Week Before Christmas in 1970s Britain

Before Christmas Day came the week that led up to it, and in 1970s Britain most of us ran through it in the same order. This documentary follows that week from the Saturday before Christmas to the moment the shops shut on Christmas Eve. It starts in town on the last Saturday, with the crowds, the department store windows and the grotto queue, then goes through Woolworths counter by counter: pick and mix weighed by the quarter, Winfield cards and wrapping paper, the decorations, the electronic games of the late seventies and the 1973 race for the Christmas number one. On the Sunday the decorations come down from the loft and the tree goes up. The Christmas double issues of the Radio Times and the TV Times arrive, read cover to cover and ringed in biro, along with the BBC ghost stories that went out in that very week. At school there are tea towel headdresses, tinsel halos and paper chains, then the last day of term with jelly and a film on the projector. At home the cake made in November is iced, the mince pies come out of the oven and the cards go up on a string. We look at how the same week ran in Scotland, collect the turkey from the butcher, and follow the high street on Christmas Eve morning as the shutters come down for two days or more. Sources: https://www.scotsman.com/retro/christ... https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.u... https://woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/1950s-... https://www.woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/To... https://woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/xmasca... https://woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/xmasde... https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-lif... https://www.thestar.co.uk/read-this/h... https://www.expressandstar.com/busine... https://martinjohnes.com/2020/12/01/a... https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474255400 https://oldchristmastreelights.com/if... https://kevinboone.me/fairy_lights.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T... https://www.newstatesman.com/uncatego... https://woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/xmas-c... https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/ghost... https://pressgazette.co.uk/?p=63758 https://stevenrlarson.ghost.is/great-... https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunder... https://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/ne... https://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/blog/?... https://www.iomtoday.co.im/opinion/re... https://hartlepoolmail.co.uk/heritage... https://artsandculture.google.com/sto... https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/past-... https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and... https://blog.oup.com/?p=32919 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_... https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/i... https://www.freshplaza.com/north-amer... https://doi.org/10.1108/eb017764 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shops_A... https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/...