Advent Calendar Day 18
Perhaps it’s the gourmand in me speaking, but what can evoke the spirit of Christmas more efficiently than a beautiful cookbook? Not just any cookbook—one dedicated entirely to the season, filled with dishes that exist solely to mark these particular days as different, special, worth celebrating. I have a selection today that will send you immediately to the market, list in hand, dreaming of what you’ll create. Here are three of my favorite Christmas cookbooks, each offering something distinct and wonderful.
Christmas with Dickens by Pen Vogler
Don’t you feel slightly cheated that no one ever mentioned “food historian” as a possible career path? Pen Vogler appears to have one of the most enviable occupations imaginable, and you can feel her passion radiating from the meticulous research preceding every recipe in this book. Inspired by Charles Dickens’s personal convictions about the beauty of the holidays and the crucial importance of social balance in celebrations—his belief that Christmas should unite rather than divide, that generosity matters more than extravagance—this collection of twenty-two recipes takes us through nearly every major work Dickens penned, exploring the mentions of food that can be recreated today.
From the famous roast goose in A Christmas Carol to the pickled pork of Great Expectations, with a side of cauliflower inspired by Bleak House and some Ladies’ Fingers (delicate sponge biscuits) from The Mystery of Edwin Drood, this is a book designed to inspire not only your cooking but your reading as well. You might discover classics you never quite got around to exploring, now armed with the additional motivation of culinary curiosity.
What I particularly love about Vogler’s approach is how she contextualizes each recipe within both Dickens’s life and Victorian society more broadly. You learn what ordinary people actually ate versus what appeared on wealthy tables, how ingredients were sourced and prepared before modern conveniences, what Christmas meant to different social classes. The recipes themselves are adapted for modern kitchens while maintaining historical authenticity—practical enough to actually make, yet faithful to the spirit of the original dishes.
This is a book for those who believe that understanding what people ate brings us closer to understanding how they lived, thought, and celebrated.
🇺🇸 World of Books | 🇬🇧 World of Books | 🇫🇷 Momox Shop
A short note on how and why I share book links
Christmas at River Cottage by Lucy Brazier and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
This is considerably more than a cookbook—I would characterize it as a comprehensive guide for making winter at home something to anticipate rather than endure. It begins at summer’s end with all the preserving and preparing that transforms harvest abundance into winter security: jams and pickles to put up, the root cellar to stock, plans for a cozy feast that will bring the whole family together when the days grow shortest.
The book includes DIY projects for wreaths and seed-filled ornaments for winter birds, tree decorations crafted from natural materials, and homemade reusable gift wrappings that are beautiful enough to become part of the gift itself. This is a book designed to make you fall back in love with your home—if ever you should need such persuasion, which, let’s be honest, most of us do occasionally during the dark months.
This is considerably more than a cookbook—I would characterize it as a comprehensive guide for making winter at home something to anticipate rather than endure. It begins at summer’s end with all the preserving and preparing that transforms harvest abundance into winter security: jams and pickles to put up, the root cellar to stock, plans for a cozy feast that will bring the whole family together when the days grow shortest.
The book includes DIY projects for wreaths and seed-filled ornaments for winter birds, tree decorations crafted from natural materials, and homemade reusable gift wrappings that are beautiful enough to become part of the gift itself. This is a book designed to make you fall back in love with your home—if ever you should need such persuasion, which, let’s be honest, most of us do occasionally during the dark months.
🇺🇸 World of Books | 🇬🇧 World of Books | 🇫🇷 Momox Shop
A short note on how and why I share book links
Downton Abbey Christmas Cookbook by Regula Ysewijn
And now for glitter and glamour, what better invitation than Christmas at Downton Abbey? All devotees of the series remember Mrs. Patmore’s kitchen magic and the old-school techniques required for proper soufflés or elegant hors d’oeuvres that rose (or didn’t) based purely on skill rather than modern shortcuts.
Regula Ysewijn—herself a food historian and photographer of considerable talent—has created a book overflowing with ideas for grand feasts or intimate luncheons during that magical stretch between Christmas and New Year’s Day. She includes lovely reminders of English traditions and their evolution across time, contextualizing recipes within the Edwardian era the show depicts while making them accessible to contemporary cooks.
It genuinely feels like receiving a private masterclass in the Downton kitchens, though mercifully without Mrs. Patmore’s occasional sharp tongue. The recipes are genuinely mouth-watering: anchovy éclairs (yes, savory éclairs—a revelation), shrimp tartlets à la diable with their devilish kick, rich pheasant soup, baked John Dory prepared with delicate restraint, duck with orange, lemon, and olives that balances sweet and savory perfectly, hazelnut cake with coffee icing that makes you understand why the Crawley family kept requesting it.
These are temptations you will inevitably surrender to, because it’s Christmas, and because cooking ambitious, beautiful food offers one of the easiest and most reliable forms of happiness therapy available to us. Fair warning: you’ll find yourself wanting to wear sequins and perhaps a tiara when dining at your Downton-inspired table. The food demands a certain ceremony, and why shouldn’t we give it exactly that?
🇺🇸 World of Books | 🇬🇧 World of Books | 🇫🇷 Momox Shop
A short note on how and why I share book links
Each of these books offers a different pathway into festive cooking: Dickens for literary and historical connection, River Cottage for seasonal sustainability and coziness, Downton for unapologetic elegance and tradition. Together they represent the range of what Christmas cooking can be—humble or grand, simple or elaborate, historically rooted or creatively adapted.
What they share is the understanding that cooking for the holidays is never merely about feeding people. It’s about creating memory, honoring tradition while making it your own, gathering around tables that become altars of gratitude and celebration, using our hands to transform raw ingredients into gifts of nourishment and beauty.
Until tomorrow, dear friends—happy Christmas cooking, and may your kitchens be warm and your tables welcoming.
CHOOSING YOUR COOKBOOK:
If you want…
- Historical accuracy: Christmas with Dickens
- Sustainable, seasonal cooking: Christmas at River Cottage
- Elegant entertaining: Downton Abbey
- Literary connections: Christmas with Dickens
- DIY projects beyond cooking: Christmas at River Cottage
- Impressive presentations: Downton Abbey
- Social history: Christmas with Dickens
- Year-round usefulness: Christmas at River Cottage
Written by Alexandra Poppy
Writer, reader & curator of The Ritual of Reading
I’m Alexandra, the voice behind The Ritual of Reading. Somewhere between a stack of novels and a half-finished pot of tea, I keep finding traces of the life I want to live—slower, richer, filled with stories. The Ritual of Reading is where I gather what I love: books that linger, places with a past, and rituals that make ordinary days feel a little more meaningful. I write from Paris, where elegant bookshops and old-fashioned cafés offer endless inspiration—and I share it here, hoping it brings a spark to your own days, too.
