Christmas is the time of year for getting together with family and friends. It’s a time when you can exchange gifts (and it’s not all about the gifts, by the way.) But, people didn’t always celebrate Christmas as we do now or on the day we do now. How did it all start? You’ll find out now.

Food

At Christmas, we didn’t always eat turkey. In fact, for hundreds of years, we hunted wild boar (a black pig with horns) for our feast. But, we eventually hunted the wild boars into extinction so we had to find something else to feast on geese.
But, we still don’t know how we got around to eating turkey, do we? Well, King James I (1566-1625, the time when wild boars were still around) didn’t like boar’s head and was one of the first people to eat turkey at Christmas.

Not many people started eating turkey until the 1700s when King George II had a taste for turkey and fenced off part of Richmond Park (in London) to breed them. Queen Victoria’s gigantic Christmas feast included fifty turkeys, which is still a lot considering that she had nine children.

Stories

Ever heard of Charles Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol? Well, that become very famous. In fact, after he published A Christmas Carol, he published a new Christmas story every year!

Cards

Christmas cards came around in the Victorian times. But the fronts of a Victorian Christmas card included a dead mouse and bacon. They could also have Santa with his reindeer on the front. Inside, it usually reads, “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” inside, along with a personalised message.

28th December

You may have heard about the 28th December not being a very good day for children. Well, you are absolutely right. Or at least it was if you lived in Spain or South America.
The Bible says that when Jesus was born, King Herod ordered all the children in and around Bethlehem to be killed. This is why that the 28th December is known as the ‘Massacre of the Innocents’ day.

Holly

The Romans believed that Holly was supposed to guard the house against:

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