This is a book of practical ideas for gifts, decorations and Christmas fare at the same time as being a portrait of an Edwardian Christmas. Ideas on how to gild walnuts for the tree, concoct a seasonal pot-pourri, or make traditional brandy butter to accompany the pudding are interspersed with Edith Holden's words and pictures and those of many other writers and artists of the times, such as Beatrix Potter, Robert Louis Stevenson and Virginia Woolf. They are accompanied by turn-of-the-century ideas for after-dinner games from the "Girls Own Companion", a description of Londoners tobogganing at midnight by the light of the moon from the "Illustrated London News", and "The Times" review of the first performance of J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan".