Christmas at War: What Was Christmas Like in the First Years of the Second World War?
What was Christmas like for British people during the war?
Christmas 1939 was unlike any Christmas experienced before. The country had been at war with Germany for just four months, and although the full horrors of the Blitz had not yet arrived, war had already begun to change everyday life.
The blackout had plunged towns and cities into darkness. Gas masks had become part of everyday life. Children had been evacuated from some of Britain's major cities, men were being called up for military service and families were already facing the possibility that someone they loved might not be home for the next Christmas.
Yet Christmas was still Christmas. Children still wanted presents. Families still wanted to sit together, eat a Christmas dinner and try, for a few precious hours, to forget about the war outside.
Christmas 1939: Shopping for Christmas in a Country at War
For all the changes that war had already brought, Christmas shopping in 1939 could still look surprisingly familiar.
The shops were open. Christmas displays filled department stores and high streets. Children still had presents on their minds, and parents still faced the familiar December task of finding something exciting to put beneath the Christmas tree.
But the atmosphere was different. Britain had been at war since September, and nobody could be certain what the coming months would bring. Men were being called up, children had been evacuated from some cities, and the blackout had already transformed the appearance of Britain's towns and cities after dark.
The war was there in the background of the Christmas shopping trip, even if the shops themselves could still look much as they had the year before.
There Was Still Plenty to Buy
One of the most important things to remember about Christmas 1939 is that rationing had not yet begun. Food rationing would be introduced in January 1940, beginning with items including bacon, butter, sugar and meat.
That meant that Christmas 1939 was, in some respects, the last Christmas before the restrictions that would come to define wartime shopping. Families were not yet taking ration books to the shops, counting weekly points or trying to work out how to make a Christmas dinner from a strictly controlled allowance.
There were certainly already concerns about supplies and prices, and the war was beginning to affect imports and the availability of some goods. But Christmas 1939 was not yet the deeply rationed Christmas that people would experience in later years.
For a family with enough money, the shops could still offer a considerable choice of Christmas presents.
What Did Children Want for Christmas?
Children in 1939 were not suddenly expecting wartime presents simply because their country was at war. They still wanted toys, books, games, dolls and the other things children had always asked Father Christmas for.
Toys could include dolls, teddy bears, toy soldiers, trains, construction sets, board games and mechanical toys. Books were another popular Christmas gift, particularly for families who valued reading.
But there was already a sense that things might not remain this way.
Parents could not know how long the war would last or what shortages might eventually appear. A toy bought in December 1939 could therefore represent something more than a Christmas present. It might be one of the last ordinary presents a child received before the war began to reshape almost every part of family life.
Imagine Christmas Shopping in 1939
Imagine walking into a department store in December 1939.
Christmas decorations hang from the ceiling. Shop windows are filled with toys and gifts. There are children pointing excitedly at things they would love to find beneath the tree.
For a moment, it could almost feel like any other Christmas.
But outside, Britain is at war. Perhaps the man standing beside you in the queue is wearing his uniform. Perhaps the family next to you has a son who has already been called up. Everyone knows about the blackout waiting outside after dark.
And perhaps, as you pay for a Christmas present, you wonder whether the shops will look quite so full next Christmas.
For the loved ones around you, you want to make this Christmas as good as the Christmases that came before it. You want the children to have presents, the family to sit down together and, for a little while, to forget that the country is at war.
But there is something different this year. Nobody knows what the next Christmas will look like. Nobody knows how long the war will last, who might be missing from the table, or even whether Britain itself will still be free.
Across Europe, countries have already fallen to the German advance. The possibility that the war could eventually reach Britain is no longer something that belongs only in newspaper headlines. Could Christmas 1940 be celebrated under German occupation? Nobody in December 1939 could know for certain that it wouldn't be.
So perhaps this Christmas mattered more than anyone realised. Everything looked familiar, but beneath the presents, the Christmas dinner and the family gathered together was an uncertainty that had never been there before.
Nobody yet knows just how much the war is going to change.
The Christmas Dinner Before Rationing
Food was another important difference between Christmas 1939 and the Christmases that followed.
There was still the possibility of having a traditional Christmas dinner without having to calculate every ingredient against a ration allowance. Turkey, goose or other meats could still appear on some family tables, while Christmas puddings, mince pies and other traditional foods remained familiar parts of the season.
Of course, this did not mean that every family could afford an abundant Christmas dinner. Britain was not a uniformly wealthy country in 1939, and the difference between what a comfortable middle-class household could buy and what a poorer family could afford was considerable.
But the important distinction is that rationing had not yet become part of everyday life. That would change within weeks.
The Blackout Had Changed the Look of Christmas
Perhaps one of the strangest things about Christmas 1939 was the blackout.
Christmas normally meant light: illuminated shop windows, street decorations, glowing windows and houses lit up for the festive season. But Britain was now required to keep its lights concealed after dark.
The blackout had begun in September 1939, and by Christmas it was simply part of everyday life. Curtains had to be drawn tightly. Street lighting was extinguished or heavily reduced. Even a light escaping through a window could potentially help enemy aircraft navigate.
Christmas was therefore being celebrated in darkness.
The contradiction must have been strange. Inside homes, families were trying to create warmth and Christmas cheer. Outside, the streets were deliberately dark because the country was preparing for an enemy attack.
And Then There Were the Gas Masks
For millions of civilians, another reminder of the war was never far away: the gas mask.
Gas masks had been issued to the civilian population before the outbreak of war, and people were expected to carry them when away from home. By Christmas 1939, the sight of people carrying their gas mask boxes was simply part of British life.
Imagine going Christmas shopping with your gas mask hanging from your shoulder.
That single image perhaps captures Christmas 1939 better than anything else. Life was still continuing. People were still buying presents and preparing Christmas dinner. Children were still excited.
But nobody could have forgotten that Britain was at war.
A Christmas With People Missing
Perhaps the greatest difference was not something that could be bought in a shop at all.
Families were already being separated by the war. Men were leaving for military service. Children had been evacuated from some of Britain's towns and cities. Relatives who had always spent Christmas together could now be hundreds of miles apart.
For some families, Christmas 1939 would therefore have a strange mixture of normality and absence.
There might still be presents beneath the tree. There might still be Christmas dinner and familiar traditions. But someone who had always sat at the table might now be missing.
And nobody could know whether they would be back by the following Christmas.
Christmas 1939 was therefore not yet the Christmas of shortages and ration books. It was something perhaps more unsettling: a normal Christmas being celebrated at the beginning of a war whose consequences nobody could yet see.
Christmas Away From Home
For some children, Christmas 1939 meant something even more difficult than wartime shopping or the blackout.
It meant spending Christmas away from home.
Almost two million children had been evacuated from Britain's towns and cities at the beginning of the war. But the evacuation did not remain unchanged. As the months passed without the expected bombing, many parents decided they wanted their children back. By January 1940, over half of those originally evacuated had returned home. Others remained in the countryside with their host families.
So Christmas 1939 was a very different experience depending on where you were.
Some children were back home, sitting at their own Christmas tables with their parents and brothers and sisters. Others were hundreds of miles away, spending Christmas with people they had known for only a few months. School friends could celebrate Christmas hundreds of miles away under very different circumstances.
For those children who remained evacuated, the host family had become their temporary home. Some were welcomed warmly and treated as part of the family. Others found country life difficult, unfamiliar or lonely. The experiences of evacuees varied enormously.
And Christmas must have made the separation particularly noticeable.
Imagine being a child and waking up on Christmas morning in a house that wasn't yours. There might be presents waiting for you. There might be a Christmas dinner. Your host family might have made every effort to make the day special.
But somewhere else, perhaps hundreds of miles away, were your own parents.
And for the parents, the situation must have been equally complicated. They had agreed to something incredibly difficult: sending their children away because they believed that being separated from them was safer than keeping them at home.
That was the terrible bargain of evacuation.
You could protect your children from bombing, but you couldn't protect yourself from missing them.
Host families faced their own strange responsibility. A child had arrived in their home carrying a small suitcase, a gas mask and a label giving their name and address. Now they had to provide food, warmth, discipline and reassurance to a child whose own parents were far away.
For some, genuine friendships developed and evacuees became part of the family. For others, the arrangement was much more difficult. Christmas could therefore bring kindness and comfort, but it could also make the absence of home even harder to ignore.
Imagine Christmas Morning as an Evacuee
Imagine waking on Christmas morning in a bedroom you hadn't never known up until a few months before.
Perhaps there is a present waiting for you. Perhaps the family downstairs has prepared a special breakfast. They are trying to make Christmas feel normal, and you know they have been kind to you.
But this isn't your home.
Your parents aren't downstairs. Your brothers or sisters might be somewhere else. You don't know exactly when you will see them again.
And perhaps, at that very moment, your mother and father are waking up on Christmas morning without you.
Christmas was supposed to be about families being together. For thousands of children in 1939, the war had already made that impossible.
For many host families, Christmas may also have been an attempt to give an evacuated child something familiar: a proper meal, a few presents, games, a decorated room or simply the feeling that they were welcome. We should not imagine that every experience was happy, because it wasn't. But for children separated from their parents by war, even small acts of kindness could make an unfamiliar Christmas feel a little more like home.
And perhaps that is another part of the story of Christmas 1939 that is easy to overlook. The war had not yet brought the devastation that would come in 1940, but it had already begun separating British families.
A Happy Memory of Evacuation
Not every story of wartime evacuation ended with a child simply returning home when the danger had passed.
One family memory tells of a girl who was evacuated to a village during the war. There, she met one of the local boys. What began as a wartime separation from home eventually became something completely unexpected - a few years later, she married the boy she had met in her host village.
It is a reminder that even during one of the most difficult periods in Britain's history, people's lives continued to unfold in ways nobody could have predicted.
This memory has been shared anonymously as part of History Echoes' collection of personal memories of the past.
Preserving Britain's Memories
Do you have a family story about wartime evacuation, life on the Home Front or growing up during the Second World War? We'd love to hear it. Memories, however small, can help preserve the personal stories of Britain's past for future generations. You can share yours by emailing [email protected].
Life After Christmas 1939
After celebrating Christmas 1939, Britain returned to the harsh realities of a war that was only just beginning. The twelve months that followed would transform life on the Home Front.
Rationing arrived. France fell. The threat of invasion became frighteningly real. The Home Guard was formed, Britain fought for control of its skies and the Blitz brought the war directly into Britain's towns and cities.
By the time Christmas came around again, the country was living with a very different reality.
Britain's Year of War: 1939-1940
January 1940 - Rationing begins
Food rationing was introduced, bringing bacon, butter, sugar and other essential foods under government control. The way British families shopped and ate would never quite be the same again.
May 1940 - France falls
Germany's rapid advance through western Europe transformed the war. British forces were evacuated from Dunkirk and Britain suddenly faced the prospect of standing against Germany largely alone.
May 1940 - Britain's other army takes shape
As the possibility of invasion became increasingly serious, Anthony Eden called for volunteers for the Local Defence Volunteers, soon renamed the Home Guard. Across Britain, ordinary men began preparing to defend their towns, villages, railways, bridges and other vital locations.
The Home Guard was only one part of a much larger mobilisation of the civilian population. ARP wardens, firefighters, fire watchers, the Women's Voluntary Service, the Women's Land Army and countless other workers continued keeping Britain running while the regular armed forces fought overseas.
You can read more about the people who defended and supported Britain on the Home Front in our article, Britain's Other Army: The Men and Women Who Defended the Home Front.
Summer 1940 - Britain prepares for invasion
Britain's coastline and countryside were transformed by defensive preparations. Roadblocks, pillboxes and observation posts appeared, while the Home Guard trained and patrolled. The possibility of German troops landing on British soil was now a very real fear.
July-October 1940 - The Battle of Britain
The Luftwaffe attempted to gain control of the skies over Britain, while RAF Fighter Command fought to prevent German air superiority. Behind the pilots was an extraordinary network of radar stations, observers, controllers, plotters and ground crews that helped direct the defence of Britain.
Read more: The Battle of Britain - The Battle Was Won Before the First Spitfire Took Off
September 1940 - The Blitz begins
Germany's bombing campaign increasingly turned towards Britain's towns and cities. London was attacked night after night, while cities and industrial centres across the country also came under attack. The war was no longer something happening somewhere else. It was happening in Britain's streets, homes and neighbourhoods.
November 1940 - Coventry is devastated
On the night of 14-15 November, Coventry suffered one of the most destructive raids of the Blitz. Much of the city centre was destroyed or badly damaged, hundreds of people were killed and thousands of homes were affected.
December 1940 - Christmas returns
Twelve months after the first wartime Christmas, Britain had endured a year of extraordinary change. Rationing was now part of everyday life. Thousands of men were serving away from home. Children had been evacuated again, towns and cities had been bombed, and countless families had experienced fear, loss or the destruction of their homes.
The Year of the Blitz - 1940
Christmas 1939 had been a Christmas lived with uncertainty about what the war might bring. Christmas 1940 was a Christmas lived with the devastation it had already brought and the uncertainty of what was to come.
The presents might still be wrapped. Families would still try to eat Christmas dinner. Children would still wake on Christmas morning hoping to find something waiting for them. But beneath those familiar traditions was a country that had changed drastically by twelve months of war.
If Christmas 1939 had been a Christmas overshadowed by the possibility of war, Christmas 1940 was a Christmas lived in the middle of it.
During the spring, German forces swept across western Europe. France fell. Britain faced the possibility of invasion. The summer brought the Battle of Britain, as the Luftwaffe attempted to gain control of the skies.
Then, in September, the bombing of London intensified and the period that became known as the Blitz began.
For months, British civilians had endured night after night of air raids. Sirens interrupted sleep. Families descended into shelters. ARP wardens patrolled the blackout. Firefighters battled burning buildings. Rescue workers searched through rubble. Children who had remained in the cities faced the terrifying reality of bombing, while many others were separated from their families through evacuation.
The scale of the destruction was immense. Between September 1940 and May 1941, more than 20,000 Londoners were killed (over 40,000 across the country) Over 1 million people were bombed out of their homes. In London alone, one in six people was left without a home at some point during the Blitz.
And London was not the only city suffering. Coventry had been devastated by a devastating raid on the night of 14-15 November 1940, with much of the city centre destroyed.
Christmas 1940: A Very Different Britain
By Christmas 1940, the country had changed enormously from the Britain that had celebrated Christmas just twelve months earlier.
There were families who had lost their homes. Families who had lost fathers, sons, husbands or brothers. Families whose children were still living away from them because of evacuation.
There were people who had spent months sleeping in shelters. People who had watched their streets burn. People who had become accustomed to carrying gas masks and living under the blackout.
And yet, once again, Christmas arrived.
People still tried to make the best of it. Decorations were made from whatever materials were available. Presents were smaller and often homemade. Food was increasingly difficult to obtain. Families adapted, improvised and shared what they had.
Christmas had not disappeared. It had simply become another part of the war.
Imagine Christmas 1940
Imagine sitting down to Christmas dinner in December 1940.
Twelve months earlier, you had been preparing for a war that had only just begun. Now you had lived through the fall of France, the Battle of Britain and months of bombing.
Perhaps the house around you was still standing. Perhaps it was not. Perhaps someone important was missing from the table. Perhaps your children were still evacuated somewhere in the countryside.
Outside, the blackout remained. Somewhere in Britain, men were on duty. Firefighters were ready. ARP wardens were working. Soldiers guarded vital locations. Thousands of people were preparing for another night in which the air raid sirens might sound.
And yet, inside, for a few hours, people tried to celebrate Christmas.
Because despite everything that had happened during the year, Britain had not been defeated.
She was still standing.
The British Army had been brought home from Dunkirk. The RAF had prevented Germany from gaining control of the skies over Britain. The invasion that had seemed frighteningly possible during the summer had not come. Across the country, the Home Guard and millions of civilians were continuing to do their part, while British forces were still fighting on land, at sea and in the air.
The country had endured bombing, loss and uncertainty, but it was still fighting.
And so, beneath the blackout curtains and with many families separated by war, Britain celebrated Christmas 1940. It might have been quieter, poorer and very different from the Christmases of the past, but there was still food on the table, presents for children where families could manage them, and something else that mattered just as much - the knowledge that Britain was still standing.
Four Days After Christmas
For Londoners, the Christmas of 1940 was not the end of the year's ordeal.
Just four days after Christmas, on the night of 29 December 1940, London experienced one of the most destructive raids of the entire Blitz.
The attack concentrated heavily on the City of London. Incendiary bombs started thousands of fires, while high-explosive bombs caused widespread destruction. Firefighters fought an enormous battle against the flames as much of the historic City burned.
The image of St Paul's Cathedral standing above the smoke and flames became one of the defining images of wartime London. The cathedral survived, but the surrounding City suffered catastrophic damage.
The destruction was so extensive that the raid became known as the Second Great Fire of London, a grim echo of the disaster of 1666. Read more about the Great Fire of London in 1666.
It was an extraordinary way to end the year.
Britain had entered 1940 already at war and increasingly aware that the conflict could reach its own shores. After the fall of France and the evacuation from Dunkirk, the possibility of a German invasion became a frightening reality. The Home Guard was formed, coastal defences were strengthened and Britain prepared for the possibility that German troops might land on British soil.
Then came the Battle of Britain. Had the RAF lost control of the skies, the invasion Britain feared could have become possible. But it did not. Fighter Command held on, the Luftwaffe failed to gain the air superiority it needed and Operation Sea Lion was postponed.
By the end of 1940, civilians were not simply living alongside a distant war. They had endured bombing, invasion preparations and the destruction of their towns and homes - while still keeping Britain running and refusing to give in.
Christmas Had Become Part of the War
The contrast between Christmas 1939 and Christmas 1940 tells us something important about the first year and a half of the Second World War.
In 1939, people were preparing for the possibility of what war might bring.
By 1940, they knew.
They had experienced the blackout. They had watched children leave on evacuation trains. They had learned to carry gas masks. They had seen men disappear into uniform. They had learned about rationing. They had heard air raid sirens and spent nights underground or in shelters. They had watched cities burn.
And still they celebrated Christmas.
Not because the war had become less frightening, but because holding on to ordinary traditions was itself a way of refusing to let the war take everything from them.
In many ways, this became part of what would later be remembered as the Spirit of the Blitz - the determination to carry on, to look after neighbours, to keep working and to maintain some sense of normal life despite the bombs falling around them.
Morale was one of Britain's most powerful weapons. The bombs could destroy buildings, streets and homes, but the hope was that they would not destroy the determination of the people who lived among the ruins.
A Christmas present wrapped in paper. A family gathered around a table. A homemade decoration. A Christmas song. A meal shared between people who were still together.
These things might seem small beside armies, bombers and battles. But for the people living through the war, they were reminders that life continued beyond the next air raid.
Christmas 1939 was a Christmas under the shadow of war. Christmas 1940 was a Christmas lived through the Blitz.
And between the two, Britain had discovered just how much the war was going to demand from ordinary people.
Through Sebastian's Eyes: A Fictional Diary Entry From Christmas 1940
Historical note: Sebastian is a fictional character. This diary entry is an imaginative reconstruction based on the historical events, conditions and experiences described in this article.
24 December 1940 - London
I have been walking through London for much of the afternoon.
It is Christmas Eve, although there is very little here that looks like the Christmases I remember.
The blackout has fallen over the city. The streets are dark and the windows are covered. Here and there, behind a carefully concealed curtain, I can see the faintest suggestion of Christmas lights.
But there are buildings with their windows blown out. Empty spaces where houses once stood. Streets where the evidence of the bombing cannot be hidden, no matter how much people try to make Christmas feel normal.
And yet they are trying.
I pass a shop where a few Christmas presents are still displayed. I see a child carrying a parcel. Somewhere nearby, someone is carrying a Christmas tree.
It seems almost strange.
This city has been bombed for months. Families have lost their homes. Some have lost people they love. Many children are far from their parents. Men who would once have been at home for Christmas are serving somewhere overseas.
And still people are buying presents.
Still they are preparing Christmas dinner.
Still children are waiting for Christmas morning.
I begin to understand that perhaps this is what the Spirit of the Blitz really means.
It isn't pretending that nothing has happened.
It is knowing exactly what has happened - and deciding that the enemy will not be allowed to take everything.
They have taken homes. They have taken lives. They have changed streets that people have known all their lives.
But they have not taken Christmas.
Tonight, families will sit together where they can. Some will have loved ones missing. Some will have very little. Some may not even have a proper home to return to.
But they will still try.
I think that is what I will remember most about this Christmas.
Not the buildings that had been destroyed, but the people who still found a reason to put something back on the table.
Preserving Britain's Wartime Memories
Did you or a family member live through the first years of the Second World War?
Perhaps you remember Christmas 1939, being evacuated, carrying a gas mask, the blackout, rationing, the Blitz or simply what everyday life was like while Britain was at war.
Maybe there is a story in your family about a parent who was called up, a relative serving overseas, a bomb falling nearby, a Christmas spent apart, or the small things your family did to make life feel as normal as possible.
These personal memories are an important part of Britain's history. The photographs and official records tell us what happened, but family memories can tell us what it actually felt like to live through it.
If you have a memory you'd like to share, we'd love to hear it. Email [email protected] and help us preserve these stories for future generations.
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