Christmas is a time for giving, so it’s not surprising that the connection between coins and Christmas has a very long history.
Stir-up Sunday, this year on Sunday 20 November, is a lovely Christmas tradition that includes the whole family. The Royal Mint’s silver sixpence plays a very important part in this custom – it’s the day when Christmas puddings should be made in order to give them enough time to mature before Christmas, when every family member can take a turn at stirring the Christmas pudding mixture and make a wish. A Royal Mint silver sixpence is added to the pudding, and is said to bring luck and wealth to whoever finds the coin on their plate on Christmas day.
Families wanting to recreate this wonderful family tradition from their childhood can do so with The Royal Mint’s commemorative 2016 year-dated sixpence. Once upon a time, a sixpence from circulation would have been used, but now The Royal Mint has recreated a year-dated commemorative version of this special coin, enabling families to add a contemporary twist to this charming tradition. www.royalmint.com.
The tradition of Christmas Stockings also began with coins, and is said to have started with St. Nicholas, a 4th Century Greek saint who loved giving gifts to those less fortunate. Legend has it that he heard about a local nobleman who had lost both his wife and his money, and had moved into a peasant’s cottage with his three daughters. On spotting that the girls had hung their stockings to dry on the chimney ledge, St Nicolas decided to put a bag of silver coins into the stockings. Today’s Christmas Stockings are often filled with little gifts, and even today there will often be the gift of a coin in the toe.
A Royal Mint 2016 annual coin set could be the perfect Christmas Stocking gift to mark a memorable year, or why not entice young adventurers to join in the Great British Coin Hunt, seeking out coins from change to complete the empty spaces in their very own Coin Hunt or Beatrix Potter coin collector albums? www.royalmint.com.
Gold too is synonymous with Christmas – notably the mention of gold, frankincense and myrrh in the Christmas story. Royal Mint gold and silver bars and bullion coins are available from bullion-trading website www.royalmintbullion.com and could be the ideal gift for those who have everything – or the perfect present for young investors. A Royal Mint Refinery gold bullion bar, or a year-dated gold bullion Sovereign, or the elegant silver bullion Britannia are just some of the bullion products that could light up the eyes of a loved one this Christmas. www.royalmintbullion.com.
