I n December 1940, the Oxford Mail boldly declared: ‘There’ll always be a Christmas’ — but the festive season was never quite the same in wartime. Families were scattered, people were understandably anxious about the future and the delights which formed a key feature of the traditional Christmas were in short supply.

The separation of families had a profound effect. Over three million British men and women were in the armed forces and those serving overseas might be away from home for years.

In Didcot, Lou Crisford and her five-year-old son John received a Christmas letter from her husband in a German prisoner of war camp in December 1943.

He thanked her for sending Pears Brilliantine which he was finding useful for rubbing on his chapped hands in icy weather and went on: ‘Yes, Darling, I should love to be with John and talk with him he must be very quaint . . .

I do hope my darling you enjoy yourself.

And I hope next Christmas we shall be together again. Well I will dry up now remember I love you Darling and give our son a big one.

Criss XX.’ Many servicemen and women were based in the United Kingdom for much of the war but only a small proportion could hope to get Christmas leave.

War workers and evacuees might also be living miles from home and even those who were notionally free to travel faced all the difficulties of wartime travel with petrol rationing and crowded trains.

On the Home Front, the celebration of Christmas took on almost a patriotic note.

In December 1939, the editor of the Oxford Monthly looked forward to ‘Christmas as Usual’, arguing that ‘it remains an important part of our war effort that we should “carry on” and so help to maintain the morale of our population.’ Tradesmen took up this theme and Milward’s in Oxford urged customers to ‘Brighten the Blackout — Give Everyone Cosy Colourful Slippers’; in Thame, John Walker Ltd., trusted that buying the firm’s fruit, nuts, mistletoe and Christmas trees would have the same effect.

There were few shortages for the first Christmas of the war.

Wiblin’s in Oxford offered a good range of English, Irish and imported turkeys and Morrell’s Brewery advertised its traditional College Ale for Christmas cheer. Badcock’s suggested that ‘Stockings solve the Gift Problem . . . in the most pleasing manner’ and Nurse the Furrier advised that ‘A Fur Coat is a Real Economy and Necessity in these days.’ Cape’s and Ward’s had plenty of toys and Elliston’s boasted a ‘grand collection of the very latest Toys, Games and Gifts.’ Later in the war, the rationing of food, sweets and clothes and concentration on vital war production seriously diminished the supply of Christmas goodies.

Turkey became an expensive rarity and mutton pie was one recommended alternative for Christmas dinner. Hardly any fruit was imported and making Christmas pudding with carrots was suggested in 1944.

Sweets became scarce in 1940 when sugar was rationed and sweet rationing was introduced in July 1942, limiting each adult and child to eight ounces of sweets every four weeks. Ice cream vanished, although strange concoctions were made using substitute materials.

Silk stockings ceased to be available from December 1940, causing chaos in Oxford as women rushed to buy up the last supplies. At Elliston’s, the counter had to be closed for two hours to allow shop assistants to recover.

Many women subsequently painted their legs with coffee or suntan lotion and asked a friend with a steady hand to apply the ‘seam’ with an eyebrow pencil.

In 1944, Milward’s in Henley offered women ‘warm, comfortable, sturdy and very stylish’ wood-soled shoes, cheerfully explaining that Allied airmen were flying to victory in the material previously used for fleece-lined booties!

Christmas trees became scarce and, although people continued to send Christmas cards, regimental greetings cards like those offered by Pankhurst’s in Bicester in 1943 were often preferred to traditional stage-coach and snow scenes.

A flood of military toys appeared at the beginning of the war — lead soldiers, uniformed dolls, model air raid precautions units, even toy bombs on a string — but most toys vanished from the shops by 1941.

Local papers were crammed with advertisements for second-hand toys and one woman commented that ‘At Christmas our home resembled Santa Claus’s workshop’ as members of the family busied themselves as amateur toymakers. One little girl simply asked Santa for ‘any little thing you can spare.’ The blackout forced churches to abandon Midnight Mass at Christmas and required carol singers to direct the light from their lanterns towards the ground to avoid signalling to enemy planes.

Even air raid wardens in Oxford had their Christmas tea postponed until the following spring because the venue was insufficiently blacked out!

Hartwell’s in December 1940 sent Season’s Greetings to their customers and remarked that ‘We live in interestingly difficult times.’ It was an apt description of both wartime Christmases and the wider struggle.