Essex historian Susan Yates, who writes occasional articles for Nub News, takes a timely look back at the history of Christmas.

We all know that Christmas Day is the celebration of Christ's birth so he was born on Christmas Day - or was he? No. It is believed he was born in September.

The reason we celebrate on 25th December is this was a Pagan Festival to recognise and be thankful for the returning of the Sun to the earth. People would pretend to be Christian for their festivals and revert to Paganism afterwards. To stop this, the church authorities moved the celebration of the birth of Christ from September to 25th December so people had to make a choice of religion.

One of the first things we all do each year is put up our Christmas tree. Is this an English tradition? Again the answer is no. The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, etc. emanated from ancient Egypt and China where they were meant to symbolise eternal life.

The worship of trees was a Pagan European custom which carried on even after Christianity became the accepted religion. In Scandinavian countries the custom of decorating your house with green foliage is to scare away the Devil.

The modern Christmas tree, however, came from Western Germany, certainly no later than the 18th century. The blown glass ornaments we used to have on our trees came to England about 1870 and were produced in Germany and Bohemia, which also created decorations made from tinsel.

By 1890 Woolworths were selling US$25,000,000 worth of decorations each year. This included strings of lights for the tree. I suppose the most famous tree is the one from the people of Oslo to the people of London which stands in Trafalgar Square as thanks for help in World War II.

I wonder how many people know that the lights in the National Portrait Gallery are dimmed for the duration of Christmas in order to make the tree stand out better. Another famous tree is the one given by Her Majesty from her Sandringham Estate which stands outside St. Paul's Cathedral each year.

It is said that Martin Luther, founder of Lutheranism, was responsible for the idea of candles on Christmas trees to represent the stars in the heavens at the time of Christ's birth.

This is why we put a star on top of our trees, too. The idea of the Christmas tree was introduced to England by Queen Victoria and her German born husband Prince Albert in the 19th century. German migrants introduced it to America as early as the 17th century.

It was Queen Victoria who started putting 6d (a tanner) in Christmas pudding.

After decorating our homes we write out our Christmas cards. The first commercially produced card was in 1843 when Sir Henry Cole had a card designed by the artist John Callcott Horsley.

The first personalised Christmas Card was sent in 1891 by Annie Oakley when she was in Glasgow with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and had a card with her photograph on it sent to friends and family back in the U.S.A.

If you have one of the original 1,000 cards produced for Cole, and there are only 12 known to have survived, one sold recently for £22,500.

Having written our cards we wait for the great day to arrive when we have our feast.

Whilst this started as long ago as the Middle Ages it became associated with Christmas in Victorian times. Mince pies originally contained meat and this can be traced back to Tudor times. The turkey appeared in the 16th century but it was Edward VII who made it fashionable to eat it on Christmas Day. Christmas Pudding is an English invention - in Medieval times it was known as plum pudding or just 'pud'. Not that it contained plums, in pre-Victorian times plum was the word for raisins.

In our house we had our Christmas presents in the morning. Mine were on my mother's armchair and my brother's would be on my father's chair. I think this is the norm but in my friend's house they opened their gifts on Christmas evening. I know in parts of France they open their gifts on Christmas Eve. The giving of gifts or Christmas Boxes to one's staff took place on 26th December giving it the name Boxing Day.

Why give gifts at all? The giving of gifts is associated with the Nativity and the bringing of presents by the Magi to the baby Jesus as well as of course St Nicholas Bishop of Myra on Saint Nicholas Day.

So as you meet in your ever diminishing family bubble to celebrate this Christmas with your usual traditions just remember how it all started.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. Take care and stay safe.