Published: 6th October 2016
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 96
Format: Paperback
Genre: Non-Fiction
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ – 5 Stars
It’s history with the NASTY bits left in!
Do you want to know:
– A very rude pantomine song?
– Why making Christmas pudding used to be a crime?
– How to get rid of carol singers?
Horrible Christmas tells you all the festive facts you ever wanted to find out but were too stuffed full of mince pies to ask.
It’s Christmas time and what better way to celebrate than with a fabulous book that tells you everything you know about Christmas is either wrong or even more interesting than you thought? Legendary series Horrible Histories has taken hold of Christmas and filled up this fabulous book with trivia, fun facts, and a whole heap of history both intriguing and horrible all relating to this the festive season.
The book is also incredible funny and quirky and I loved learning all the facts about Christmas and the surrounding myths and associations. There are multiple quizzes to test your knowledge and it is fascinating about all the old traditions that have either been forgotten or the ones that live on today but I had no idea of the original reasons why. There’s some science in there too as the realities of Santa’s sleighing and reindeer endeavours are worked out with maths and logic (a lot funner than it sounds), plus the horrible bits of history that wouldn’t be Horrible Histories without it.
The book is laid out with pictures, colours, and trivia boxes and full page stories. There are topics like chapters breaking up the book into relevant information like Christmas Carols, Christmas History, Rotten Christmas etc that keep the topics together but there is still general crossover. Great to pop in and out of when you need a certain fun fact.
I love learning new things and fun facts and trivia are some of my favourite things in the world so this book is right up my alley and it is presented in such a fun and non-intimidating way that it is easily accessible. It isn’t just page after page of facts, the best part is you learn things in different ways, not just quizzes, not just the fact lists but with storytelling and humorous writing too. Information like the first Christmas card was printed in 1843, or that kissing under the mistletoe comes from a Druid tradition are told in clever ways that are interactive and make it a fun experience.
My favourite fun facts from the book must be included here because they are wonderful:
- There were no angels around when Jesus was born. The reporters wrote in Greek of ‘angelos’ being there which is not Greek for angels, it’s Greek for ‘messengers’.
- Silent Night was first played on a guitar.
- The first record of Christmas being written down is in 1038 in a Saxon book where it appears as Cristes Maesse.
- Little Jack Horner (of thumb in pie fame) was actually a monk who (supposedly) tricked Henry VIII out of a land deed at Christmas.
- In the 1600s the Germans decided that the Christ Child should be worshipped at Christmas. They called him Christkindl – German for Christ Child. This became Kris Kringle and became a name for Santa Claus instead.
- Rudolph was created for an advert in 1939
- In the 1800s Christmas had almost died out but Charles Dickens bought back its popularity with ‘A Christmas Carol’.
There’s definitely a lot more but these ones stood out. There’s so much to learn in this book about old customs, traditions from Victorians and other eras, other countries, present day and the past. It is fascinating to see what feels like an ingrained tradition or idea is actually manufactured or something so old was really a simple thing at first.
If you have been a fan of Horrible Histories in the past this is a great addition with a nice holiday theme, but if this is your first experience of Horrible Histories it is also a great book because you get to learn a little more about Christmas and its history and love the joyfulness that is Horrible Histories.
You can purchase Horrible Christmas via the following
This has been a strange year for my AWW Challenge – I read a lot of books but haven’t gotten around to reviewing that many yet. And I started strong but then had a small slump and then somehow have come back strong at the end. And while my number looks huge compared to what I usually achieve, I have come in big with picture books with them taking up almost half of my total. I don’t have any guilt about this however which is a surprise to no one more than myself because I know what kind of year I have had and know it is a pure miracle I have read anything at all so to be able to have such a phenomenal number is amazing. Plus I read a lot of CBCA and Christmas picture books which bumped up my numbers.
