Christmas cake and mince pies. Neither of which I like so Mum would just bake me some slabs of pastry.
5. Climbing on top of the wardrobe to sneak a peek at the pressies.
6. Leslie Crowther programme where he visited sick kids in hospital.
7. Von Ryan's Express
8. Brazil nuts
9. Morecambe & Wise
10. Spending hours making a model of a Lancaster bomber or a King Tiger etc.

1. The special double [iRadio Times[/i: the anticipation as I searched through it to find films that I loved and those that I'd never seen from Hollywood's golden era.

2. Turkey. I don't miss the big roast - just the sandwiches on Christmas night, with the far tastier dark meat and plenty of salt, with one of my mother's now cold stuffing balls on the side.

3. Carols. Particularly from school carol services. At Fairfield, in the Moravian church, with christingles, and at LGGS, in the Priory.

4. Descants. As a member of the school choir, we'd have to sing the descant to carols - particularly [iHark the Herald[/i and [iCome All Ye Faithful[/i. I can still remember them - although my voice has subsequently dropped from mezzo to nearer an alto.

5. [iMorecambe & Wise[/i. Peerless.

6. The classic B&W film late on Christmas night on BBC2. My introduction to Humphrey Bogart came in such a fashion.

7. Boredom. Get one's presents - then have to leave them to go to church. Then wait around for hours waiting for my father to actually remember he had a family (and a dinner) to come home to after he'd taken his second service of the day.

8. Tension. Knowing that there'd be some Le el of row waiting when my father got home.

9. Decorating the house with my mother, usually really late, while [iMeet Me In Saint Louis[/i was on the telly.

10. Woodpecker cider. As a Cornish lad, brought up on scrumpy, my father considered it pop - and therefore entirely acceptable for his daughters when we finally sat down to lunch.

1. Eating chocolate at 6am
2. Sneaking a sip of my Dad's beer at dinner time and shuddering with revulsion, then wondering how anyone could enjoy that stuff.
3. Playing Monopoly for what seemed like an evening of eternity with aunts and uncles
4. The bathroom being freezing cold
5. Making my fingertips sore fastening meccano nuts and bolts.
6. Never getting the knack of cracking walnuts, they always ended up completely crushed and I'd have to pick the bits from the fragments of shell
7. The gorgeous smell of sugared almonds
8. Trying to unwrap chocolate coins without spoiling the shape of the foil, so that I'd still have hollow foil coins (never worked).
9. Being a shepherd in the Cathedral nativity play (I eventually made it to the dizzy elevation of playing the part of Herod)
10. Filling-in the Personal Details page in my new Letts' Schoolboy's Diary

used to be the highlight of christmas, still have one for old times sake but it tasted far better when eating the froth with a spoon as a kid!

We used trimmings

Before you read this I’m not proud of my childhood

1. Throwing iceballs at elderly people. At the time it was hilarious because they’d hit and the old people would slip over. I’m now deeply ashamed.
2. Pretending to raise money for charity whilst Christmas carolling in the local area
3. Telling other kids that Santa wasn’t true
4. Getting free bread from the Christmas mass at church
5. Shaving foam battles between everyone in my school during the local Christmas lights switch on.
6. Stealing bubals from the big Christmas tree in Leeds
7. Playing Christmas songs so loud that the neighbours would come round and complain. They couldn’t do anything about it.
8. Encouraging the younger kids to let yellow snow melt in their mouths. I’d tell them it’s magical snow.
9. Not going to school because teachers couldn’t make it due to the weather
10. Making offensive snowmen.

Just about sums you up Damo.

1. Walking the dog with my Dad on Xmas Eve, desperately searching the skies (always remember them as crystal clear) for Santa's sleigh.
2. My Gran insisting on watching The Queen's Speech, and us kids having to vacate the TV room for her.
3. For some reason - me, aged about 7, dressed in a maroon dressing gown playing with a model AT-AT.
4. On that note - Star Wars toys. Xmas meant Star Wars toys.
5. Me and my sister waking one Xmas Eve to see my Mum hanging up stockings filled with little treats at the end of our beds.
6. Until we were a bit older, going to church on Xmas Eve, and often to a reception at the Reverend's gaff. It was a Unitarian, so everyone was always pretty chilled out.
7. The Radio Times, Morecambe and Wise and the 'Big Film' in early evening - ET springs to mind.
8. Being allowed a nip of alcohol. Or if my parents had a gathering, pinching what we could and sweetly asking every guest for a sample.
9. Never liking Xmas pudding. Or understanding the big bowl of nuts nobody ate.
10. The cat always pawing at the tree from a nearby sideboard, and occasionally leaping on and knocking it over.

Always a tinge of sadness when recalling Christmas as a child. I was lucky to have had great parents adopt me and my sister and there's always a part of me wants to go back to simpler times.

that line has almost convinced me that it is a Masters team we should run next year...boy you're old.

1. One of my Dad's socks with an apple, an orange, a fondant mouse, some mini cookies and a pot of bubbles in it.
2. The Perry Como Christmas Album (we also had Jim Reeves and Mario Lanza).
3. My parents hiding presents all over the house and then sending us on ridiculous errands to find them.
4. Going to bed on Christmas Eve.
5. Shandy.
6. Telly on Christmas night.
7. Christmas cake.
8. Huge portions of Christmas dinner.
9. Putting the tree up, then sitting around it and eating mince pies.
10. The cardboard sleigh and reindeer the would adorn our living room wall every December.

Oooh can we please?!

Fed up of chasing around after young whipper-snappers every week. We could play Chorley Panthers Masters 8 times a season.

You should be creaming your drawers this year then, with all the "Dickens 200th Anniversary" stuff the beeb will be pumping out on TV & radio

Someone should PM tb and remind him to cling film the sofa.

Aha ... you have reminded me..
Years ago (1970's, 80's?) there were a couple or more "Christmas" ghost stories recorded for TV.
Of the two I remember, one was "The Woman in Black" (the forerunner of the West End long-running play) and the other was by the BBC, "The Signalman" (adaptation of Charles Dicken's "Mugby Junction : The Signalman"icon_wink.gif.

Please note, I'm not talking about subsequent remakes, films, stage plays or radio programmes ... I'm referring to TV dramas in both cases.
"The Signalman" had Denholm Elliott as the signalman, and "The Woman in Black" had Bernard Hepton in it (although not in the lead role).
If you can lay hands on a recording, I can't recommend these too highly, either or both of these will have the hairs on the back of your neck bristlingly erect.
Great for Christmas Eve viewing with the fire lit and a glass of something warming at your elbow.

Oh, they were very good.

That reminds me, I haven't read A Christmas Carol yet this year. Might have to sneak it in before the big day.

Don't know if this is the best place to post this, but any parents should have a look at this:

[url=http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/homeSanta's personalised video message[/url

You get to input your child's name, upload photos and say whether they've been naughty or nice, and Santa reads them a personal message based on the info you've provided.

1) putting the christmas decorations up on christmas eve
2) being blindfolded christmas morning and led into the living room to be shown the presents
3) making mince pies, and christmas cake
4) roast chestnuts on a tray
5) set menu for christmas day, never knowing what would be on the table
6) church on christmas morning
7) the endless phonecalls from family
8. home alone and christmas carol on the tv
9) the family coming over for boxing day where another set menu for the day was put together
10) lots of chocolate, selection boxes, and sweets

Unfortunately I'll just have to take your word for it on that they're asking for astronomical money for them on't Amazon.

A few of mine.

Carrying various bits of the dinner over from my Grandma's flat next door to our house as it was a combined effort from her and my Mum.

Being extremely upset when my radio controlled Lamborghini wouldn't work whilst my sisiter was out riding her brand new bike with my Dad.

Rum sauce for the Christmas pudding.

Beetle drives.

Hostess trolley, classy!

Christingle oranges.

Chestnuts roasted on an old shovel on the fire.

I was thinking much more in terms of the golden age of Hollywood, young Codward.

The Bogart introduction came via [iThe Big Sleep[/i late one Christmas night – which remains one of my favourite films and even influenced my course work for O level art.

The Christmas Radio Times was official permission to get excited.

1. sprouts (love 'em)
2. my dad chucking a shoe at the door when carol singers came
3. watching the Christmas day derby at old CP
4. compendiums of games
5. hoping to find the tanner in the pudding without choking on it
6. my bike with blocks on the pedals
7. visiting my grandparents on Boxing day
8. Johnny 7's
9. socks on your hands for snowball fights
10. being allowed a sip of my dad's Hull Brewery Mild

Watching 'The Great Escape'

In fact last year I downloaded it and we had it on a projector with a dozen of us watching it outside. Only later in the evening did I remember that our neighbours are German.

Same theme this year and already got 'Escape to Victory' downloaded and a 1973 Two Ronnies Christmas special.

2). Raleigh Grifter
3). Sherry
4). Soap on a Rope
5). Brut 33 splash-on/Talc christmas pack
6). Waiting for the telly programmes to start after I got up at 4am and wanted to get my B&W portable telly up and running.
7). Bad jumpers


. Terry's Chocolate oranges. Got one every year and never really liked them.
9). Watneys Party 4 (and 7)
10). Buying '20 Park Drive' for my Grandad and wrapping them up.