Description
- What is the significance of holly at Christmas?
- When should you make your figgy pudding?
- Why was the Old Lad's Passing Bell rung on Christmas Eve?
- And who was Good King Wenceslas?
Did you know that, long before turkey arrived on our shores, it was traditional to serve a roasted wild boar's head at Christmas? Or that our Christmases were once so cold that Frost Fairs were held on the River Thames?
Christmas Day was first celebrated on 25 December in the fourth century CE. But when should our Christmas decorations come down - Twelfth Day, Twelfth Night ... or Candlemas? And why?
Packed with fascinating facts about ancient religious customs and traditional feasts, instructions for Victorian parlour games and the stories behind our favourite carols, The Book of Christmas is a captivating volume about our Christmas past.
The perfect gift - a beautiful book of traditions and myths for the Christmas season
About the Author
Jane Struthers is the author of over twenty books, including Red Sky at Night: The Book of Lost Countryside Wisdom, Beside the Seaside and Literary Britain and Ireland. She shares her 17th-century cotttage and garden in East Sussex with her husband and two cats.
Reviews
The perfect gift for festive season fans * Telegraph *
Brimming with baubles of Christmas fact and bedecked with snippets of festive tradition * The Field *
Book Information
ISBN 9780091947293
Author Jane Struthers
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Ebury Press
Publisher Ebury Publishing
Weight(grams) 360g
Dimensions(mm) 202mm * 136mm * 26mm
