Preparations for Christmas used to begin before St Andrew's Day, November 30, with making the Christmas puddings. This was a family activity when everyone had a stir for good luck. The date was chosen because the Collect for the day contains the words: Stir up, stir up, we beseech thee'. Children sometimes went around the houses singing: Stir up we beseech thee, The pudding in the pot, And when we get home, We'll eat the lot.' Making the pudding was much more complicated than it is today, as the basic ingredients were not readily at hand.

Alice M Harvey described how puddings were made in her childhood in the early 20th century in Memoirs of a Country Childhood in North Hinksey (1975): "I used to like helping my mother to make the Christmas puddings. We all stood round the large table, stoning the raisins and washing the fruit.

"We chopped the suet and one of us was sent to The Fishes for a bottle of beer. We all had to have a stir when Mum had finished mixing. It was the custom to wish when you stirred the pudding, and what a disturbance that caused!

"Everyone wanted to know what everyone else had wished for. The job of boiling the puddings took poor Mother all day long, for they had to boil in a big pot over the fire."

Agricultural labourers often had a joint of beef given to them by their farmer to celebrate Christmas Day - a rare treat when their usual diet was meat from the pig reared in their backyard.

A variety of meats have been chosen for the feast over the years. During the Middle Ages a boar's head - still used at The Queen's College, Oxford, feast - was popular among the rich, or a variety of birds could be boned and stuffed one inside the other.

Turkeys were first introduced to England in the 16th century, after being discovered in South America. Goose was another popular choice well into the 20th century.

Evergreens were put up on Christmas Eve and taken down by Twelfth Night, January 6. Oxfordshire children begged for apples for decorations with the rhyme: "Holly and ivy, mistletoe bough, Give me an apple. And I'll go now, Give me another for my little brother, And l'll go home and tell father and mother."

John Aubrey wrote in 1686 that at Launton: " it is ye custom for the Maid servant to ask the Man for Ivy to dress the House, and if the Man denies or neglects to fetch in the ivy, the Maid steals away a pair of his Breeches and nails them up to ye gate in the yard or highway." This may reflect the belief that ivy represented woman and holly man. Christmas trees, although introduced to England from Germany in the 18th century, did not become popular until Queen Victoria and Prince Albert used them at Windsor Castle. Before then, kissing boughs, consisting of crossed hoops decorated with evergreens, apples and candles, were the fashion.

In Oxford, three lighted candles placed in a window on Christmas Eve indicated that any passerby was welcome to come inside for refreshment.

Wassailing was recorded in Henley-on-Thames in 1555, and in the 19th century, in the Vale of White Horse, where wassailers carried a large wassail bowl from house to house, hoping it would be filled with Lambs' Wool', made from hot ale, sugar, spices, eggs and roasted apples, sometimes with cream and sippets of bread.

Carols date from the Middle Ages, when they were performed as ring dances, but many new versions were written in the 19th century, which may have encouraged a revival in carol singing.

In Adderbury in the 1830s and 1840s waits, made up of working men, went from house to house, with music provided by the village orchestra. At Swalcliffe carols sung by the waits included While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night and Good King Wenceslas.

In the mid-19th century carol singing began to be taken over by children, sometimes choirboys, as at Iffley. Church bells were also often heard on Christmas Eve.

Owners of big houses threw parties for the village children. Poor children hardly received any presents, although their Christmas stockings would contain an apple, nuts, dates and an orange. Families made their own entertainment, playing games such as hunt-the-slipper, charades and sardines.

Christmas was hardly celebrated at all before Victorian times, as New Year was more prominent and the time when gifts were exchanged.

No doubt the Victorians would be astonished by the time, energy and money devoted to organising and celebrating Christmas in the 21st century.