This lovely treasury of festive Christmas recipes celebrates the foods, traditions, and lore of the holiday season from locales around the world. With over ninety recipes, The Festive Christmas Cookbook brings holiday bread, cookie, and cake recipes from Denmark, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, the United States, and many other countries together with tales of Christmas customs. Read how the Von Trapp family (the real-life family from The Sound of Music) celebrated the beginning of Advent; how La Befana leaves presents for Italian children; and find out how the popular Christmas carol "Silent Night" originated because a mouse had chewed holes in the organ bellows on Christmas Eve. The memories of happy celebrations and the delicious complements to them included here, will add to the richness of your own family's cherished traditions.