A Christmas Cornucopia: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Yuletide Traditions

Typical Mark Forsyth well written, humorous, and informative book. Enjoyed!

The number of Christmas miscellanies is frankly abominable. I fear that we own most of them. This little volume, however, is actually worth the read. It is light, and sweet, and poignant, and well recommended.

Delightfully funny in the original Forsythian way. The text follows much the same pattern as the Etymologicon, which, if you are unfamiliar, is Mark Forsyth's hilarious dive into the origins, meanings and connections between various words in the English language. A Christmas Cornucopia applies the same theory to the Christmas holiday traditions of western culture. As in the previous books, each chapter segues neatly with the conclusion of one overview leading to the introduction of the following. The book isn't long, about 150 pages of actual content divided into seven chapters. You can likely read it in an afternoon. But what it lacks in length it it more than makes up through the author's acute sense of the absurd coupled with a humorous and cheerful acceptance of the vagaries--and often complete insanity--of human behavior and belief. My favorite of the 7 chapters was the one on Christmas trees. Although Forsyth doesn't draw the explicit parallel, his exploration of Mystery Plays (and their accompanying trees) gave me deep pleasure at the idea that the garlands we use on our trees are the bastardized representations of that old charmer Satan, in the guise of a snake, climbing the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. Which brings me to a final point: if you know much about traditional Christianity, this book is twice as interesting and funny. If you're looking to bolster your pagan beliefs, this is not the book for you. The author does cover the portions of tradition that have some pagan roots-- for example, he does an excellent job of untangling whether or not Christmas is just a third-class refurbishment of the Roman Saturnalia--but in the end the history is decidedly Christian and so, as Forsyth illustrates, are the origins of the holiday.

Just finished this absolutely charming book, which has a drôle writing style that keeps it fun instead of sappy. It's a quick read; it's based on real, honest-to-goodness research (which my fellow history geeks will appreciate); and I recommend it enthusiastically.

Fun to read every holiday season!

I loved this book. There's hardly a page where I didn't learn something, so much so that by the end I was annoyed I couldn't recall everything I'd just thought I'd learned. An excellent present for any curmudgeon in your family or for yourself to while away a few hours contemplating the very weird nature of Christmas.

I sat down and read this book all at once. It is an absolute riot, while also imparting light facts along the way. A delight this Christmas season, highly recommend it. Be careful with the third-party buyers, though; my book was badly beaten up, despite being in “Good” condition.

Far from a “cornucopia”, the author reminds the reader on almost every page, “Hey, here I am! The author! And I’m going to make some more sarcastic observations!”

Pretty interesting. I wish it would be a longer book (it is pocket size and only 155 pages long). The author doesn't mention anything about Christmas and the Feast of Theophany being on the the same day in the early Christianity (no research on that part). The author doesn't say anything about the recent occurrences of people trying to tie western Christmas traditions to paganism in the last few years - the author doesn't say anything about that! Everything or almost everything about Christmas (some things are very hard to trace back indeed) have a logical christian explanation. Safe to read for your Christian beliefs.

My only problem with Mr. Forsyth is that he just doesn't write enough books!! The book is informative and very entertaining. I have read other books that have explained the idiosyncrasies of our Festive celebration but none more charming nor illuminating than this. In short this was a pleasure to read and in my opinion a book that you can reread every Yuletide season ... ho, ho, ho.

Entertainingly destroys my own 80 year old conception of the festival of the Christmas period. Did you conceive of the idea that Xmas meant ‘get out of here’ (Very late in the book but not upsetting) Blimey! As usual from our dear author, read from start to finish and you will feel that you’ve walked from a theatre both massively entertained and informed. It’s not even sacrilegious. Read on. One who was named after St Nick. (Honestly)

Pour le lire

One of the funniest books that I have read. The author has the ability to make facts sound funny