Christmas / New Year Memories

Hope you like this photo of the Christmas display in our living room, I was forced to build a corner display equipped with stars, after all it is the silly season. I am being forced to go carol singing tonight, and all I want is a humbug, lol, I don't mean it. I love Christmas but I think most of you know that.

Hi, Colin, That is beautiful. Model-making in all of its glory. When I see a model like that, I want to be in it. Happy Christmas to you.

With my overnight visit to Coventry was able to see the big switch-on. This is in the West Orchard shopping centre

Santa abseils Let there be light, Christmas switch on

Hi all Can you believe that another year is almost at an end? Although I celebrate the birth of Christ as 25th December as a matter of faith, no one really knows what His birthdate is. There are debates regards many historical events & legends, made all the more difficult as China & the far east celebrate a separate calendar to us in the west & even our calendar has been adjusted a time or two so as to correct the astronomical alignment. I tend to think of Christmas time as a season, starting once the firework season is finished. Strictly, our earthly year is calculated from where the sun is, in relation to the rest of the stars. It is not an exact number of days in any year. That is why we have leap years to adjust, but they have to be dropped every so often as they over adjust. At present, our planet takes 23 hours 56 minutes & 4.1 seconds to revolve from one day to the next. Since it is rotating in an orbit around the sun (this takes some working out if you don't get dizzy doing it) that takes 365 days approx, then each day it has to revolve an extra 1/365th of a turn extra, otherwise in the course of a year, midday would become midnight in half a year's time. I have not a clue as to what brought this on but "thankfully" I hear you saying, I am off out soon. Best wishes to you all Philip. ps I have added an explanation in the astronomy topic.

This is beautiful [ignore the advert at the start!]

Coventry's own Christmas song. Is this you, Dutchman, as it all fits - SponEnd Santa

It's funny isn't it? When you're a kid Christmas seems to take forever to arrive but as you get older it arrives sooner and sooner each year!

Hi all, Does anyone remember the light displays and tableaux that were in Greyfriars Green near the station? I remember going as a small girl and seeing lots of themes, I think one was Mickey Mouse, but usually fairies, pixies etc.

Hi Covgirl Yes, I do remember them. Most KHVIII pupils in my era, who walked to or from school to town, will re-call them being installed prior to Christmas times.

Thank god someone else remembers those displays my dad used to take me to see them I've never heard anyone mention them over the years not even my sister remembers them thanks covgirl I didn't imagine them after all.

I too recall them when I was young too taken to see them with my mum and dad. I read a news clipping on this how the top man of the cloth of Cathedral if I recall right condemned them said they were materialistic and Paganism, not what Christmas is about, perhaps that's when they stopped. Yet holly and the berry and ivy is what the churches decorate with come Christmas and our homes and mistletoe which is Pagan. Hence this is where Christmas decorations derive from.

I remember being taken to see them too when I was a little girl. This was way before they carved up Greyfriars Green and spoilt it.

How different Christmas seems today. Youngsters choose the most expensive electronic gifts and expect to receive them; no wonder their parents get into debt! I suppose they all want what their friends have. When I was very young just after the war (the Second, not the First !!) money was tight. Oh, the anticipation of waking early on Christmas morning to see what Santa had left in a pillowcase. As there was not often very much, I remember my mother putting one of my long grey school socks next to the pillowcase, stuffed with a couple of oranges and a few nuts! Wow! What would children of today think of that! I was at my happiest later in the day playing with my drawing pad and a big pack of Lakeland crayons, or reading my "Girl" annual or the Beano book. I was even given a miniature sewing machine one Christmas, and a Compendium of Games was always a favourite, with Ludo, Snakes and Ladders and Tiddleywinks. Christmas was a happy time years later when I had young children of my own, but I remember my husband coming home from a works do "three sheets to the wind" on Christmas Eve and going off to bed, leaving me to do all the prezzy wrapping, prepare the turkey, peel the sprouts.... but it was fun playing with the games my sons had the next day, especially Computer Battleships. It's just not the same today!