Welcome to "Zommerzet"

A Somerset Christmas, edited by John Chandler

I found the first of these Sutton Christmas anthologies (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale several years back, and another at a library sale a couple of years later. Anyway, these collections contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, histories, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire or historical era denoted in the title.

The Somerset book is a very nice collection of essays and excerpts from the early 1800s all the way to the mid-1960s: accounts of wassailing parties (including an unusual version of the "12 Days of Christmas"), a different version of the St. George mumming play that includes an Admiral (not unusual since it is a seafaring area), a very interesting look into the history of the first Christmas card (including some different contenders for the title), several pieces on "unique to Somerset" Christmas carols, a ghost story, unique to Somerset beliefs about the Christmas and New Year season, and a story about the Glastonbury Thorn, among others, with the usual complement of advertisements, broadsides, artists' work, photographs, and other media to brighten each page.

In addition, there's the usual jokes about the "Zommerzet" accent unique to the area.