The Advent of Calenders anyone?

It's the first of advent and with great excitement the Grandkids have opened the first window of their advent calenders.

I really don't recall doing this as a kid in the Sixties. Do you?

When did advent calenders start? 

A D V E N T 4

 

Fourth Sunday

ADVENT: THIRD

 

ADVENT: SECOND

 

IT'S DECEMBERRRRRRR!

Santa is NOT in quarantine!

THE FIRST OF ADVENT

 

Almost forgot!

THE LIGHT IN THE DARK

One last candle for the first December weekend.

I've lit this for my loved ones both living and long gone.

Its stood in front of an old coffee pot I've got out from the attic for Christmas. It belonged to Moonbase Junior's Great Great Grandma.

We shall be serving coffee from it this season just as Great Great Gran did fifty years ago.

Night readers.

Dream of vintage toys hidden round the house.

FLAME BALL CANDLE

Its the First of Advent and traditionally my folks would have lit a candle. The first of four.

Blue Peter encouraged us Sixties kids to make Advent candle wreaths too. I recall coat hangers and moss and stern warnings of parental guidance when it came to the candle lighting.

Nowadays I still light candles in memory of my parents and those wonderful Christmasess they created for me and my sibs in the Sixties and early Seventies.

For the blog I've chosen a different kind of candle today, the flame ball.

These strange flames are created on the International Space Station and I thought it looked quite beautiful for a Moonbase.

You can read and see the science behind it with NASA here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxxqCLxxY3M

Do you light candles for whatever reason at this time of year readers?

AN EARLY VISIT BY THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PAST

I watched an old animated version of A Christmas Carol at School today. Scrooge was voiced by the great Alistair Sim.

It’s the first bit of Christmas spirit I’ve felt this season. It was itself like a visit from the Ghosts of Christmas.

Its early I know but not as early as the Christmas tress that have appeared lit up in the local garden centre. Its well and truly here in the shops and on the TV.

This cartoon of Dickensian cheer I watched, always a favourite in any format, got me thinking about the festive season when we were kids in the Sixties.

A sort of Ghost of Christmas Past moment, where Scrooge is swept along in the sky to moments long gone.

I'm on the slip-road to 60 now and my memories are hazy at best. I so wish I could clean them up, remove the fog and sharpen the images. I have feelings more than memories I think. A feeling that Christmas back then was a huge celebration involving lots of people all coming and going from the house all December long.

People like my parents’ friends, Aunties, Uncles, Grandparents, cousins and of course my siblings. I was the youngest of five and early on in my life my eldest sister was married so I had a Brother-in-Law too.

My second Sister married shortly after and by the late Sixties I had two Brothers-in Law, by which point I also had a nephew and a niece. Yes, by the close of the Sixties when I was 10 I was already an Uncle!

Being an RC household there was a crib displayed on the monk’s seat in the hallway next to the GPO telephone. Little pot figures of the holy family set in straw. They were surrounded by cute pot animals like cows and sheep. At its centre was a pot manger. 

I adored that crib, which nestled into itself all Advent and Christmas and I have no idea what happened to it. I hope its coming down from the attic again somewhere soon but more likely its waiting to be displayed in the deep darkness of landfill.

We also had lodgers in the house. Dock-men who worked on Preston Docks in the warehouses and the cranes. It was a fabulously atmospheric and maritime place the Docks, an exotic fortress of steel, brick and briney water where huge ships emptied fruit and goods day and night. 

There were exotic spiders too, snuck in on the bananas and tales of fanged tarantulas hiding in the webbed sheds kept me enthralled. At the stroke of New Year all the ships would sound their loud horns and we knew the year had turned full circle once more.

I adored Christmas Day. So much that I would try to recreate the jumble of prezzies I got on the settee again on Boxing Day. It was never the same. They were all unwrapped but it was an attempt to recapture the magic of Christmas morning. In many ways this blog is me still trying to recreate that settee full of Christmas toys after all this time.

I recall virtually every toy I ever had and over the last ten years I’ve shared these with you. I also remember the odd gift I got other people like a book of silver assay marks for my Mum and some car wax and a shamee for my Dad. Somewhere I may have a list from one year of what I got my family and I know I have a gift tag I made depicting a Shogun.

The meals, the movement, the family, the songs, the programmes and the conversations have all gone but the feeling I have for that time is kept alive and well. My Sixties Christmases still burn strong. Like glowing embers in the grey carbon of the past they illuminate my way through the dark winters even now and hopefully will do for years to come.

Are you thinking of the coming season?

its the second of advent

Two illuminated deer for the second Sunday of Advent.

The deer were made by Empire Plastics, the successor to Tarheel Inc, the makers of the American Project SWORD range!

Image found on Pinterest.

How are you celebrating?

I'm babysitting!

its the first of advent!

Are you lighting a candle?

THE FIRST OF ADVENT

Its the 1st of Advent and Christmas is just four Sundays away. When I was a wee laddie I used to make an Advent Wreath out of two wire coat hangers, some holly and four candles. Peter Purvis, Valerie Singleton and John Noakes [pictured] made one on TV's classic Blue Peter programme so all the kids of the land knew how to do it. There probably weren't any wire coat hangers left anywhere! The Wreath went on the living room table and a candle was lit each Sunday of Advent. Wonder if any of our readers did or do this?

Rex Features

I don't make the wreaths anymore but always still light a candle throughout Advent and think about my old Mum and Dad and the happy Decembers we spent together and Christmas yet to come.

On behalf of Wotan, Scoop and myself, I would like to wish all our readers a very happy First of Advent.