Original subtitles

Here in the UK, we spend more than £1.7 billion

on greeting cards every year.

That's more than any other country in the world.

Look at that one.

Ah. I like that.

BELLS JINGLING

But there's one time of year when we go really mad for greetings.

Christmas!

We Brits love it.

Sending a whopping 900 million Christmas cards a year.

So I hope you're feeling festive because we've come to a factory

that goes large on cards at Christmas.

Producing five million of them in just seven weeks.

I'm Gregg Wallace...

..and I'm finding out how a plain sheet of paper...

What do you reckon?

It's an interesting interpretation.

..is transformed by sumptuous inks...

That is fabulous!

..and a dollop of Christmas glitz.

Is this the same sort of foil that we wrap our turkey in?

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

I'm Cherry Healey, and I'm going to be making a turkey

that isn't a turkey.

And historian Ruth Goodman is unwrapping the story

of when Christmas was cancelled.

It sounds like the start of a riot.

The 130 staff have a real gift for making greeting cards.

And I'm going to reveal just how they do it.

Welcome to Inside The Factory.

This is the Woodmansterne Card Factory in Watford, Hertfordshire.

It's one of the largest greeting card companies in the UK.

A family business sending out 35 million cards a year

for everything from birthdays and engagements

to Mother's Day and Valentine's.

But I'm following production of one of their best selling Christmas cards -

the red stag.

And should I point out, it's still only July.

So, to find out why I'm getting into the Christmas spirit

in the middle of summer, I'm heading to the intake area

to meet managing director Seth Woodmansterne...

Seth. You all right, Gregg?

Hello, sir.

..whose family have been making cards for three generations.

I didn't expect a big truck.

I suppose cos Christmas cards are so little.

What's on there?

This is paper.

Can I have a look? Yeah.

Is it all for you?

Yeah. 40 pallets or so.

Wow. How much paper on there?

5,000 sheets on each pallet.

So that's 200,000 sheets.

Seriously? Yeah.

So how many Christmas cards does that make?

Just over 1.2 million.

Wow.

So is that your lot? Is that your delivery for the year?

No, we get one of these trucks about every two or three weeks.

But we're in mid-July.

We start shipping into retailers in July,

and they start going out on display in September.

It's fair to say inside your factory it's always Christmas.

Yeah, pretty much.

Right, wonderful.

Should we get it off, get it unloaded?

That's a groovy forklift.

I have never seen a forklift that pivots like that.

This huge delivery was produced in a paper mill in northern Italy.

Because as well as making the best pasta,

apparently they make pretty good paper, too.

There we go. So, what am I looking for here?

This is a beautifully soft, textured board.

Board is thick paper.

The board is less than half a millimetre thick,

but that's still more than four times the thickness of the paper

I put in my printer at home.

I suppose it has to be that thick, otherwise it wouldn't stand up

as a Christmas card on our cabinet, would it?

Yeah, you want it looking strong and stable.

Yeah, a bit like me.

And like all the best quality paper, it starts life as wood pulp.

I've got to ask you, though, right, any paper or board

comes from a tree... Yeah.

..is there a green issue here?

We're very conscious of that.

So this comes from a certified sustainable forest.

So, for every tree that they cut down,

they're planting and growing more.

And we're moving to 100% recycled.

In the future, the board will be made from pulped waste paper

from industry, as well as from household recycling.

What's next? Well, you need a design for your card,

so off to the design studio to see Amy.

That way? Yeah. Thank you, sir.

As the forklift gets to work... HORN BEEPS

..the countdown for my card production begins.

It'll take an hour to unload 200,000 sheets of board

into three-metre-high stacks in the storage area.

So I'm off to get some tips on Christmassy designs

from Amy Eastland, who created our red stag card.

Hello. Hi, Gregg.

You've got mistletoe on the Christmas tree.

Did you put that up cos I was coming?

No, we design Christmas in spring and summer,

so need to make ourselves feel Christmassy and in the mood.

A couple of mince pies and a glass of sherry.

That would help, wouldn't it?

Can you show me the Christmas card that we're going to be doing?

Sure. So, this is the design.

That's a beautiful card. That is classic.

What inspired that?

There are certain themes and subject matter that sell traditionally well.

Deers are one of those timeless classic.

Year on year, robins, snowy scenes.

We draw on all of our experience.

You know, colours, rich reds sell fantastically well for Christmas.

I wonder why we think of deer as Christmas?

Well, you've got reindeer and Santa.

Quite frankly, I favour a tubby Santa.

That would be... No tubby Santas today, unfortunately.

I've started doing some of the artwork.

Where possible, I do as much by hand

to bring that really nice sort of traditional quality.

You're a serious artist.

That's kind of you.

I've never, ever considered how my Christmas cards were made.

I never, ever thought there might be an Amy here drawing them.

Absolutely. We've got a full studio of artists here.

Three-quarters of the Christmas cards produced here

begin as hand drawn or painted designs,

and it can take up to a month to perfect one.

For my card, Amy picked out the colours and decoration,

but started with a detailed pencil sketch.

I've been doing my own drawings for this design,

but would you like to have a go yourself?

No. No? No, I'm rubbish.

Honestly, I'm rubbish.

For someone with no skill at all,

what would you suggest to start with?

Well, you can use my starting point here.

Amy, get out of here!

Like, OK, so I don't draw, and you want me to do that?

Your own version of that.

And how about I carry on with mine?

Oh, yeah, I can see that's really coming together.

They print 500 Christmas designs every year,

and I think this beauty could be the next best seller.

What do you reckon?

It's an interesting interpretation.

There you go, not dissimilar in many ways.

Absolutely. Just my one looks like it's been at the sherry.

Well, it is Christmas, after all.

But you're not painting every single card that goes out, right,

so what happens to it from here?

So we paint and draw our elements by hand,

and once we're happy with it, all of the artwork I will scan in

and it becomes a digital design.

And here's my design on screen.

So, once I'm completely happy with that, it's been signed off,

it will then be sent digitally to plate making.

Amy's stag is even more handsome than Rudolph!

Thank you, Amy. Thank you.

You're an artist, that was fantastic, thank you.

And her digital design all began with a classic pencil drawing.

Now, that is some proper Christmas craftsmanship.

I always get a warm and fuzzy feeling during the festive season,

but there is one factory that gets to experience that sensation

all year round.

Cherry is going on a bear hunt.

I've come down to a factory today in search of a very old friend.

When I was nine, I was given an amazing teddy bear for Christmas

who was the love of my life,

and I always wondered how he was made.

Well, today I'm going to find out.

I can BEAR-ly wait.

Teddies have long been a favourite Christmas stocking filler,

and this factory in Shropshire has been making traditional bears

for more than 90 years.

In fact, it produces 13,000 cuddly friends every year.

But today we're making a brand-new Christmas bear.

And I'm starting in the snuggliest storeroom I have ever seen...

Hi, Sarah, merry Christmas. Thank you.

..with director Sarah Holmes, the great granddaughter

of the company's founder, and an expert in all things cuddly.

Here you can see a lovely white plush that we will be using

to make our Christmas teddy bear.

So, what is this actually made of?

So this is a natural wool.

It's actually goat wool on a cotton base.

It's very hard wearing.

So it's cuddle proof.

Absolutely.

In the stock room, there are more than 5,000 metres

of this fluffy material called plush.

Enough to make 20,000 teddies.

The wool on this roll is shorn from Angora goats,

and is better known as mohair.

Are we in?

Its strength and softness make it ideal for toys

that get a lot of loving.

Got a delivery for you.

Lovely.

It takes a quarter of a metre of plush

to make my ten-inch-tall Christmas bear.

And like all the teds here, he's formed from 21 pieces.

Ian cuts the plush using sharp metal shapes...

Like a cookie cutter.

..and a hydraulic press, which does the job quickly and neatly.

I'm in charge of cutting out the head.

And at £80 a metre, it's vital that nothing is wasted.

Three, two, one, press.

Ooh.

I did it. Yeah.

And that's the bear's head?

And that's your bear's head.

With all my pieces cut, it's time to stitch them together.

Lisa, I love how festive you are.

Look at this.

I hear that you can turn this into a bear.

I'll try my best for you.

Lisa starts by sewing each piece inside out,

so the seam doesn't show when it's turned fluffy side out.

Oh, sweet. Oh, you've just made a little leg.

And in no time, we've got six plush pieces -

two legs, two arms, a body, and a head.

Do I have my finished bear? You have your finished bear.

This special bear also has decorative velvet paw pads

embroidered with delicate festive flowers.

And next, it's Sandra's responsibility

to put a twinkle in his eye.

Then we get the eye, and push it up through that hole.

OK. And get your washer.

Line it up. Yeah.

The safety washers hold the eyes firmly in place.

And push it right down.

Slightly scary.

CHUCKLING

All right. There he is.

Oh, look. Oh, he's sweet!

But he definitely needs some Christmas stuffing.

What an amazing machine.

His squidginess comes from recycled plastic bottles, melted down

and spun into fibres just as soft as traditional wool stuffing.

STEAM OF AIR, SHE GASPS

It comes out at 100mph!

Push it right down to the bottom.

That's it. Hold it on there.

I've got more on me than I have in the leg.

LAUGHING

Ah!

Each bear gets 125g of stuffing.

Too soft and he won't sit up.

Too much, he won't be cuddly.

And that just won't do.

Now he needs a bit of inner support,

so his legs and arms are joined to his body,

forming movable hips and shoulders.

Oh, I see, you're making the joints. Like a skeleton.

The earliest teddies had joints made of string,

but in 1905 that was replaced by more durable metal disc joints

which give my bear movement.

So it's fully articulated. I see.

So he can sit down, stand up,

kick his leg, have a run around.

And to see if he's happy with his new-found flexibility,

I'm taking my teddy to meet Terry.

So, you hand sew the nose and the mouth on?

Yeah, we do. Do you ever sew a grumpy bear by mistake?

Definitely.

Terry judges the number of stitches needed to create

each bear's perfect black nose.

You happy with the nose? Mm-hm.

But will my Christmas ted crack a smile?

Every bear has his own character.

Is he done?

Oh, he's so amazing.

Look at him.

Full of the joys of Christmas.

All he needs now is a fancy Christmas outfit.

For that, he needs to go and see my mum.

That's your mum? Yeah, and that's my daughter.

That's your daughter!

It's a real family affair.

Terry's mum, Denise, sews the bears' intricately embroidered fur

and cotton coats.

Can I steal one of these? You can.

Look how cute. That's the sweetest thing I've ever seen.

Thank you. Very Christmassy.

And my ted is getting spruced up by Samantha,

ready for his Christmas party.

People love buying bears for Christmas. Yes.

Why do you think that is?

Because it's something they can keep.

A bear is not just for Christmas, it's a gift for life.

Of course, of course.

Finally, I have the honour of dressing my ted in his red coat.

The first of the new bears off the production line.

Look at that.

Oh.

That's so Christmassy, and festive, and cosy.

That is a beautiful bear.

Thank you very much. That's OK.

250 of these festive bears will soon be on their way to new homes.

I can only imagine the sheer excitement of the lucky person

that gets to unwrap this on Christmas Day.

Back at the factory,

and it's two hours since my Italian paper arrived.

I've seen how my Christmas card was created by Amy...

That is classic.

..and she's uploaded it as a digital design,

which is now winging its way to plate making,

where I'm meeting product development coordinator Russell Davies.

Hello. Gregg, hi. Can I say, you're a good looking fella.

It's like looking in the mirror.

I was thinking the same thing, Gregg.

What is a plate?

So, Gregg, this is a printing plate,

which is a sheet of aluminium with a light sensitive coating on.

I'll load that up into this machine here,

and this will etch Amy's image onto this plate.

So, what is happening in there?

In here is a big drum that the plate will wrap around.

The drum spins at around 2,000 revs a minute,

and there's a bank of lasers that will move along as it's spinning,

and that etches away what we don't need,

and we'll leave what we do need to print Amy's design.

Why don't you go straight from the image onto the cards?

Why make a plate first?

Because that's what we need to transfer the ink onto the paper.

The ink will stick to this plate,

and then we'll transfer to the paper.

The plate measures exactly 745 by 605 millimetres

and is just a third of a millimetre thick.

Inside the machine, a bank of lasers fires infrared light beams

at the plate, melting away areas of its light sensitive metal coating.

It leaves behind a raised surface.

Amazingly, just one 25th as thick as a human hair.

This will be used to press ink onto a board

to produce the stag image on my card.

Here she comes.

Antlers and all.

So the blue bits are more raised than the white bits? Yeah.

Can I touch that? Yes. Yeah, of course you can.

Is it the blue bits here that are going to leave the ink

or the white bits that are going to leave the ink?

The ink will stick to the blue bits,

and then that will transfer onto the paper.

To print its 35 million cards a year,

the factory gets through a staggering 15,000 plates,

and they're all recycled.

To print my stag design, we need four of them,

each slightly different for each of the four ink colours.

This plate, if this was a stamp...

Yep. ..we would have just the bits carved out that needed the yellow.

Yep. Exactly.

And then we'd have bits that were raised to do the red.

And the cyan and the black.

Am I getting this right? That's exactly it.

These plates just will overlap one on top of the other on the card.

So if I was going to try and carve this, like potato printing,

I'd need four separate potatoes,

and each one would go in a different coloured ink.

Exactly.

Hey, I'm beginning to understand this. You've got it.

I'm beginning to understand it.

Despite all the high-tech machinery, it's basically the same principle

that it's ever been. But don't tell anybody.

Mate, we got there.

Merry Christmas. And to you.

So, where do I take this now?

You need to go and see Rod on the press,

who will use these to print Amy's card.

Right. From the plates.

Got the plates, over to the press. Exactly.

So, with my perfectly etched plates in hand...

Wahey! RUSSELL LAUGHS

..I'm delivering them to printing and press operator Rod Clark.

Rod? Hello, Gregg.

I think that's for you.

Rod, this is massive.

I mean, this is proper industrial, heavy-duty.

This is the Rolls-Royce of printing presses.

This monster of a machine is over eight metres long

and three metres tall.

It weighs 23 tonnes, nearly as much as two double decker buses.

And it can print ten cards a second.

Which is going to keep the postmen busy.

Are you going to take me through how it works?

First of all, we have four colours which make up the whole image on the card.

So you have a black, a magenta, which is the red,

the cyan, which is the blue, and the yellow.

Those colours will give you an infinite blend for the card.

My printer in my little office at home,

that's got a black ink cartridge,

and then it's got another cartridge with some colours.

Is that the same colours?

In principle, they're the same colour.

But those colours together, they can produce a mixture

of any colours you like, really. Any colour you like.

The sheets go through the entire machine,

starts off blank and comes out with a finished image.

This process is called CMYK printing

and is used in presses worldwide.

Combining just these four colours

can produce an almost unlimited number of shades,

depending on how much of each colour is used.

What's the first job? The first job we've got to do

is put all the printing plates on,

and you tuck it into the machine there.

I'll go round the other side and help you out.

Slot it in between there.

With a bit of skill,

you can line it up. You've got it.

Now push the second from bottom button on the left-hand side.

The plate now winds itself in and clamps in the back of the machine.

We load up one plate for each of the four colours.

How do you know that plate's in there correctly?

There are little grooves where the plate aligns to.

That's in position, roughly, and tight as it needs to be.

What do you mean roughly? Is roughly enough?

No, roughly is not enough, but it can be moved from my console

to within one-hundredth of a millimetre.

You'll line that up on a computer screen?

Yes. A lot of it's down to computer,

but a lot of it still down to the skill of the human eye

getting everything in position, in the right place.

Plates in. Right, now what?

It's time to put the ink in. You're doing the yellow.

OK, I'm ready. Up you get.

OK. Grab the pallet knife.

Stick it into the yellow ink. Right.

And then scrape it along the top of that.

Like that? Yeah, that's fine.

The ink is made from coloured chemicals

mixed with a vegetable based oil,

and it takes around a kilo of ink to print a thousand sheets.

Perfect. Little bit more. Start again.

That is seri... Oh, it's turning, it's taking it in there.

Brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant.

It's making yellow stripes across the roller.

And one more lot down that end.

That is fabulous.

I'm so happy with that.

It's not unlike when I was cleaning windows with the squeegee.

It's not unlike that. OK, that's fine for the yellow.

Do it all again for the cyan.

You're going to let me do the blue as well? Absolutely.

I must have done a decent job.

The four colours are loaded onto separate rollers

at the top of each of the ink stations.

The colours will print in order onto my card.

First black, then magenta, cyan, and yellow.

Oh, I like the blue. What do you call it?

This is cyan. Cyan.

Here we go.

Spread it like jam across a piece of toast.

Blueberry jam, obviously!

Before we can print my cards, we need to run a test batch

to check that each colour prints to the hundredth of a millimetre

precision that Rod's looking for.

Come on.

I'm as excited as I am on, like, Christmas Day opening presents.

Every day is Christmas Day.

Bang on time, the textured Italian board arrives from storage,

and we're ready for printing.

Push the green button on the top and wait a few seconds

as the sheets get delivered it.

Each sheet is sucked up and placed into the feeder,

which sends them into the press.

A conveyor carries the boards through the press,

and the sheets pass in turn under each of the ink stations.

Inside the stations, a series of interlocking rollers

controls the flow of ink from the striped channels on the top roller

onto the printing plate below, which is clamped around

a larger metal cylinder.

As the plate turns, the ink is transferred

onto a blue rubber roller called a blanket.

Then, as the blanket turns, it prints the ink

onto the board passing below

As the board moves through the press, the four ink colours

build up on the card layer by layer,

producing the different shades needed to create

the image of my stag.

And as my test batch emerges at the other end,

will it meet Rod's sky-high standards?

That's good. That's pretty good.

So we need to look at the colour and compare it with what Amy gave us

as an earlier sample.

Mate, it's a beautiful copy.

It's just a little bit too crimson.

So I think if we make a slight adjustment to that,

a little bit more yellow in there,

that'll bring it up exactly to what they want.

Listen, I know that you are looking at this with an expert eye

for colour, but for me, it looks like a perfect match.

It's very close, but it's not quite perfect.

All these colours are telling me that it's on the correct densities,

except for the yellow.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I got you.

On the yellow there, we've got two red ones come up.

If it's yellow or green, it's OK.

If it's red, it needs a slight adjustment.

The computer measures the density of each colour

and tells Rod when to add more.

Blue By Eiffel 65

He controls how much yellow feeds into the press

by sending more ink through the stripe channels on the top roller.

It looks to me a little bit like a music mixing desk.

Have you ever done parties?

No, but this is the closest I'll ever be to being a DJ,

so this is where I play my tunes.

Mate,

no-one looks at Christmas cards the way you do.

You do realise that, don't you? It's a fine art.

Right, that's the adjustments done.

We're going to run another 100 sheets out with increased yellow

and we should get the card in the exact colour we want.

Rod must complete these checks for every batch of cards

because no two print runs are the same.

Air temperature and humidity affect the moisture content of the board

and the thickness of the ink,

which changes how much ink Rod needs to use.

Will he be happy this time?

Everything's good. We're ready to print.

Brilliant. Brilliant. And how many are we going to run?

10,000. How long will that take?

If we're running at 6,000 an hour, that'll be about an hour and a half.

I'm really impressed that you go to so much trouble

to get it absolutely right. Very impressed.

I'll leave you with your colours. Good luck.

Once my batch of 10,000 cards are printed,

they're left to dry for 24 hours.

Just enough time to draw up a list of who to send them to.

Many of our Christmas traditions like decorations, crackers,

and of course Christmas cards, started with the Victorians.

But what did they do for presents?

Ruth's taken to the streets of London to find out.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

By the end of the 19th century,

wealthy Victorians had really embraced Christmas shopping.

Having once merely exchanged fruit and home-made trinkets,

the fashion for buying Christmas gifts took off,

and the grand stores of the West End designed elaborate displays

to attract well-to-do shoppers.

But if you weren't so well-off and still wanted to buy presents

for the family, all you had to do was head east,

to the area around St Paul's Cathedral,

and you would have found the streets packed out with Christmas traders,

known as gutter merchants.

These street hawkers were cashing in

on the arrival of the first factory-made, mass-produced toys,

selling them for the same price as a postage stamp.

Penny toys! Penny toys! Get your penny toys!

In late Victorian and Edwardian London,

millions of tin plate toys were sold on the streets.

Penny toys! Penny toys!

They weren't built to last,

but luckily, tucked away in the basement of the Museum of London

is a unique collection that has survived.

And as a Christmas treat,

I've been granted special access to the toy box...

Hello. Hello. Welcome, Ruth.

..by curator Beverley Cook.

This is what we refer to as the King Collection.

This is a collection of about 1,500 toys

that were collected by one man, called Ernest King,

between 1893 and 1918.

Gosh, it's so varied.

I mean, I can see all sorts of things.

This is quite sophisticated for a penny's worth. Yeah.

These were very much factory-made items,

and they were really a reflection of technological change

in the late 19th, early 20th century.

In comparison to the simple, home-made stuff

that must have come before, this is quite a change, isn't it?

Exactly.

The use of tin plate, as well, was really important.

It's very malleable.

The majority of these were made in Nuremberg.

German factories were the first to master the art

of mass-producing toys cheaply, using a mechanical press

to quickly stamp out shapes from a sheet of steel plated with tin.

The template was easy to solder and form the precise 3D shapes.

You see, this one, for example, it's got, like, a seam

down the centre. Yeah.

You can see that each half started as a flat plate, was shaped,

and then popped together.

Exactly.

The toys were imported into the docks in the East End of London.

The gutter merchants bought them in batches from warehouses,

and made a 50% profit when they sold the toys on the street for a penny -

the equivalent of 50p today.

And one of the reasons they were called gutter merchants

is because they had to stand in the gutter.

Because if they stood on the pavement,

they could be arrested for obstruction.

Yes, of course.

Not organised stalls, this is just anybody who can get in there

with a basket and a stool to balance it on. Exactly.

The most sought after penny toys were the ones with moving parts.

That is so cute! You can wind up the bucket, so it actually moves.

Yes, a lot of these actually are what they refer to

as mechanical toys. One like this, which was the butterfly boy,

you can see that there's a little lever which would open

the little box.

An extra joy for a child on Christmas Day, opening this

to find a little candy or a little surprise inside.

By 1911, German factories were exporting over 5,000 tonnes

of toys to the UK, its biggest market,

and their designs were targeted at London buyers.

I love this tray because it represents to me

what London would have been like at the time.

Here you have the motorised bus.

For a German made toy,

that is absolutely a quintessentially British design.

Well, they knew what the market was,

and they often produced things specifically for the export market.

So this one, for example, is a City of London Police Ambulance.

This has become a global toy industry.

Absolutely.

And the designs kept up with the times.

Even the advent of powered flight

was rapidly reproduced by manufacturers.

Oh, I love the propeller turns. The propeller, yeah.

So despite the variety, everything here was a penny.

Bit like going to the pound shop today.

For some kids, it would have been a stocking filler. Yeah.

But for others, it would have been literally...

The only thing they got. ..the only toy they got for Christmas.

It is a lovely thing, isn't it?

You know, there's two little clowns passing a ball back and forth on it.

It's bright, it's colourful.

If you live in grim poverty, come Christmas, it is a little bit

of fun and joy and very affordable.

They're magical today, but if you can imagine how magical

they must have been for children in the early 20th century.

Back in Watford, we're one day, three hours and 45 minutes

into production. After laser-etching metal plates...

Here she comes.

Antlers and all.

..and inking up the mother of all printers...

Spread it like jam across a piece of toast.

..10,000 of my red stag cards have been printed and dried,

and now they're ready for a bit of glam and glitz.

So I'm meeting Bob, the man with the golden touch.

Bob. Hello, Greg.

He's responsible for making my card shinier than Rudolph's nose.

So, Bob, can you show me how the foil gets onto my card, please?

Yes. So what we've got in front of us here is a heated plate

with six dyes, this being the card you're following.

The raised parts are the parts that we've printed in gold.

Like a printing plate, this foiling dye also has a raised surface.

It's designed to apply shiny foil to specific areas of the card,

using a combination of heat and pressure.

Right, I can see it because it's got the leaf,

it's got "Merry Christmas," and it's got the moon.

Don't get too close, because this plate is very hot,

and if you touch anything, you'll burn yourself.

Actually, it feels like a stove. You could fry an egg on it.

And I bet I could roast my chestnuts on there, too.

So are you going to show me the mechanics?

Yes. First, we have to put the plate back into the machine.

On this heated plate, the metal dyes reach a blistering 135 degrees.

Right, now the plate is in and heating up,

we need to change one of the reels of foil on the back of the machine,

because it's getting quite low.

Sure. Come with me. Sure.

So this is the foil station.

It's where we attach all the reels of foil.

Is this the same sort of foil that we'd wrap our turkey in?

The top layer is, although it's much thinner, and underneath is adhesive

to make sure it sticks to the paper. But all in all, it is.

But if we tried to wrap this round our turkey,

we'd end up with a bright gold turkey. You would.

These glamorous rolls are made of very thin aluminium foil,

a bit posher than the foil in my kitchen

because it's less than a hundredth of a millimetre thick

and covered with a layer of gold lacquer.

Would you like to put that on? Yep, sure. Sure.

It goes on the other way. Turn it round.

And then the spring and then the collar.

Oh, lots of stuff. Lots of stuff.

We push this in for tension and lock it up.

And the simplest part is just...

You don't pull it together with Sellotape?

..just like that. Seriously? Seriously.

All the tech in here, and you stick it together with Sellotape?

We do. Yes.

Joining those rolls is a nifty bit of Christmas wrapping.

Inside the machine, the dyes are now hot enough to melt the glue

on the back of the foil and stick it to the card.

OK, so we have the sheets up this end.

They're fed through on a conveyor, and the machine comes up and stamps

the foil into the board with a pressure of seven metric tonnes.

Why so much pressure?

It basically pushes the foil into the card.

Ah. That's why we need it so hot,

and that's why we need the pressure so much.

It's not just so much ironing it on, it's pressing it in.

It's stamping it in.

Seven metric tonnes is probably the weight of a large elephant,

so if you imagine a large elephant stamping down,

that's the type of pressure we've got on this machine.

There's the hot dye, there's the balls,

falling in between, and a great big old elephant's foot.

How much foil do you use?

Two million metres a year?

It's enough if you stretched it from this company, it would reach Italy.

How fast are you doing it?

We are running at this very moment at 2,500 sheets an hour.

So 2,500 of my Christmas cards every hour, now gleaming like gold. Yeah.

That's your card.

Got a nice gold finish on it, and it enhances the card quite well.

It does change the look of the card completely. It certainly does.

Completely. I'm feeling a certain sense of pride over this.

Thank you, Bob.

I might borrow a bit of Bob's foil before I leave.

I fancy a 24-carat roast this year.

Apart from cards and presents,

many of us celebrate the season with a big Christmas meal.

But this year, a third of Us Brits are looking for an alternative

to the traditional turkey.

So Cherry is in search of the perfect recipe

for a plant-based festive dinner.

This year, I'd love to try making a vegan Christmas feast.

The problem is my boyfriend Carl is a confirmed carnivore,

so I'm going to need a lot of help to turn the tables on him.

It's estimated that there are more than 1.5 million vegans in the UK,

and I've invited chef Matt Burgess, a big fan of plant-based cooking...

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Come in.

..to show me how to cook a fun Christmas dinner

with no meat or dairy.

I'm going to create something that looks like a turkey.

I can totally appreciate that, for some vegans,

recreating that meaty flavour and the meaty visual

isn't something they want to do.

No, but tonight we're not cooking for vegans.

We're cooking for carnivore Carl.

And here's what's on the menu -

A roast fake turkey stuffed with veggie sausage meat

and served with all the vegan trimmings.

We're making the turkey from a savoury dough called seitan.

To start, we're whizzing up a paste from chickpeas and tofu,

both great sources of protein,

plus vegetable stock, tahini sesame paste,

and - this is a new one on me - nutritional yeast powder.

It's going to give us a real, wonderful umami flavour.

What's umami ?

Umami is sweet, salty, spicy.

It's that flavour of meat that you just taste and you go, "Mm."

It's "Mm" in a tin. It's "Mm" in a tin.

We add even more flavour with soy sauce, salt, onion, and garlic.

Time to blend.

Go!

All these ingredients are available in bigger supermarkets,

but this doesn't look much like a turkey to me.

Not yet, because this is where the actual texture comes in, OK? OK.

We're going to make a bit of a dough.

I'm going to add vital wheat gluten.

I see it's really thickening up. It's almost turning a bit fibrous.

What is that vital wheat gluten?

So most flours contain between 9% and 13% protein.

This is 90% protein.

OK. So what meat is is pure protein.

Yes. So that's what we're recreating here.

You can find vital wheat gluten in health food shops or online.

And to give our seitan dough a meaty texture, we chill it in the fridge

for an hour to let the gluten relax and then set firm.

We now want to fashion the body.

We're moulding the dough around veggie sausages

for extra flavour.

And of course, for a turkey lookalike,

we'll need wings and drumsticks.

Look at that.

That's a daddy fake turkey.

The cooking is a two-stage process - steaming then roasting.

First, all our turkey pieces are wrapped in clingfilm and foil

and steamed...

Have a lovely bath.

..so they cook through whilst keeping moist.

I'm so excited to see what this is going to look like.

Oh, gosh. Now you see that the colour it's come out...

It's really changed. It's really a lovely brown colour.

Yeah.

Next, we assemble the pieces in a roasting tin.

Could be a turkey. Not quite there, needs a little zhizzing.

And just like a traditional Christmas dinner,

we're cooking all the trimmings, including pigs in blankets.

But these are veggie sausages and veggie bacon made from soy.

Kind of smells smoky like bacon. Yeah, it's really smoky.

We add some red onions and rosemary,

and to give the skin a burst of flavour,

Matt has brought along a special ingredient.

What is that?

We've got some ketjap manis, which is Indonesian ketchup,

what we like to say, or sweet soy sauce.

Ketjap?

We just want to paint it.

So that sweetness is going to give that lovely, crispy texture?

Finally, we sprinkle on pepper and plant-based margarine.

Why do you need to add so much fat at this stage?

Because there's no natural fats in there, and fat is flavour.

To give it a crispy skin, we're roasting our fake turkey

uncovered for 40 minutes in a medium oven.

Wave goodbye to the fake turkey.

Bye, furkey! Bye! Enjoy!

While it's roasting, there's time to whip up a quick gravy

from vegan gravy granules, onions, and red wine.

And now our plant-based Christmas dinner is ready to serve.

You ready for something real special?

But will the taste win over Carl...

I'll just show you to your seat.

..the Christmas carnival?

Thank you.

Oh, yeah! It's looking perfect.

Oh, my gosh. Oh!

That smells amazing.

That just is incredible.

That smells exactly like a roast turkey.

Enhances everything.

It's the moment of truth.

I would definitely consider eating it for Christmas.

Oh, God, that's amazing.

Can you describe the flavours to me?

I think the drumsticks, actually, the flavour is very tasteful.

It has a very meaty type of flavour.

Texture isn't quite as great, but the flavour of it has that...

What's it called? Umami Type thing. Mm! We did it!

I'm going to say there was quite some effort to get that.

Mm.

It does have a lot of the same flavours as meat.

Oh, Matt, I'm going to say that is an absolute win.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

There are so many other vegan alternatives to try

if you don't fancy a meat substitute,

but this year, I think our fake turkey has won Carl over.

Back at the Christmas card factory,

we're one day, seven hours and 45 minutes into production.

10,000 of my red stag cards have been printed,

and are sparkling with their foil embellishment.

I'm feeling a certain sense of pride over this.

Now I'm heading to cutting to meet Dave,

who looks after the guillotine, and I want a slice of the action.

Sorry. Is this the guillotine?

This is the guillotine, yes.

It wasn't what I imagined.

And what did you imagine?

Well, I thought a big blade with a lever.

You're nearly there.

Hang on a moment. How many cards are there there?

Usually round about 200 to 250 sheets.

And the blade cuts through that no problem?

Blade will cut that through like butter.

And what sort of pressure and how sharp is the blade to cut through?

The pressure is 65 bars.

Does that mean anything?

When you do your gardening next, stand in front of the hose?

That's one bar.

Imagine 65 of them.

That'll knock you over.

And that's what that is? That's what's pushing that blade down.

And the blade has a tungsten tip. Very, very sharp.

Stays very, very sharp.

Tungsten is twice as hard as steel,

so it makes blades with a super sharp cutting edge.

It takes less than a second to carve through a 10cm stack of 250 sheets.

But my batch of 10,000 will take eight hours to cut into cards.

That looks incredibly dangerous to me.

There are so many safety factors built into this machine,

it is remarkably safe, and the only way to get the blade down

is by pushing these two buttons simultaneously,

which will then bring the blade down. Ah.

Whoa, OK.

Hang on. What if you're doing the three buttons,

but somebody else leans in?

Somebody else leans in, you have these infrared detectors here.

So if somebody breaks this beam, it will stop in milliseconds.

Pressing go now.

I've learned my safety lessons well,

so now it's time for the student to become the master. Obi-Wan!

You look like a man who can handle a big chopper.

Oh, I would love a go.

That looks big and meaty and scary, and I would love a go.

All I want you to do is stand there, put your foot on the pedal.

OK, foot on the pedal.

And that's clamping it? That's holding it in place.

And then... Both at the same time.

Thumb's on the button.

Whoa. Whoa!

Well done.

Release. And step back.

Just check the fingers.

Eight, nine, ten.

Now, I don't know why that's nervy.

I think it's because you can feel the power of the machine.

It is powerful, isn't it?

Despite the fear of losing my thumbs,

the terror of the guillotine was worth it.

And here we have your card.

I really like this. I think that's quite special.

This is the first time it's turned into a Christmas card.

It's a lovely card. And I'm actually going to

keep that one for my wife for Christmas? Yes. I am. Thank you.

So what happens to it now? That will go to our finishing department

when it leaves here?

That was ridiculously exhilarating for a simple thing

like a Christmas card.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

And Dave, may the Christmas force be with you.

I think Mrs Wallace will be very happy with my card,

but unlike her, it still needs a bit of extra bling.

But that doesn't happen here at the factory in Watford.

My cards are packed up to be shipped off for final finishing

at the distribution centre 45 minutes away in Milton Keynes...

..where I'll meet up with them again.

Christmas is a time when people come together,

so it was hard when we all had to tone down our plans in 2020.

But what would happen if Christmas was cancelled altogether?

Ruth's been investigating a 17th century festive fallout.

For me, some of the best bits of Christmas are the rituals,

like stirring a sixpence into the plum pudding

and hanging up the festive greenery.

But all of these holiday traditions were stopped in 1647

when Parliament banned Christmas.

After five years of civil war, the king, Charles I, was in prison,

and Puritans led by Oliver Cromwell banned all Christmas festivities,

clamping down hard in cities like Canterbury in Kent,

where I'm meeting Dr Matthew Green.

Hello! Hi, Ruth.

So exactly who were these Puritans,

and why on earth would they want to ban Christmas?

Well, the Puritans were zealous hot Protestants who thought England

remained too Catholic, too infested with these terrible kind of rituals

that they thought had no place amongst the true religion.

That sounds really strange, doesn't it?

Indeed. Christmas was always looked at with suspicion because things

like the plum pudding were not scripturally justified.

They were absolutely passionate

about ruining everyone's fun at Christmas,

taking down the holly, the ivy, the bows, everything else,

and just making sure it was a normal working day.

The job of ensuring that shops and market stalls remained open

on Christmas Day fell to the Puritan mayor of Canterbury.

So on Christmas morning, 1647, we can imagine the mayor

walking through streets and alleys like this,

just checking that people are up and manning their stalls.

But the market traders had other ideas.

To his horror, hardly any stalls were open, so he was in the mood

for confrontation and he just started, like,

screaming and shouting, and ordering people to open up.

But meanwhile, the citizens of Canterbury were advancing,

furious at this imposition.

Who was this lofty man to tell them not to celebrate their Christmas?

And it all came to a head in the market square.

So while the mayor is trying to get these shops to open,

the crowd itself is doing the opposite,

slamming down the shutters and actually getting in

and picking up the wares, the textiles and the spices

and tossing them up through the air.

So it sounds like the start of a riot.

It was. Very much so.

Events took an even more raucous turn when the townspeople

started playing football, but not the game we know today

with its rules and regulations.

There was no pitch as such.

It just raged up and down the streets and the alleyways.

It's unclear how you even scored a goal.

The authorities tried to control the situation,

but soon came up against an angry mob.

The lord mayor seizes some of the rioters and drags them

to this stark leaden jail.

But the rioters are having none of it.

They release all the other prisoners.

The town is set aflame in insurrection,

and the cry of conquest ricochets from all the buildings

in the centre of town.

Although the rioters end up in control of the city,

miraculously, no-one was actually killed,

although a lot of people were horribly maimed and injured.

And so news of this is travelling right across the country?

Exactly, and it went on to become known as the Plum Pudding Riots,

plum puddings being an emblem of Christmas.

The Canterbury riots led to an uprising across Kent

in support of the king, but it was quickly quashed by the Puritans,

and festivities, including Christmas church services, remained banned

for 12 years, until finally, the restoration of the monarchy

in 1660 meant you could enjoy a day off work, go to church,

and eat a cheeky mince pie.

Happy Christmas!

I'm one day and 15 hours into production of my batch

of 10,000 red stag Christmas cards.

At the factory, they've been foiled and guillotined,

and I already know where one of them is going.

And I'm actually going to keep that one for my wife for Christmas?

Now I'm 40 miles up the road

at the distribution centre in Milton Keynes

to see them finished off under the expert eye

of operations director Adam Osborne.

Hello, you must be Adam.

Hi, yes. Love that shirt. Very seasonal.

Thank you, Gregg. What is it that you do here?

Well, here is where we're adding the envelope to the card,

folding it, and putting the gems on the front.

You fold them by hand?

We have to for this card.

Because it's got gems on the front, it won't go through a machine.

So how are the gems getting onto the card?

Michaela here is putting them on by hand.

She has to have very good eyesight, and it's quite a fiddly job.

She's lifted them off of an acetate sheet, and they've self-adhesive.

She's got to look for a little tiny cross on the star

and get the gem on perfectly.

Is there any way I could have a go?

Because I've seen every single process in this Christmas card.

Could I have a go? Of course you can.

I think Michaela can show you where it needs to go.

Are you Michaela? Yes.

The gems are currently made from plastic,

so have to be removed before the card can be recycled,

but the company is researching a greener alternative.

Just take the gem from the foil and put in the middle of the star.

Not like this, like that.

What do you mean?

Always with the size. Ah!

Gem gurus like Michaela can bring sparkle to the cards

at a rate of 60 a minute.

I think I'm letting the side down.

You see these two stars? I see.

If it's on the middle, it's perfect.

Oh, my word! They're really small.

On the middle, exactly... No, not like that.

Should be exactly on the middle.

Yeah, it's not exactly in the middle.

I don't think I'm cut out for finishing,

but maybe packing is more my bag.

Adam, what's going on over here?

So I'm leaving the finishing elves to it and heading across the room.

This is where we put our smart seal on the card.

It holds the envelope and the card together so you don't end up

hunting for an envelope when it's in the shops.

Also stops the envelope from falling out,

and it's enabled us to not use plastic around the cards any more.

Cards used to come in a plastic sleeve. Do they not do that?

They used to come in plastic bags, yeah, but nowadays we don't do that.

This machine was originally designed to put the security labels

on CD cases.

It's a piece of kit the factory has cleverly adapted.

And this machine, what does this do?

Well, this is our banding machine.

It applies a paper band around a pack of six cards.

When these go to retailers, they'll go in packs of six,

and they go on the shelf.

The shopkeeper will take the band off, and then they're ready to sell.

You really are cutting down on plastic, aren't you?

Yeah. Between smart seal and banding, we save 55 tonnes

of plastic a year by doing this, rather than putting it in plastic.

Can I have a go at this? Of course you can.

Kristina'll show you what to do.

Kristina, would you show me how to do this? Yes.

Look, just do this. Is that it?

Stand back. OK. It's nothing dangerous.

I don't know. OK.

Whoa!

That's amazing. Can I do some more?

Yes. I've got to count six. One, two, three...

How do you count six so quickly?

It doesn't matter if they go this way up?

No.

I need to try something.

You must have done this when you came into work.

Yes, I might have. I knew you would! Everybody has to do that.

When I'm not distracting her,

Kristina can band an astonishing 9,000 cards an hour.

What happens to these now? Well, that goes in that box there.

We take that box down to picking.

To picking? To picking.

This giant greeting card grotto holds the factory's entire range

of cards, a gobsmacking nine million of them,

and that doubles in the run-up to the festive season.

OK, Gregg, your box of cards needs to go in there.

And now my batch of cards is taking its place...

There we are.

..on the Christmas shelf.

So do you send, like, a whole box of these out to the customer?

Might make a bit of a boring display if they're all the same.

Yeah! Yeah, of course.

If you went in a shop and they just had 100 cards of one type,

you'd be disappointed. Be a bit boring, wouldn't it?

So throughout the year, retailers can choose the greeting cards

they want for their shelves,

ordering a selection from 3,000 different designs.

Buying a card is a nice thing to buy.

It's a nice shopping experience, because you're every time,

virtually, buying something for somebody you like. Yeah.

Order done. Shall we get it on the van? Yeah, let's go.

One day and 19 and a half hours after starting production, the first

order for my red stag Christmas card is ready for dispatch.

That is a lorry full of very colourful Christmas cards.

It is indeed. Including mine.

Yep, yours is on there. Are they all Christmas cards?

They are on this lorry, yes. How many of them?

280,000 give or take.

280,000 season's greetings. Yep.

It's a nice feeling that someone's going to open a card

that I had a hand in making.

Yeah. I hope it makes them smile. Yeah, I'm sure it will.

Well done.

My Christmas cards could end up on shelves right across the UK,

from the Shetlands in the north to the Scillies in the south,

and the colourful seasonal greetings travel as far

as Australia and Singapore.

It may well be July,

but right now I am very much in the Christmas spirit.

And you know, what struck me is the incredible precision

that goes into making every part of these cards.

I'm in awe of the beautiful, handcrafted design.

You're a serious artist.

That's kind of you.

Love the printing.

Here we go.

On a massive scale.

And thankfully, I've kept all my fingers.

That looks big and meaty and scary, and I would love a go.

With specialist skills and a little bit of festive fun,

this factory turns a sheet of paper into a Christmas card

that will bring a little bit of joy to millions of us.

Happy Holidays.