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Books

The Christmas Book Enid Blyton

Written for children and abounding with interesting information, it's rewarding for adults too. Although some of its explanations are typical of early and mid-twentieth century understandings of the relationship between 'pagan' and 'Christian' customs, they're told in such a lovely way that it doesn't matter. Above all, it's a lovely glimpse into the recent past - albeit a rather idealized one!

Christmas! Stella Ross Collins

Packed full of fascinating details about Christmas traditions from around the world, particularly from throughout Europe. Some of the explanations don't stand up too well to scrutiny, but it's a great starting point, especially for food traditions. Now out of print, but available at a low price from Amazon marketplace.

Flora Britannica Richard Mabey

We're always happy to recommend this book! Even though it is not really to do with Christmas, it includes lots of useful information on the customs of Christmas greenery and evergreens, collating people's stories from around the UK.

The Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore Jacqueline Simpson & Steve Roud

Wonderful small reference book, taking in a bewildering array of English customs on just about every subject you could think of. Excellent in the way it deals with the sources - and also how it exposes the lack of evidence behind some Christmas myths. It does, of course, cover more than just Christmas, but it's our first port of call when it comes to the traditions of the season. We can't recommen this highly enough - it's one of the best books we've purchased this year!

Websites

There's a lot of unreliable material out there! Be warned if you start to Google something! Here at Christmas Matters, we've tried to put together a balanced view of how our Christmas customs have developed. We've tried not to present myths as facts - which is more than can be said for many sites out there...

The sites we'll include here are those which take a similar approach - basing their conclusions upon evidence rather than assertion and pieces that we believe are put together in a genuine attempt to get to what truth there is, whatever agenda they may bring to the subject.

The Hymns and Carols of Christmas

This is an excellent resource. The navigation takes a little getting used to, but there's stacks of interesting info here. All the pages on holly and ivy carols and their variants are really well put together and open up a whole field to the casual internet visitor. Great stuff!

Christmas Customs and Traditions

A well-written and plausible collection of customs and their relevance to the Christian understanding of Christmas.

The Christmas Tree

Well-sourced article on the history of the Christmas Tree custom - which we found after we'd come to pretty much the same conclusions!