Christmas Feasting and Social Class

Abstract

This paper examines the role of Christmas meals in Britain, with particular focus on the construction of social class identities through feasting and the consumption of food and drink. Analysis is based on quantitative data from the National Food Survey in the period 1975–2000, sampled at five-year intervals, comparing food shopping data from the month of December with that for the rest of the year. Whilst expenditure on food in December is shown to be consistently higher than for the rest of the year in all social groups, significant social class differences remain, not least in the consumption of healthy food and alcohol. At the same time, as expenditure on the constituents of the traditional Victorian-style Christmas has declined rapidly in the festive season over recent decades, there has been increased emphasis among all social classes on modern convenience food and ready meals.

Keywords:

• social class
• Christmas
• feasting
• food
• identity
• national food survey
• quantitative analysis