My mum always insisted I plan things so that Christmas dinner was over in time to watch the Queen's speech.
That worked for years, but as the children grew older they became less biddable. And then when my mother died, somehow the tradition got lost.
But I always felt guilty about it, feeling it was somehow rude not to listen to the monarch, who wisely doesn't talk to us too much, when she does have something to say.

This year I will once again get us round the TV at 3pm. 
I suspect that with her popularity so high and the national nervousness that there may not be too many Queen's speeches yet to come, many more will turn on the telly this year.




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Another tradition that has long disappeared was the Company Children's Party. My dad worked for a global firm and the children of the head office staff were invited to the Johannesburg headquarters where there would be organised games for an hour or so, after which we'd all sit down to a proper tea with orange squash, cake and jelly.
And crackers and streamers.

Before we went home Santa would hand each of us a seriously nice toy. One year there was a locomotive and tender that ran on methylated spirit for my brother, and a doll that weed for me. 
She came with a little bottle which you pushed into her mouth to feed her.
Then, if you pressed her tummy, she'd pee.
We didn't have stockings hanging on the mantelpiece, but we had a pillowcase at the end of the bed containing one, or perhaps two, presents from our parents and then minor ones from relatives or siblings.

My elder brother and I shared a bedroom and year after year we would try to stay awake to see Father Christmas come to fill our pillowcases. 
One year our cunning plan was to tie a string from the pillowcase to our big toes, in the belief that the pillowcase being filled would wake us.

Didn't work.