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Back in time One reader welcomes a return to old festive traditions

£100 letter

Christmas past

As a journalist in the late 1970s, I wrote an article about preparing for Christmas. My young children delighted in helping to make the pudding in September and the cake and mincemeat in early November, which were left to mature in the pantry.

At the end of November, the meat and accompaniments were ordered at the butcher and they would be ready to collect on Christmas Eve.

Then came the ‘fun’ bit: making Christmas cards, homemade crackers, gathering fir cones for decorations. Last year’s tree was dug up from the garden, re-potted and given pride of place in the window.

Even as I wrote that article half a century ago, I could see the writing was on the wall and added a last paragraph: ‘How long before we dash round a supermarket on Christmas Eve throwing everything we need into our trolley, ready-made and mass produced?’

Never was one of my predictions more accurate. Over the years, it became the norm to expect supermarkets to produce everything for the traditional fare. However, I detect a return to doing things slowly, and it gladdens my heart. Credit must go to the move towards sustainability, recycling and waste not, want not that is becoming the mantra of those who realise we cannot destroy the fabric of our existence, not to mention the traditions that gave our children so much pleasure.

Thankfully, some television shows are now embracing the idea of returning to a gentler time. And where influencers go, others follow, although all the younger generation needs to do is ask their grandparents! Mary Pilfold-Allan Burwell, Cambs

Great advice

Anne Robinson was so on the button in her reply to a writer whose mother had taken up smoking after the recent loss of her husband and the writer’s father (November).