The 51st Ceremony of the Christmas Cheeses has been scheduled for Tuesday 7 December. The Dairy Council's annual ceremony heralds in the festive season with the celebration of great British cheeses and the deeds of the Chelsea Pensioners. The tradition dates all the way back to the 16th century, when Sir Christopher Wren, architect of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, asked local cheese makers to donate cheese to help sustain the pensioners over the Christmas period. In 1959, the Dairy Council organised the donations into a ceremony. Since then, the ceremony has gone from strength to strength, thanks to the generosity of British cheesemakers who donate around 200kg of cheese each year, keeping the pensioners going until around the first week in January.
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