mgw08352

Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

I was born in the early 1950s, the youngest of three girls, and we lived a quiet life on our farm. We were very keen on looking out for each other and sharing and making do with what we had.

Traditions like special food at Christmas time  sit with me because my father being of English descent was used to the hot roast Turkey dinner with lots of  baked vegetables. This was then followed by the home cooked Christmas pudding, which had hung from the exposed rafters of the ceiling on our verandah for many months ..

All of this sounds wonderful, but England and our part of Australia had 2 definitely different climates. We sweltered in over 100 degree temperatures whilst London enjoyed another flurry of snow sinking onto the snow laden roads and footpaths.

The standard of dress was different in those days our ‘best Sunday dress’ was always worn on Christmas day my father wore his good long trousers and his crisply ironed long sleeved white shirt was worn each year well into the 1960’s until sensibility took over and we could relax with better suited clothing for the.oppressive heat.

The tables would be laden with bowls of sweets ( lollies) and nuts and bottles of softdrinks that were only seen on such important events through the year.

My mother was only a small woman in stature but was proud of her ability to single handedly produce the finest dinner. She had watched the poultry grow from small chicks to the mighty fine delicacy that was offered at Christmas. Yes, she would kill the bird, clean it, and do the cooking all by herself! Most of our vegetables were grown on the farm.

The ingredients for puddings and Christmas cake were normally purchased through a shopping method similar to today’s way of shopping

We didn’t own a motor car and our mother used to telephone the local store in the nearest village and read our her shopping list of items she required and he would deliver them a couple of days later to our house. The same happened with our bread supplies and meat if we needed to purchase supplies.

We often thought times were tough, but these days, people have the treats that we had at Christmas.. lollies nuts soft drinks  ice cream every day, not just special occasions like Christmas .