A Christmas Cornucopia by Mark Forsyth, £9.99

Well it comes around every year without fail but how much do we really know and understand about Christmas? From originally being celebrated in March how and why did it change to December 25? What is the strangely named Boxing Day all about? Why did James I ban the nobility from remaining in London during Christmas? What is probably making Wesley and Mendelssohn turn in their graves and...just how many versions of Father Christmas are there?

Luckily, Sunday Times bestselling local author Mark Forsyth is on hand to give us all the answers. Written in his usual entertaining manner he offers up the answers “like a gift from Santa himself,” explaining such oddities as the Munich housewife who was so fed up with her children pestering her for a Christmas countdown that she invented the Advent Calendar, why the invention of Christmas Crackers was simply a way of popularising sweet wrappers, and how just one poem forever changed Santa's horse-drawn 'sky wagon' into a reindeer led sleigh.

Quirky, witty and hugely entertaining, A Christmas Cornucopia is definitely this year's must have stocking filler.

CAROLINE REECE

WATERSTONES KENDAL