What does Christmas mean to you? From cake to crackers, trees to turkey and stockings to Santa Claus, The Great British Christmas explores Christmas past and the origins of the traditions we hold dear today. This delightful anthology includes the legend of King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone one fateful Christmas day; tales of the day a Puritan Parliament tried to 'ban' Christmas; and how the first ever Christmas tree arrived in England, courtesy of Prince Albert. Re-live a bygone era of merrymaking and indulge in Mrs Beeton's Christmas cake recipe or read Charles Dickens's memories of boyhood celebrations. This is simply the perfect book with which to celebrate Christmas.

The late MARIA HUBERT (1945-2007) was a cofounder of The Christmas Archives with her husband Andrew. She combined a love of history, folk custom, literature and research with knowledge of Latin, Greek, Spanish and Catalan learned in convents in the UK and Spain. A well-qualified cook, a great deal of her love for Christmas was born of her Yorkshire Christmas food customs. She was a frequent guest on radio and television in the UK, gaining extra fame in Japan with the launch of a Christmas museum in Hokkaido.