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 Radio Times: 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 Hark the Herald and Come All Ye Faithful. I can still remember them - although my voice has subsequently dropped from mezzo to nearer an alto.

5. Morecambe & Wise. 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 Meet Me In Saint Louis 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.