In December 2001, Eastenders star Adam Woodyatt flung signed pictures of himself into the huge crowd awaiting the Christmas lights switch-on in Folkestone.

Seventy years earlier, a butchers shop in Ashford proudly displayed a selection of meat prepared for the town's festive market in 1931.

These snapshots are among dozens of classic pictures of Christmas celebrations in Kent taken throughout the decades which we have dug out of our archives...

1930s to 1950s

This picture from 1939 shows the impressively orderly scene at a Christmas party for poor children in Maidstone. The Kent Messenger organised the parties every year from 1891 until this final one. They were halted because of the threat of bombing after the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Luftwaffe's raids over Kent were relentless - even bombing houses in Kennington, in Ashford, three days before Christmas 1942.

Photographs from the 1950s suggest the festive period was a more formal affair in those days.

A picture from 1956 shows St Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Chatham packed for Midnight Mass.

The tradition of going to church on Christmas Day has fallen away in more modern times, with just 9% of people saying they intended to in a recent survey.

1960s

There would have been cause for celebration, no doubt, among some young men as Christmas approached in 1960.

On December 31 of that year, the last man was called up for National Service, as conscription ended.

As the decade ended in 1969, the Christmas number one went to Rolf Harris with his song Two Little Boys.

1970s

Prime Minister Ted Heath was in Kent for Christmas 1970, conducting a carol service in Broadstairs, where he grew up.

And he was back to do it all over again two years later.

With echoes of the disputes we are seeing this Christmas, the decade was disrupted by a series of strikes.

In 1973 rail workers, civil servants, firefighters and ambulance drivers all took industrial action at various points as inflation was rising.

In December of that year, Ted Heath announced a number of measures, including the Three-Day Work Order, which limited commercial consumption of electricity to three consecutive days each week.

1980s

The decade brought us Christmas classics such as Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas and Wham's Last Christmas - as well as Shakin' Stevens.

In 1986, the Eastenders Christmas special attracted the highest audience of all time for a TV drama - a record which stands to this day.

Incredibly, 30.15 million people - more than half the population - tuned in to see Dirty Den serve divorce papers on his wife Angie.

In November 1989 a flu epidemic struck, with more than one million people in the UK infected by Christmas Eve. Between 19,000 to 25,000 deaths in the UK were attributed to the disease. The outbreak led to an increase in the use of flu vaccinations.

1990s

By Christmas Day 1990, construction workers had drilled through the final wall of rock to join the two halves of the Channel Tunnel and link Britain to France.

The Spice Girls bagged the Christmas number one in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

The Early Noughties

The 1990s had Mr Blobby topping the charts and Martine McCutcheon at The Marlowe.

In the early Noughties we had Bob the Builder at number one and Ian Beale in town for Folkestone's Christmas lights switch-on.

Things have certainly changed over the decades when it comes to festivities in Kent.

But however you are celebrating Christmas this year, we hope you have a good one.