Synopsis
Christmas has been all things to all people: a religious festival, a family celebration, a time of eating and drinking. Yet the origins of the customs which characterize the festive season are wreathed in myth.
When did turkeys become the plat du jour? Is the commercialization of Christmas a recent phenomenon, or has the emphasis always been on spending? Just who...
Details
01 November 2018256 pages
9781529003567Imprint: Picador
Reviews
Flanders covers every aspect of Christmas . . . [Christmas] is . . . a catalogue of colourful information, and as surprising an assortment of items as any you might find heaped up under a tree.Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Observer
A well-researched account. There are more footnotes here than there are presents under a Rockefeller Christmas tree. Indeed, the book is stuffed with facts – enough to satiate even the most ravenous postprandial taste for quizzing.Sunday Times
[An] entertaining biography . . . Following the fine tradition of light entertainment Christmas books, Judith Flanders provides lots of trivia . . . However, there is much more to it than that. Flanders is a respected social historian, best known for studies on Victorian life, and the strength of this warm book lies in its quiet erudition.The Times
If you do want to think about the actual meaning of Christmas, why it still matters to us so much, the book you need is Christmas by the cultural historian Judith Flanders . . . which traces its “strange hybrid growth” all the way back to its origins.David Sexton, Evening Standard
