Christmas In England, Customs and Traditions
About this page
I created a webpage entitled 'Christmas in England' a few years ago to share a few pictures of our christmas celebrations with friends and family. Suprisingly that webpage receives a lot of visitors searching for information about the traditions and customs of an English Christmas.
Not wanting to disappoint those visitors, I have added a few pages containing, I hope, the information that people are looking for.
The information presented here has been consolidated from family, friends and my own recollections of Christmas in England. Researching on other websites turned up many bizarre pieces of information that I and the people I have talked to have no knowledge of. For the time being I have ignored anything that cannot be substantiated by the people I know and may add it in it's own section at some later date, purely as an academic reference.
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the day before Christmas Day (December 24th)
Christmas Eve if it falls on a weekday is a normal working day in the UK, though it is customary for companies to allow there staff to leave at lunchtime.
Before going to bed on Christmas Eve, Children hang up pillow cases in the living room, for Father Christmas to leave them presents later in the night or early hours of Christmas morning.
Before going to bed on Christmas Eve, Children leave a late night snack for Father Christmas and his reindeer. The reindeer usually receieve a carrot and Father Christmas a pork pie and tin of beer or something similar.
Father Christmas
The ho ho ho guy in the red suit is known as Father Christmas, though increasingly he is referred to as Santa or Santa Claus.
Father Christmas lives and works in Lapland.
Father Christmas brings presents to children who have been good in the previous year. If the children have been bad then he will bring them a sack of cinders.
Christmas Dinner in England
Christmas dinner is eaten at midday to early afternoon on Christmas day.
Before the meal is served everybody at the table pulls Christmas Crackers.
It is mandatory to wear the christmas cracker hat at the dinner table for the duration of the meal.
It is considered good form though it is not mandatory (exception being Grandads) to wear the christmas cracker hat for the entire afternoon.
Christmas dinner is traditionally roast turkey and trimmings. Often there is additional roast pork and apple sauce along with the turkey.
Christmas pudding, the traditonal Christmas desert is served with silver coins. The lucky finder gets to keep the coins, though in my family we had to give them back to my mother at the end of the meal!
Christmas Decorations
British houses are decorated with paper streamers and a christmas tree covered in glass (though more commonly plastic now) baubels and tinsels. The christmas tree usually has christmas lights that flash on and off
Mistletoe is often hung above the front door.
Christmas lights in the front windows of a house are becoming increasingly common, but rarely come close to the national grid draining levels that can be witnessed in the US.
Walls are often decorated with the many Christmas cards recieved. As a bachelor this wasn't really an option in my case.
Boxing Day
Nobody seems to know for definite why Boxing Day is really called called Boxing Day, though it is often the subject of Boxing Day dinner conversation. Most likely the name came from the middle ages where it may come from the opening of church poor boxes (alms), the contents of which were then distributed amongst the needy. Another possible derivation is that the name is taken from the clay boxes with which apprentices collected money from their masters' clients. From the 20th century onwards it has been customary in England to give a 'Christmas Box" to tradesman, the dustbin men, postman etc.
Boxing Day is the day after Christmas day (26th December) and is a UK public holiday.
Many places in Britain host charity events on Boxing Day. The Boxing Day Dip is one such event. 'Dippers' make there way to the many coastal venues hosting dips and join other dippers in a mass immersion into the Icy North Sea.
