CHILDREN at SS Philip and James School in Leckford Road presented a Christmas show with a difference in 1983 – Papa Panov’s Christmas was based on a fairy story by Leo Tolstoy, about a shoemaker who has a vision about a visit from Jesus. The Snow Queen (Alice McLennan, aged five), is seen in the first picture leading the fairies.

Staff at Littlewoods’ store in Cornmarket Street hosted a party in their canteen for 85 children in 1979, with a special meal, gifts and visits from Father Christmas and entertainer Johnny Chuckles. In the second picture, Rennee Hay, nine, tucks in.

In the third picture, three children – left to right, Catherine Gardiner, eight, Steven Greenwood, eight, and Wendy Jocelyn, 10 – receive their presents from Santa at a party at Oxford Town Hall in St Aldate’s in 1970.