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The unpredictable origins and etymologies 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, etymologically speaking, means ´Go away, Christ´. Nor do we know that Christmas was first celebrated in 243 AD on 28 March - 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. 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.

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Mark imparts knowledge about Christmas traditions from the essential to the (very) abstruse in wry and sardonic style. An effortless and enjoyable way to learn more about this fulcrum of our calendar Paul Smiddy, Former Head of pan-European retail research, HSBC

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Forsyth, Mark
Born in London in 1977, Mark Forsyth (a.k.a The Inky Fool) was given a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary as a christening present and has never looked back. His book The Etymologicon was a Sunday Times Number One Bestseller and his TED Talk ´What´s a snollygoster?´ has had more than half a million views. He has also written a specially commissioned essay ´The Unknown Unknown´ for Independent Booksellers Week and the introduction for the new edition of the Collins English Dictionary. He lives in London with his dictionaries, and blogs at blog.inkyfool.com.

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