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Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

Did Oliver Cromwell ban mince pies? When did people first give Christmas presents? And why does Santa wear red?

Well, in honour of the festive season, today we're bringing you a

classic episode from our archive. In it, I speak to George Goodwin, historian and author of

Christmas traditions, a celebration of festive law, to answer listener questions all about the

history of the festive period. Let's start with a question from

Levy Marie, who was one of our Twitter followers, who asked, when did people start gathering together

for Christmas parties? Well, thank you very much indeed, Eddie. Well, with that one, that takes us

straight in to the fact that the celebration for Christmas really stems from

the fact that there has long been a, and I should say for the secular part of Christmas,

there has long been a celebration of the shortest day of the year, the midwinter celebration.

It's the winter solstice, and it goes all the way back

to Saturnalia, the Roman Festival of Saturnalia, between the 17th and the 23rd of December.

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