A literary Christmas Stocking of how Christmas is spent in the Land Down Under. The collection covers our early days: An entry from Banks’ journal, 1769; an 1836 Christmas Day service conducted in a rush hut; Christmas letters and poems, sent to England with more than a touch of homesickness about them; Christmas Day in the Victorian goldfields of 1857; the Holy Day with the Rudds, on their selection; Melbourne’s Father Christmas of 1890; an all-Australian Christmas Dinner, from cocktails to crackers in 1925…there’s even a recipe for Kosciusko Christmas Cake. Contributors include luminaries  such as Henry Lawson, Dymphna Cusack, Elizabeth George, Marcus Clarke, Mary Grant Bruce, Xavier Herbert, Tasma and more.  Illustrated.