04 January 2010

CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: Christmas on the Home Front

by Mike Brown

This is a fabulous book I found in the Hamilton Books catalog; even more fab because the homefront they are speaking of is the British one, not the American. This easy-read of a history book portrays each Christmas from 1939 through 1944, with a postscript for 1945, with personal remembrances, recipes and advert excerpts, and even reports of what pantomimes, BBC Christmas Day programming, and sports were conducted during each Christmas season. As the years progress, you can see the decline in foods for feasting and goods for giving due to wartime rationing. The super bonus about this book are the photos and especially the period adverts and cartoons from newspapers and even the famous "Beano" peppering the text: everything from companies reminding people that their product will be back after the war to recipes for "mock goose" and "wartime mincemeat pies," dinners colored with colorful veg instead of fruits and instructions for home-made gifts like pin-on mascots made of knitting yarn. Super look at wartime Britain!

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