Advent is a customary time of contemplation and preparation for Christmas and has parallels with the season of Lent that precedes Easter. Advent is celebrated in Churches for four Sundays prior to Christmas Day and an Advent Wreath is commonly used. This comprises seasonal plants, e.g. holly and ivy and usually has four red candles surrounding a central white one. Each Sunday of Advent a candle is lit during the service until on Christmas Day all four red and the central white candle are burning.

Advent Calendars are popular with children as they usually contain a piece of chocolate or a picture for each day starting from 1 December and ending on Christmas Day. Part of the fun of Christmas is opening a new flap each day to obtain the small gift underneath.

Mistletoe and the custom of kissing under it, (much beloved by gentlemen of a certain age), have ancient origins. The Mistletoe (Viscum album) is a parasitic plant found in high branches of broad-leaved trees, drawing sap from its host tree. Mistletoe plants are male or female with tiny yellow-green flowers with four petals. These open in March in Britain and are wind-pollinated. The soft white berries ripen by the following winter and are attractive to Mistle Thrushes and other birds that spread the seed into crevices in the bark of trees. Here it sprouts and grows into a bush of up to 1 metre with a life span of many years.

Druids regarded any Oak tree with Mistletoe growing on it as sacred and ritually cut the Mistletoe with a golden knife. The custom of kissing under the Mistletoe is linked to pagan fertility rites but may also be connected to the ancient custom of hanging Mistletoe over the doorway as a symbol of peace. A sprig of Mistletoe placed in a baby's cradle was said to ward off fairies and also to protect against witchcraft if worn under a hat. Today at Christmas parties Mistletoe frequently attracts strange and scary visitations so be careful if you stand beneath it!

The Yule Log originates from Scandinavian pagan festivals and spread around Europe during the Viking conquests. Custom states that a log is chosen in the forest, decorated with ribbons and brought home. On the homeward journey tradition demanded that anybody meeting the procession should salute the Log by raising their hat.

Once home the Yule Log was lit on Xmas Day and burnt during all 12 days of Xmas (so it had to be a pretty big Log). The remains of the Log were retained as kindling for the following year's fire and were also kept as a lucky charm to ward off fire and lightening from the home.

Certain people were excluded from the presence of the burning Yule Log including barefoot women and people with squints or flat feet. The reasons for these exclusions have been long forgotten.

In Cornwall the Yule Log was known as The Mock and children were encouraged to stay awake until midnight to drink to The Mock for good luck.

In the county of Devon, England a variation of the custom is practised. This is called the Ashen Faggot (a faggot is a bundle of sticks tied together). A faggot of Ash wood is made and bound with nine bands of green Ash. It is carried home and set on a fire using a piece of last year's faggot. Each unmarried maiden of the household must choose a band and custom states that the girl whose band ignites first will be the next to be married.

Wassailing is a custom of obscure origins that is followed to ensure that apple trees will produce a good crop the following year.

The word "wassail" is thought to come from the Anglo Saxon "wes hal" which means "be healthy". Wassailing takes place on Twelvth Night and begins with the eating of hot cakes and the drinking of cider or a brew of cider, brandy, ale and spices drunk hot from a "wassail bowl". This is followed by a visit to an apple tree. A cake is placed on the tree, and splashed with cider. The tree is then shot at, pots and pans are banged and a special wassail song is sung.

Shooting holes in a tree would not appear to be the best way of encouraging it to grow well but when the custom first began firearms had not been invented. So it looks like wassailing has been updated to take account of the development of more lethal technology.

Hunting the Wren was a Celtic custom and took place on St. Stephen's Day in southwestern Britain. The Wren is one of Britain's smallest birds, (only Goldcrests and Firecrests are more weeny), and brave men and boys would kill one and carry its tiny corpse on a pole in procession. "Wren Boys" or "Droluns" would attend its funeral and anybody who paid could purchase one of its feathers for good luck.

Happily the Wren is now a protected species in Britain and the custom is therefore illegal. And anyway what has murdering some harmless songbird got to do with Xmas?

The Thorn of Glastonbury (crataegus monogyna var. biflora) grows in the church of St. John the Baptist and each year sprays are cut from it by the vicar of the church and the mayor of Glastonbury and sent as decoration for the Queen's table for Christmas Day.

Legend states that the Thorn is a descendent of the one planted from the thorn staff of Joseph of Arimathaea who founded Glastonbury Abbey. The Thorn is reputed to have taken root and flowered as soon as Joseph planted it during his visit to bring Christianity to Britain around 35 AD. Joseph is said to have cut a staff from the same tree the Roman soldiers used to make the Crown of Thorns placed on Christ's head. In a variation of the legend Joseph is said to have carried the staff while leading a party of merchants on a tour of tin mines in Somerset. Joseph inadvertently left the staff on a hill on the Isle of Avalon where it took root and eventually grew into the original Glastonbury Holy Thorn.

The earliest reference to the Thorn is in a thirteenth-century history of Glastonbury Abbey. The tree was watched carefully every Christmas to see if the blossom appeared. After it had grown two trunks, a local superstition warned against 'cutting the Holy Thorn on Christmas Eve when you hear the buds cracking, or you will receive a curse'. Tradition states that this came from the fate of a man who had chopped down one of the trunks during the reign of Elizabeth I. When he tried to cut the second trunk, 'thorns flew into his eyes and blinded him'. The tradition of sending Christmas blooms to the Monarch began in the reign of Henry VIII. A Dr Layton was sent to Glastonbury in 1535 to investigate rumours concerning the tree. The doctor sent back to London 'two flowers wrapped in black sarsnet, that in Christmass Mass, at the very hour Christ was born, will spring and burgeon and bear blossoms'. The custom of sending blooms was stopped by Charles I, but revived in 1922 when Queen Mary agreed to receive some each time the Holy Thorn lived up to its reputation.

Queen Elizabeth II received blooms from the Thorn on several occasions but the large tree that had supplied them for eighty years was pronounced dead in June 1991, and was cut down in February 1992. It had been planted by the head gardener of Glastonbury Abbey, who had also learned how to graft Holy Thorn cuttings onto the root of Blackthorn stock, and so preserve the 'miraculous' Christmas blossoming characteristic. Attempts have been made to grow the Holy Thorn from seed and direct cuttings, but all have reverted to the normal Hawthorn type, flowering only in spring. Holy Thorns have been sent all over the world and trees survive from earlier graftings to perpetuate the Glastonbury legend. Among them are two other Holy Thorns in the grounds of St John's and in recent years the blooms sent to Queen Elizabeth II have come from these.

Joseph of Arimathaea is mentioned in the Bible, (Matthew 27: 57-61, Mark 15: 46-46, Luke 23: 50-54), and was a wealthy man who was a follower of Jesus. After the Crucifixion Joseph obtained permission from the Romans to take Jesus' body down from the Cross and placed it in a new tomb that he had intended for himself.

Boxing Day is on St Stephans Day (26 December) and was the traditional occasion when the charity boxes in churches were opened and the money distributed to the poor of the parish. In Victorian times the custom was enlarged to allow servants a day's holiday to visit their families as cooks, maids, butlers, grooms etc. would have had to work on Xmas day to ensure that the gentry had a splendid time.

Stirring the Xmas Pudding traditionally takes place at the beginning of Advent on "stir-up Sunday". Each family member would give the pudding mixture a stir while making a secret wish. Stirring should be done in an east to west direction to commemorate the visit of the Wise Men to the infant Jesus. It is unclear if the traditional direction of stir is still followed with modern mass production methods used in the Xmas Pudding factories of the industrialised world.