The Book of Christmas: Everything We Once Knew and Loved About Christmastime

Very interesting.

Great!

A beautiful, interesting, retro book on Christmas. I bought a few to give as hostess gifts and my friends were thrilled!

After  Can Reindeer Fly?: The Science of Christmas  and  The Christmas Book: A Treasury of Festive Facts , this is the third book I've bought, read and reviewed on the subject, but there have been plenty of others. Some aspects of Christmas history are not clear, so various opinions exist, and it is good to read about it from different authors. Those authors also bring different perspectives to the subject, so while they discuss a lot of the same things, they do so in different ways and with different priorities. Thus, although I haven't dug out the other two books to compare with this one in detail, I suspect that all three contain information not in the other two.This book contains practical information such as how to make a snowman and a sledge, how to look after your Christmas tree, what to plant in your garden to attract birds during the winter, and a selection of recipes. In particular, the author discusses how to roast chestnuts (but NOT horse chestnuts - they are good for games of conkers, but not for eating) on an open fire, or in an oven if you haven't got an open fire. The recipes include some from Scotland, including bannocks, haggis and cloutie (or clootie) dumpling. I love cloutie dumpling, but only get a chance to eat it when visiting Montrose, and only then if my aunt opts to make some during my visit. As the author notes, it isn't just eaten at Christmas, but it is for special occasions, so I think it deserves its place here. If you want to try some, a recipe is in this book. (When I'm on my own, I buy ready-made food that I can shove in a microwave or conventional oven, or food that I can just boil or grill. Any other cookery is beyond me.)The practical advice is only a small part of the book overall, but I enjoyed reading about it, even though I won't be making use of it. Almost inevitably for a book discussing historical food, Mrs Beeton gets a couple of mentions.I was particularly interested to see what the author said about Christmas music. Her focus is on the history, beginning with the almost extinct tradition of wassailing and ends with the story of Good King Wenceslas, which I already knew from a study of ancestry. Wenceslas' evil brother Boleslav is the ancestor via European and British royalty of millions of. people who are alive today.Scattered through the book, but particularly in a few pages (beginning p240) about Christmas Eve, are customs based on superstitions, some of which seem very odd. My only concession to superstition is to walk round ladders rather than under them, but this makes sense anyway. Still, it is amusing to read such stuff.While some things are central to Christmas and inevitably covered, the book also covers such things as Christmas weather, Christmas during the two world wars of the 20th century, The book concludes with a chapter on writings - a Shakespeare poem followed by some articles and diary entries.Many aspects of the origins of the modern Christmas that I can think of (and some I didn't think of) are discussed, some briefly, others at greater length, in this excellent book. There is, of course, no limit to what could be discussed, but all the essentials are covered and much else besides.

Though this book contains a good few interesting snippets of information, the organisation of the into sections seems confused and repetitive. We are given the same information (about flinging the windows open to rush out the old year before letting in the new, for example) over and over again. We are also introduced to the same notions and characters (historical and fictional) repeatedly, but often the first explanation is glossed over and then revisited with some actual context only some time later.The writing also seems a little amateurish in places: ‘and we can only guess what the ‘early Christians/Royal Family/old gods would think of that!’ appears to end most observations.Perhaps a book to pick up and flick to a random page of, but read linearly, on Kindle, it’s not quite working.

I will keep this short and sweet. This wonderful book was a joy to pick up and put down. I have read every page of it! INow im going to start it again. Sad to some, but i really enjoyed reading about Christmas and all the trimmings. Im in the UK and this book evoked many happy memories. I love it! Im about to start on the Authors other book. Thank you for writing a book that is full of everything there is to know about Christmas. Ive learnt so much.

Interesting book tells a lot about Christmas and it's Histories more for a child than an adult

Great books! A lovely read, so am looking to collect more!

This is a pleasant read, with a good variety of topic areas covered. It would make a good gift for someone hard to buy for at Christmas. It would also be great to dip into in December or read while you commute to work in winter.