The curious origins and meanings of our cracking Christmas customs

For something that happens every year of our lives, we really don’t know much about Christmas.

We don’t know that the date we celebrate was chosen by a madman, or that Christmas was first celebrated on 28 March in 243 AD - and only moved to 25 December in 354 AD. We’re oblivious to the fact that the advent calendar was actually invented by a Munich housewife to stop her children pestering her for a Christmas countdown. We’re unaware of the recipe that inspired the Twelve Days of Christmas. And we would never have guessed that the invention of crackers was merely a way of popularizing sweet wrappers.

Luckily, like a gift from Santa himself, Mark Forsyth is here to unwrap this fundamentally funny gallimaufry of traditions and oddities, making it all finally make sense - in his wonderfully entertaining wordy way.