Father Christmas dates back at least as far as the 17th century in Britain, and pictures of him survive from that era, portraying him as a well-nourished bearded man dressed in a long green fur-lined robe.

Nowadays he is often called Santa Claus but also often referred to in Britain as Father Christmas: the two names are synonyms.

The traditions of the Yule log died out in Britain in the latter 19th and early 20th century because of, according to historian Ronald Hutton, " the reduction in farm labour and the disappearance of the old-fashioned open hearths ", however the Bûche de Noël dessert has become a Christmas tradition in the UK, as in many French speaking places.

The association with Christmas, however, more probably arises from the fact that postmen in Victorian Britain wore red uniforms and were nicknamed " Robin "; the Robin featured on the Christmas card is an emblem of the postman delivering the card.

The book was written and published in early Victorian era Britain when it was experiencing a nostalgic interest in its forgotten Christmas traditions, and at the time when new customs such as the Christmas tree and greeting cards were being introduced.

That interest was further stimulated by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's German-born husband, who popularized the German Christmas tree in Britain after their marriage in 1841, the first Christmas card in 1843, and a revival in carol singing.

In the spring of 1844, The Gentleman's Magazine attributed a sudden burst of charitable giving in Britain to Dickens's novella ; in 1874, Robert Louis Stevenson waxed enthusiastic after reading Dickens's Christmas books and vowed to give generously ; and Thomas Carlyle expressed a generous hospitality by staging two Christmas dinners after reading the book.

The play was extremely popular, and throughout the 1960s / 70s, it had a yearly revival at Christmas in Britain.

The next major short was A Matter of Loaf and Death, first broadcast in Britain on Christmas Day 2008.

The practice to celebrate Christmas with a decorated Christmas Cracker at each table setting was born and it became a time-honored established tradition passed down continuously from generation to generation of families not only in England but in Great Britain and other parts of the World.

It became an international hit, dominating the charts in Britain ( where it was Wings ' only No. 1 single ), Australia and many other countries over the Christmas / New Year period.

In 2000, Yass designed the Christmas tree for Tate Britain, and in 2002 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize.

In 2006, he had a cameo in the Little Britain Christmas special as a pilot taking Lou and Andy to Disneyland.

It is a long-held popular myth that the 1977 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, which attracted 28 million viewers ( around half of the total UK population at the time ) was a record for a single light entertainment broadcast in Britain.

The Canadian Christmas stamp of 1898, depicting a map of the world with British possessions in red, is famous for unusual color oddities that appear to claim all of Europe, or the United States, or central Asia for Britain.

Dayton had already told Seward of his own meeting with Thouvenel, in which the French foreign minister had told him that Wilkes ’ actions were “ a clear breach of international law ” but that France would “ remain a spectator in any war between the United States and England .” A direct message was received on Christmas from Thouvenel ( it was actually delivered during the cabinet meeting ) urging that the United States release the prisoners and in so doing affirm the rights of neutrals on the seas that France and the United States had repeatedly argued against Great Britain.

As of December 2006, charity specials, and a two part Christmas special known as Little Britain Abroad, which was broadcast in December 2006.

In Britain, however, it was released in late November after Stiff Records noticed a line referring to the festival — " I wish I was at home for Christmas " — and the specific style of brass instruments and bells in the chorus as a " Christmas-style " theme.

He returned to Britain on Christmas Day 1820, but remained only until the following October, after which he went to Paris to study anatomy for just over a year ( 1821-2 ).

* The Bowthorpe Oak tree is thought to be 1, 000 years old located in Great Britain.

Growth in Britain is very fast, with the tallest tree, at Benmore in southwest Scotland, reaching at age 150 years, and several others from 50 – 53 m tall ; the stoutest is around 12 m in girth and 4 m in diameter, in Perthshire.

She was returned to Britain when she was three to live with an aunt, a professional governess Bessie Nicholson, in Wimbledon, London, after her pregnant mother, Florence, committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree.

A photograph of the tree can be found ( plate 402 ) in Elwes & Henry's Trees of Great Britain & Ireland, published in 1913, wherein it is identified as U. nitens ( U. minor subsp.

* Acer pseudoplatanus, the sycamore of Britain and Ireland ; a European maple tree, also called sycamore maple, great maple, or, the plane tree in Scotland

For many decades a popular historic spot in Wilkesboro was the " Tory Oak ", a large oak tree from which Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, a well-known Wilkes County patriot during the American Revolutionary War, hung Loyalist militia leaders who supported the British King and opposed American independence from Britain.

This tree is nationally rare in Britain, and this site hosts the largest known population in England.

The supposition that the tree was the source of Jesus's crown of thorns doubtless gave rise around 1911 to the tradition among the French peasantry that it utters groans and cries on Good Friday, and probably also to the old popular superstition in Great Britain and Ireland that ill-luck attended the uprooting of hawthorns.

Majesty Oak with the circumference of 12, 2 m ( 40 ') is the thickest tree in Great Britain, but Kaive Oak in Latvia with the circumference of 10, 2 m ( 33, 5 ') is the thickest tree in Northern Europe.

A timber circle with an upturned tree root in the centre, Seahenge was apparently built in the 21st century BC, during the early Bronze Age in Britain, most likely for ritual purposes.

According to a family tree on www. ancestry. com, Coel I " Old King Coel " of Britain was born in 0085, Welsh, Silures, Britain, and died in 0170, Colchester, Essex, England.

The current game dates back to when the Romans conquered Britain, bringing with them the apple tree, a representation of the goddess of fruit trees, Pomona.

Many examples were planted, as ' rarities ', in Britain and America, wherever elite gardens were extensive enough for tree collections ( see Arboretum ).

The largest fruiting olive tree in Britain is there, protected by the garden ’ s heat-trapping high brick walls, along with what is doubtless the world ’ s northernmost grapefruit growing outdoors.

The lower two-thirds show an island on which appear three small oak saplings ( on the left ) – representing the three counties of PEI ( Prince, Queens, and Kings ) – under the protection of a great oak tree which represents Great Britain.

It is also extensively used in forestry plantations in Japan, China and the Azores islands, and is widely cultivated as an ornamental tree in other temperate areas, including Britain, Europe, North America and eastern Himalaya regions of Nepal and India.

The lack of old native names for it has been used to demonstrate its absence in Britain before introduction in around 1487, but this is challenged by the presence of an old Scottish Gaelic name for the tree, fior chrann which suggests a longer presence in Scotland at least as far back as the Gaelic settlement at Dal Riada.

This tree responds very well to coppicing, which is still practised in Britain, and produces a good crop of tannin-rich wood every 12 to 30 years, depending on intended use and local growth rate.

Another good friend of the Coolidges' was George B. Harvey, who was the Ambassador to Great Britain from 1921 to 1923.

It was therefore not until the publication of J.H. Round's `` The Settlement Of The South And East Saxons '', and W.H. Stevenson's `` Dr. Guest And The English Conquest Of South Britain '', that a scientific basis for place-name studies was established.

Almost inevitably, the first result of this technological revolution was a reaction against the methods and in many cases the conclusions of the Oxford school of Stubbs, Freeman and ( particularly ) Green regarding the nature of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain.

They, however much they were in disagreement with the late Victorians over the method by which Britain was Germanized, agreed with them that the end result was the complete extinction of the previous Celtic population and civilization.

What they meant was that there was no evidence to show that the south and east coasts of Britain received Germanic settlers conspicuously earlier than some other parts of England.

That is, there was no trace of Anglo-Saxons in Britain as early as the late third century, to which time the archaeological evidence for the erection of the Saxon Shore forts was beginning to point.

We also know that the Saxon Shore as reflected in the Notitia was created as a part of the Theodosian reorganization of Britain ( post A.D. 369 ).

The Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 was followed immediately by the conclusion of the Brussels Treaty, a 50-year alliance among Britain, France and the Benelux countries.

The issue was acute because the exiled Polish Government in London, supported in the main by Britain, was still competing with the new Lublin Government formed behind the Red Army.

It was a matter of principle with Churchill, since Britain had declared war in behalf of Poland.

With Britain looking inward, overseas problems were neglected and the baton was passed on to the United States.

Lincoln resolved the issue by releasing the two men and war was successfully averted with Britain.

His reception remained warmer in America than Britain, and he continued to publish novels and short stories, but by the late 1930s the audience for Milne's grown-up writing had largely vanished: he observed bitterly in his autobiography that a critic had said that the hero of his latest play (" God help it ") was simply " Christopher Robin grown up ... what an obsession with me children are become!

Tin was rare, however, being found mostly in Great Britain.

In the 18th century the " dominant trend " in Britain, particularly in Latitudinarianism, was towards Arianism, with which the names of Samuel Clarke, Benjamin Hoadly, William Whiston and Isaac Newton are associated.

In Britain this was one of a number of events that constituted the Annus Mirabilis of 1759 and is celebrated as Minden Day by certain British Army regiments.

It was however in Britain that Antoninus decided to follow a new, more aggressive path, with the appointment of a new governor in 139, Quintus Lollius Urbicus.

It has been associated with more than 20 melodies, but in 1835 it was joined to a tune named " New Britain " to which it is most frequently sung today.

Common meter hymns were interchangeable with a variety of tunes ; more than twenty musical settings of " Amazing Grace " circulated with varying popularity until 1835 when William Walker assigned Newton's words to a traditional song named " New Britain ", which was itself an amalgamation of two melodies (" Gallaher " and " St. Mary ") first published in the Columbian Harmony by Charles H. Spilman and Benjamin Shaw ( Cincinnati, 1829 ).