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The Book of Christmas: Everything We Once Knew and Loved About Christmastime
- 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.
- 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.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published September 4, 2012
50 people are currently reading
339 people want to read
About the author
Jane Struthers
81 books8 followersJane Struthers fell in love with astrology, palmistry, tarot reading and reading tea leaves in her teens, and shes never looked back. She is a professional, full-time writer and astrologer, who has appeared on television and radio many times. She is currently the astrologer for Bella, the best-selling weekly womens magazine, and before that she was the astrologer for The Sun, writing as Gemini Jane.
Jane has written over twenty books on a wide variety of subjects, but she specializes in mind, body and spirit topics. She trained as a healer at the College of Psychic Studies in London and has completed the first stage of the Bach Flower Remedies training. She teaches astrology at the London School of Astrology, and has also lectured abroad on astrology and tarot.
"
Jane has written over twenty books on a wide variety of subjects, but she specializes in mind, body and spirit topics. She trained as a healer at the College of Psychic Studies in London and has completed the first stage of the Bach Flower Remedies training. She teaches astrology at the London School of Astrology, and has also lectured abroad on astrology and tarot.
"
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
December 2, 2018
To kick off my December reading :)
January 2, 2023
Este o cărțulie bogată în curiozități legate de sărbătorile de iarnă. Dacă vă plac aceste sărbători și tot ce ține de ele s-ar putea să apreciați munca de cercetare pe care a făcut-o autoarea. Cartea este după părerea mea precum o enciclopedie care înglobează totul ce reprezintă Crăciunul, Anul Nou și tradițiile asociate acestora. Începe cu cele mai vechi timpuri, cu tradițiile romanilor, pentru a ajunge în prezent.
Romanii antici sărbătoreau Festivalul “Saturnalia” începând cu 17 Decembrie. Acest festival era dedicat Zeul Roman - Saturn, care guverna agricultura. Romanii considerau că aceasta era cea mai bună perioadă pentru al venera pe zeu, așa cum era cea mai întunecoasă perioadă a anului când toate plantele dispăreau. Ei credeau că prin această celebrare îl îmbunau pe Saturn pentru a le aduce roade cu belșug în următorul an.
Romanii secolul al treilea sărbătoreau pe 25 Decembrie Dies natalis Solis Invicti - adică nașterea soarelui necucerit. Iar în 274, Împăratul Aurelian a decretat această zi drept una sfântă în onoarea lui Sol, zeul Soarelui.
Este explicată și originea Crăciunului pe vechi celebrată pe atunci pe 6 Ianuarie.
Isus Hristos, Moș Crăciun și alte figuri cheie ale sărbătorilor de iarnă nu sunt trecute cu vederea. Până și originea postului de dinaintea Crăciunului este menționată. Se pare că această tradiție vine din secolele 6-9 când un post strict de 40 de zile era impus. Prin secolul al 12-le-a acest post nu mai era impus oricui, însă se aștepta de la oameni să-și limiteze dieta în conformitate cu conștiința lor.
Bucatele de Crăciun, deserturile, vinul fiert, tradițiile dar și superstițiile nu sunt omise. Toate acestea, dar și multe altele le găsiți în această cărțulie minunată.
Romanii antici sărbătoreau Festivalul “Saturnalia” începând cu 17 Decembrie. Acest festival era dedicat Zeul Roman - Saturn, care guverna agricultura. Romanii considerau că aceasta era cea mai bună perioadă pentru al venera pe zeu, așa cum era cea mai întunecoasă perioadă a anului când toate plantele dispăreau. Ei credeau că prin această celebrare îl îmbunau pe Saturn pentru a le aduce roade cu belșug în următorul an.
Romanii secolul al treilea sărbătoreau pe 25 Decembrie Dies natalis Solis Invicti - adică nașterea soarelui necucerit. Iar în 274, Împăratul Aurelian a decretat această zi drept una sfântă în onoarea lui Sol, zeul Soarelui.
Este explicată și originea Crăciunului pe vechi celebrată pe atunci pe 6 Ianuarie.
Isus Hristos, Moș Crăciun și alte figuri cheie ale sărbătorilor de iarnă nu sunt trecute cu vederea. Până și originea postului de dinaintea Crăciunului este menționată. Se pare că această tradiție vine din secolele 6-9 când un post strict de 40 de zile era impus. Prin secolul al 12-le-a acest post nu mai era impus oricui, însă se aștepta de la oameni să-și limiteze dieta în conformitate cu conștiința lor.
Bucatele de Crăciun, deserturile, vinul fiert, tradițiile dar și superstițiile nu sunt omise. Toate acestea, dar și multe altele le găsiți în această cărțulie minunată.
December 6, 2018
The art is pleasant, peaceful and consistently styled. The content in the booklet is arranged nicely, but the writing itself is, as befalls so many oracle decks, patronizing, unmystical, and ego-focused. By ego-focused, I mean that it contains many "you" messages, which are psychologically limiting, uncreative and unhelpful.
I do like that the guidebook allows for reversals. Unfortunately, the card backs make it obvious whether a card is reversed. And, rather than describing meanings objectively and/or poetically, all of the explanations associated with both the rightwise and reversed cards are limited to a direct focus on the reader, the "you."
For example, the explanation for the rightwise sugar maple card reads, "Are you getting stuck in a rut in some area of your life? If so, do your best to become more flexible in your ideas and attitudes. Learn to embrace change wholeheartedly, even if you do not know what it will lead to."
The above is a randomly selected snippet, and yet there is so much wrong with it! It should describe themes and states rather than opening with a patronizing question. It also states the obvious in place of genuine insight. "When unflexible, learn to be flexible." Thanks a lot, o wise one.
Worse, the quoted advice encourages blindly self-destructive behaviour. One learns to embrace change not by foolishly ignoring what it will lead to, but rather by KNOWING what it will lead to, that is, by learning about probable consequences so as to make informed decisions and retain control of one's life. Some changes are good, and other changes are bad. Ignorance about this should not be "embraced wholeheartedly."
Too many oracle decks implore their users to adopt a passive, foolish, unthinking, helpless mindset, the exact sort of mindset that creates victims. What does it say about the present state of the West when our spiritualism so ubiquitously elevates passivity and enslavement?
Flipping through the book more closely, it is clear that the majority of the rightwise and inverse meanings are empty, tautological, vague and interchangeable. All of this needs rewriting. I'll probably also erase and rewrite all of the italicized first-person "deva messages" accompanying the card writeups, which are written as though spoken by self-conscious trees. This deck is called "The Wisdom of Trees," not "The Wisdom of Devas." The content is not true to its title. These "deva" parts are silly and childish, not to mention empty of meaning: there's nothing to them but a wordier rephrasing of a given card's one-word meaning.
Independent research into the meanings of these trees reveals that the meanings assigned to them by the author are arbitrary. The four suits are named and organized arbitrarily as well. The structure of this deck is basically an asspull. It's marketed as an oracle deck but it's more like food for the delusions of psychological hypochondriacs. There's a whole suit of cards titled "Healing." Why are we being diagnosed before we even choose our cards? I'm just using an oracle deck; I'm not wounded! Couldn't the author at least have called it "Health" instead? I'll be using this deck a lot, but definitely not in the ways the author intended it to be used. It's getting a complete rewrite -- titles, meanings, summaries, suits, spreads, everything. The only way to make this deck useful is to do most of the work myself.
Also: The box is twice as large as it needs to be, so the deck sits in a cardboard frame inside the box. Whoever originally placed the deck inside the frame before the package was factory sealed did it so forcefully that the frame is torn at both lower corners and folded all the way down to the edge of the box. Not cool. Now I have nowhere to firmly contain the deck.
I do like that the guidebook allows for reversals. Unfortunately, the card backs make it obvious whether a card is reversed. And, rather than describing meanings objectively and/or poetically, all of the explanations associated with both the rightwise and reversed cards are limited to a direct focus on the reader, the "you."
For example, the explanation for the rightwise sugar maple card reads, "Are you getting stuck in a rut in some area of your life? If so, do your best to become more flexible in your ideas and attitudes. Learn to embrace change wholeheartedly, even if you do not know what it will lead to."
The above is a randomly selected snippet, and yet there is so much wrong with it! It should describe themes and states rather than opening with a patronizing question. It also states the obvious in place of genuine insight. "When unflexible, learn to be flexible." Thanks a lot, o wise one.
Worse, the quoted advice encourages blindly self-destructive behaviour. One learns to embrace change not by foolishly ignoring what it will lead to, but rather by KNOWING what it will lead to, that is, by learning about probable consequences so as to make informed decisions and retain control of one's life. Some changes are good, and other changes are bad. Ignorance about this should not be "embraced wholeheartedly."
Too many oracle decks implore their users to adopt a passive, foolish, unthinking, helpless mindset, the exact sort of mindset that creates victims. What does it say about the present state of the West when our spiritualism so ubiquitously elevates passivity and enslavement?
Flipping through the book more closely, it is clear that the majority of the rightwise and inverse meanings are empty, tautological, vague and interchangeable. All of this needs rewriting. I'll probably also erase and rewrite all of the italicized first-person "deva messages" accompanying the card writeups, which are written as though spoken by self-conscious trees. This deck is called "The Wisdom of Trees," not "The Wisdom of Devas." The content is not true to its title. These "deva" parts are silly and childish, not to mention empty of meaning: there's nothing to them but a wordier rephrasing of a given card's one-word meaning.
Independent research into the meanings of these trees reveals that the meanings assigned to them by the author are arbitrary. The four suits are named and organized arbitrarily as well. The structure of this deck is basically an asspull. It's marketed as an oracle deck but it's more like food for the delusions of psychological hypochondriacs. There's a whole suit of cards titled "Healing." Why are we being diagnosed before we even choose our cards? I'm just using an oracle deck; I'm not wounded! Couldn't the author at least have called it "Health" instead? I'll be using this deck a lot, but definitely not in the ways the author intended it to be used. It's getting a complete rewrite -- titles, meanings, summaries, suits, spreads, everything. The only way to make this deck useful is to do most of the work myself.
Also: The box is twice as large as it needs to be, so the deck sits in a cardboard frame inside the box. Whoever originally placed the deck inside the frame before the package was factory sealed did it so forcefully that the frame is torn at both lower corners and folded all the way down to the edge of the box. Not cool. Now I have nowhere to firmly contain the deck.
January 2, 2023
This book does what it says on the tin. It’s a history of Christmas and why we have the traditions we do today.
Some of the facts I already knew, as they are repeated in every book, magazine and TV most years i.e. yule log comes from the log that was chosen and seasoned specifically to be burnt at Christmas. Your yule log should burn throughout the twelve days of Christmas otherwise you could expect bad luck in the new year. Some I didn’t though and these were particularly interesting i.e. you should eat a mince pie every day throughout the twelve days of Christmas to bring good luck.
At times it felt a bit all over the place and I think it would benefit from some reworking so that things are be categorised properly.
Cosy and nostalgic, this is perfect for Christmas fanatics. I learnt a lot of fascinating bits and pieces about the festive season I didn’t know.
Some of the facts I already knew, as they are repeated in every book, magazine and TV most years i.e. yule log comes from the log that was chosen and seasoned specifically to be burnt at Christmas. Your yule log should burn throughout the twelve days of Christmas otherwise you could expect bad luck in the new year. Some I didn’t though and these were particularly interesting i.e. you should eat a mince pie every day throughout the twelve days of Christmas to bring good luck.
At times it felt a bit all over the place and I think it would benefit from some reworking so that things are be categorised properly.
Cosy and nostalgic, this is perfect for Christmas fanatics. I learnt a lot of fascinating bits and pieces about the festive season I didn’t know.
December 21, 2014
A wonderful festive book with all the charm of the season.
The author has collected and collated many historical and interesting facts about the season.
From traditional feasts of times gone by, the invention of Christmas cards, parlour games, food and drink, mythology, Norse tales, Medieval customs, the history of our decorations, carols and much much more.
This is a treasure trove of fascinating Christmassy, festive facts and will appeal to all Christmas fans everywhere, this is a must read.
The author has collected and collated many historical and interesting facts about the season.
From traditional feasts of times gone by, the invention of Christmas cards, parlour games, food and drink, mythology, Norse tales, Medieval customs, the history of our decorations, carols and much much more.
This is a treasure trove of fascinating Christmassy, festive facts and will appeal to all Christmas fans everywhere, this is a must read.
December 2, 2020
I enjoyed big parts of this book, and I can honestly say I learned a lot about the history of Christmas. It was at times very interesting, at times it felt quite boring. When I say it was a bit boring, I mean it was just not my cup of tea. Parts of the book was recipes which doesn't interest me at all for example. It felt very seasonal and put me in the holiday spirit though, so I feel like I got what I wanted from it anyhow.
December 15, 2017
If you love everything Christmassy this book is for you. Bursting with facts, myths and traditions it makes a brilliant read causing gasps of 'I didn't know that!'. Very interesting and unputadownable.
February 21, 2013
Everything you ever wanted to know about the origins and traditions of Christmas.
December 20, 2024
Un must pour tous les amoureux de Noël. Un livre qui référence tout ce que nous aimons sur Noël.
December 8, 2025
First read of the Festive Season and this was an enjoyable read.
The book is full of lots of info about Christmas, not just contemporary Christmas but the Christmases of the past too, explaining the origins and how really the date of Jesus birth was decided by Bishops and isnt mentioned in the bible and how what we take for a nativity is not mentioned either with two versions (the poor [shepherd] and the rich [Magi] versions). Christmas replaced pagan festivals like Saturnalia.
The book delves into so many aspects of christmas from the hymns and carols to the Lords of Misrule, Child Bishops, food, christmas plants, party games and the evolution of the Christmas tree (may also be pagan) and it was not Prince Albert who introduced it to the UK but Queen Charlotte! It is a British orientated book.
As enjoyable and interesting as the book is it does get a little repeitive with some people mentioned again and a few pages of recipes for things like Bread Sauce, Brandy Sauce etc.
All in all a great read and fun overview of how our Christmases came to be and the origin of many traditions. Like how what we call mince meat today was actually chock full of meat. That is a mince pie I would happily dodge instead of scoff.
The book is full of lots of info about Christmas, not just contemporary Christmas but the Christmases of the past too, explaining the origins and how really the date of Jesus birth was decided by Bishops and isnt mentioned in the bible and how what we take for a nativity is not mentioned either with two versions (the poor [shepherd] and the rich [Magi] versions). Christmas replaced pagan festivals like Saturnalia.
The book delves into so many aspects of christmas from the hymns and carols to the Lords of Misrule, Child Bishops, food, christmas plants, party games and the evolution of the Christmas tree (may also be pagan) and it was not Prince Albert who introduced it to the UK but Queen Charlotte! It is a British orientated book.
As enjoyable and interesting as the book is it does get a little repeitive with some people mentioned again and a few pages of recipes for things like Bread Sauce, Brandy Sauce etc.
All in all a great read and fun overview of how our Christmases came to be and the origin of many traditions. Like how what we call mince meat today was actually chock full of meat. That is a mince pie I would happily dodge instead of scoff.
December 15, 2023
A thoroughly informative book about all-things Christmas. From cards and trees, to puddings and turkey. It had everything. I enjoyed all the historical aspects of the festive season which I didn't know, so much we take for granted and yet we know nothing as to where these customs come from. I did find it a tad repetitive at times (thought segments on ivy and holly were mentioned more than once) and a teeny bit patronising (yes, I'm well aware as to how to build a snowman!) But those gripes aside, this was an entertaining read which had obviously been researched a great deal.
November 1, 2019
This book has a good history of where Christmas traditions come from. As the book progresses to the present it focuses on British traditions. I found that the closer to the present we got the more I was skimming the book. The first half of the book was the best part as it has the historical aspects.
December 31, 2020
After starting this book in December 2019, I decided on 2nd March 2020 to read it this Christmas instead. It’s a book filled with a wealth of knowledge about why we celebrate certain traditions at Christmas. Somethings I knew already, and lots I’ve found out since reading this book.
December 16, 2019
A bit all over the place- needed to be reworked so that things could be categorised properly. But full of interesting facts that I enjoyed.
December 9, 2024
3.5 🌟
A light and relaxing read. Learnt a lot of new things about Christmas 🎄
A light and relaxing read. Learnt a lot of new things about Christmas 🎄
May 19, 2025
I loved the short sections. And I loved that I learned new things about Christmas in other countries.
December 15, 2018
Basically, just some historical facts about all things Christmassy!!!
December 28, 2012
Oooh! Cosy and nostalgic and magical and perfect for Christmas fanatics such as me! I learnt a lot of fascinating bits and pieces about the festive season I didn't know. I would recommend this for Christmas reading as it seems a shame that most of us do not know the meanings behind all the rituals and traditions and symbols etc.
December 2, 2012
This was ok, but should have been better. About half the book is really enjoyable, with interesting facts and history. The other 50% is a mixture of filler, repeated bits, and some real stretching of the material.
Half a good book here.
Half a good book here.
September 24, 2013
I like this deck. It's my first oracle deck, and I'm not 'clued up' about what should or shouldn't be here... I just like the energy I'm getting from these cards. The artwork is lovely. It works for me!
December 25, 2014
There are many interesting facts and stories about Christmas and the scope of the book is delightfully extensive. However, there is a lot of repetition. I'd say it's a good book for picking up and reading bits here and there during Christmastime.
July 19, 2015
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.
January 1, 2013
Very enjoyable and informative
December 23, 2012
An interesting and enjoyable exploration of the origins of Christmas traditions, though it's chapter/subject arrangement is annoyingly bizarre
December 27, 2014
Very interesting, I love history & Christmas so this was right up my alley!
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews