what happened when i gave my kids a 1980s christmas

I’m standing in a polyester nightie, my hair standing up (the static from the nightie reacting to the polyester furniture) next to a pink plastic Christmas tree. It’s 1982.

“Open your stockings, darling,” Mom said as she lay on the brown and orange sofa in her brown and orange dressing gown, with the brown and orange cushions behind her.

I push my hand into the stocking, a fuzzy felt number lovingly made by Mom that we reuse every year. It has my name on the side in felt letters. I take out a spherical object wrapped in aluminum foil. I don’t need to check because I know it’s an orange. I’m taking out another one. Bingo! Two oranges. And then, nestled at the bottom, next to a slightly damp pinecone, is a Crunchie bar. A few raisins in a mini box. And ta da – a little knitted teddy bear!

Christmas stocking finished and I move on to my presents. Grandma comes into the front room, looking nourished – she’s been cooking the turkey since 6 a.m. and by 3 p.m. it will be dry and served on brown and orange plates with hard but fatty potatoes and an indistinguishable mass that could be broccoli, sprouts or peas. There are five presents and I take about two minutes to unwrap them.

My Uncle Matthew walks into the living room chanting “COME ON EILEEN!” » still drunk after arriving at 3am. I am delighted with my life-size doll with “real natural hair” (hair that I will cut off in a moment of supernatural rage a few months later). I also get a Lego set, Holly Hobbie House, marbles and a stuffed monkey. I am delighted with this hiding place. I’ve wanted my own Holly Hobbie house my whole life! I can’t wait to have my best friend over in the new year to play it.

Fast forward to the present day and I’m hunched over my phone. I am bombarded with WhatsApps informing me of school assemblies, Christmas markets, collections for teachers, dates for ordering Christmas trees and end-of-year celebrations. I feel like I’m trying to anticipate a wave that wants to engulf me in the administration.

My brain jumps uneasily from one task to the next. Do they have a Christmas sweater that fits them? Have I booked a panto? I quickly go to a ticket website and see that a good site is selling for £80 a ticket. And the lights at Kew? It’s nice and it’s Christmas! Except when I check, everything is already sold out. I spend hours planning the positions of the “Elves on the Shelves”, I’ve already spent too much on Advent calendars (a beauty one for tweens and a chocolate one for six year olds), and I’m about to order a long list of gifts, plus something to wear that makes me feel like I’m having a good time.

“All my friends are going to Winter Wonderland,” my eldest says as I resist the temptation to throw myself face first into the carpet. I told him that “Christmas was all about joy and oranges. It involved going to church and buying yet another orange with a candle in it. It was about getting a few meaningful gifts, maybe one big gift but definitely not dozens of random pieces of plastic. It was a meal. It was about watching things on TV together and enjoying that togetherness rather than listening to our phones in different rooms,” but she’s gone and I’m talking to myself. I quickly watch Winter Wonderland on my phone and confirm that I can’t afford it.

“Let’s try to have the kind of Christmas I had,” I told the kids later: “Let’s all lower our expectations.”

“Will we have pajamas in boxes on Christmas Eve?” they ask.

“No,” I respond sternly.

“How about a giant inflatable Santa outside?”

“No.”

They look sullen. I feel like the Grinch but I persevere. Surely the meaning of Christmas is to be together, to create bonds, a meal shared with other humans?

The next day, I take my daughters to a Christmas fair.

“We’re going to buy some oranges and then we’re going to put some cloves in them,” I said excitedly. “They will make lovely decorations and we can give them as gifts to your friends.”

“Who wants a stinky orange?” » said the youngest.

Parenting is about picking your battles and I’m going to demonstrate how important it is to have a healthy Christmas in the 80s if it kills me. The market is hideous. There are five million people buying useless Christmas crap in a feverish panic. Christmas hats for dogs. A plaque that says “Christmas Eve Hot Mama”. An apron with a naked Santa on the front. We come home without oranges and without two cranky children.

“What if we made pretty Christmas cards?” I said when we got back, “Then I’ll buy a copy of the Radio Times and we can decide which programs we want to watch.” »

I immediately remember that no one sends Christmas cards these days and the Radio Times still exists?

“I know, let’s look at the Argos catalog and tick off the things we want for Christmas,” I suggest.

When I was little, we always had a catalog and I would spend hours checking off the different things I wanted. It was a precursor to online shopping – the main difference being that you didn’t receive the items you checked off. It was just window shopping. The problem is that now kids check everything off and fully expect to get it.

“Do you understand that it’s just a fun activity, and Santa isn’t going to bring all that stuff?” I said with slight panic.

The next evening, when I came home from a work meeting, I noticed that the neighbors had started putting up tasteful decorations outside the house. Little twinkling lights that shine nicely and cost a lot. Mini disco balls hanging from the trees. When did this become a thing? Why are we supposed to decorate the exterior and interior of our homes? I come home and find some colored paper in the cupboard so we can make paper decorations.

“If you loop them like this, you can make pretty chains,” I said to the children. They both roll their eyes but begin making the decoration with enthusiasm.

“How about we make snowflakes and put them on the window too?” I suggest.

“I love the inflatable Santa Claus that we saw at the garden center,” said the eldest. “I also want a Brandy Melville crop top.”

I feel spiraling. What happened? Were the 80s really better? Come on Eileen! I’m trying to rally. The experiment was a failure. That evening, I made us watch an old episode of Morecambe and wise on a channel that no one in our house had ever seen before.

“It’s Christmas!” I declare. “We’re watching something together!”

“When is this going to stop?” We want to watch Disney+! they both cry.

I go to Amazon and order an inflatable Santa. I spend the night wondering how I’m going to run the power cable through the window without losing the heat from the front room. My partner ordered the meat but I don’t have any panto tickets. I fall asleep, and as my eyelids close, the pink plastic tree from my childhood floats in my peripheral vision. I fall into a restless sleep dreaming of oranges.