Unwrapping Traditions: Exploring the early Christmas buzz and the UK's merriest places
2-3 minute read
By Liam Boyle | December 19, 2023
We've done a little digging into our newspaper collection to investigate whether Christmas really does start earlier every year. With our research, we've also been able to rank Britain's most Christmassy towns and cities. Does your hometown make the list?
Every year, whispers of Christmas seem to roll around earlier and earlier. Whether you catch a glimpse of a Christmas tree in November or start seeing Father Christmas on your television in October, it can be difficult to wait until December to catch a bit of the festive feeling. But is this really the case, or is it just our imaginations running wild in the winter?
Is Christmas getting earlier every year?
According to the 73 million historical pages in our newspaper archive, it seems that Christmas really does get earlier every year, with trends showing a massive increase in mentions of the term as early as September.
In fact, since the 1980s, ‘Christmas’ alone was mentioned in November almost three times as much as it had been in the decades prior.
Whilst November might not seem ridiculously early for talk of Christmas to start, our research also found that in recent decades, the number of newspaper articles mentioning Christmas in October has also increased by a whopping 220%.
For foodies, it will come as no surprise that we also saw mentions of some festive culinary favourites creeping up throughout November, from recipes to adverts.
Coventry Evening Telegraph, 8 December 1981. View this page in full.
Whether you love or hate them, mince pies have been a staple of the Christmas snack cupboard for many years now. But not everyone may be waiting until Christmas to indulge. In the last 40 years, mince pies are 15 times more likely to be mentioned in November and more than 10 times more likely to appear in October.
In addition to proving our suspicions about 'Christmas creep' correct, our newspaper research also revealed which areas of England are most often mentioned in connection to festive stories - the country's most festive towns and cities.
Are these the most Christmassy places in the UK?
Going by the number of times that 'Christmas' was mentioned in their local newspapers over the last 200 years per head, we've compiled a list of the UK's most festive places. The ranking goes as follows:
5. Oxford
4. Ely
3. York
2. Cambridge
In 1906, Cambridge residents received praise from their mayor as he was happy to report that they had had 'no criminal business during the past week' with not 'a single case of drunkenness' presented. It remains to be seen whether they were able to continue their good behaviour into the New Year celebrations...
Cambridge Daily News, 29 December 1906. View this page in full.
1. Durham
Amongst the many yuletide articles from the Christmassy city of Durham, we found all sorts of fascinating stories. One article described how Dean Henson of Durham Cathedral called for peace at Christmas in 1916, in what would have been the third Christmas since the outbreak of the First World War.
In his address, the Dean referred to Christmas in 1916 as 'the third which had to be celebrated in the miserable circumstances of worldwide war' and suggested that 'never before in the chequered history of mankind has peace filled the minds of so many men and women'.
Durham Chronicle, 29 December 1916. View this page in full.
This would be the second last Christmas celebrated during the First World War, before the armistice in November 1918.
For more festive history, have a look at the history of your favourite Christmas traditions and delve into Santa Claus' family tree.
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