Christmas Jumper Guides, History and Recipes

Christmas history and traditions

Wassailing: Where Christmas Carols Actually Come From

Part blessing, part toast, part organised menace. Why ‘we won’t go until we’ve got some’ is the most honest line in any carol.

1 min read

Christmas history and traditions

From chalk marks on German door frames to Gerhard Lang’s printed calendars and the little doors of 1920. The chocolate came last.

1 min read

Christmas history and traditions

A fourth-century bishop, a Victorian cartoonist, and the famous fact about the red suit that turns out to be wrong.

1 min read

Christmas history and traditions

Nothing to do with fighting. The church alms box, the servants’ Christmas box, and how 26 December became the day off after the day.

1 min read

Christmas history and traditions

Henry Cole was too busy to answer his Christmas letters, so he had 2,050 cards printed. The whole tradition starts with one man’s backlog.

1 min read

Christmas history and traditions

Tom Smith’s Paris bon-bons wouldn’t sell, so he made them explode. How a Clerkenwell confectioner invented the cracker in the 1840s.

2 min read

Christmas history and traditions

A German custom, a royal marriage, and the single 1848 magazine engraving that turned the Christmas tree from curiosity into necessity.

1 min read

Jumper day at work and school

Company-funded jumpers remove the cost barrier to taking part, but bulk buying goes wrong in predictable ways. What works, and what to avoid.

2 min read

Jumper day at work and school

A good pun jumper gets a groan immediately followed by a laugh. Four designs that do it properly, and what separates a good pun from a bad one.

2 min read

Jumper day at work and school

A matching jumper is a bigger statement early in a relationship than it looks. The low-commitment version, and what to avoid entirely.

2 min read