Pg 18
A Vintage Christmas: in 1939
The lovely Chaz from the Second Hand Rose blog has written a post on Christmas during the war, now I don't know about you but I love reading about the war, it was always one of my fave subjects in history! My Granda, old enough to remember the II world war has told me many stories, how many of them are true, well that's a different story, but this article is a lovely reminder of how lucky we truly are in this day and age, but also how materialistic we are, when really it's not about that at all!
'It will all be over by Christmas' was the saying in World War II when war broke out in 1939, just like it was said in World War I, Unfortunately it was not and the UK had to deal with five Christmases full of rationing, handmade gifts and mock food.
People were determined to enjoy themselves and make do with what they had. Rationing meant that ingredients were sparse, so people had to improvise and only one in ten families were lucky enough to have a real bird for Christmas. People made their own mock bird using a mixture of potatoes, vegetables, sausage meat and sometimes even marzipan. Delia where were you when we needed you?
Christmas trees were decorated with knitted baubles, square boxes wrapped up to look like presents and a cardboard star on the top. Stockings contained oranges and apples, that were seen as a luxury, and also nuts. Soap was a common present to give
The Lovely Chaz
----->