An Edwardian Story

It was a time before television, plastic toys and supermarkets and yet it's the kind of Christmas we so often see depicted on our Christmas cards.

Well off Edwardian families during the first decade of the last century enjoyed an elegant festive season packed with many of the traditions we still enjoy today.

While Christmas is very different, there are still a number of Edwardian elements that you can incorporate into your own celebrations to give it a period flavour.

Decorations

The Christmas tree was highly popular by Edwardian times, having been introduced to England by Queen Victoria's German husband Prince Albert.

To get the Edwardian look, you'll need nimble fingers, they mostly made their own decorations, saving the best from year to year. For the tree, tie bows made out of gold ribbon, string crystals from broken necklaces and make your own star for the top.

The rest of the house can be decorated with ivy, yew and laurel out of the garden. Holly, then as now, was prized for its bright berries and mistletoe an ancient symbol of renewal and fertility would be hung overhead.

Hang wreaths everywhere, and make one for your table decoration trimmed with ribbon and using a candle as a centrepiece. A nice touch is to write little mottos to tie into the wreaths.

Dinner

John Sainsbury had just opened his first shop, but there was no trip to the supermarket for festive food in Edwardian times.

Instead, women had to visit a multitude of shops -- butchers, spice merchants, bakers and grocers; of course, the well-to-do would not have deigned to pick up a shopping basket and would instead have sent their household staff.

Delicacies on the Edwardian table included boar's head and sheep's tongues; if they don't appeal, you could try another favourite -- goose, which was far more common then than turkey. The bird would be stuffed with chestnuts, pork and apple stuffing and sprinkled with fat and salt, then served with apple, gooseberry and bread sauces instead of cranberry.

Of course, to be really authentic, you'd have to pluck the bird yourself.

Christmas cakes and pudding called plum pudding in those days would have been made several weeks in advance as recommended by Mrs Beeton, to be stored for improvement.

You can make your own version by following this recipe.

The Gifts

If you want a truly Edwardian-style Christmas, you might save some money children, even of well off families, seldom got more than one present.

Many gifts were hand-made; embroidered handkerchiefs and samplers, home-made peppermints or sugared almonds wrapped in hand-decorated paper.

The luckiest children got a Dutch doll or a doll's house, or a new gift which was gaining tremendous popularity at the time, a teddy bear.

The best bears were made by the German company Steiff and are collector's items today. Steiff still make bears, and today a new one will cost you from £50 to £200.

After Dinner

No TV or computer games instead, try parlour games such as Charades, Blind Man's Buff and Queen of Sheba, where one female member of the party sits in a chair and a male is blindfolded and sent to seek a kiss after first being thoroughly spun around.

Finish the evening off with carols around the piano. Happy Edwardian Christmas.