Victorian Christmas Traditions

I recently had to give a five-minute presentation on a topic of my choice for a job interview.  I thought I'd let you all read my presentation below as I think that the topic is of interest to all.  Happy reading!

The Victorian era holds special fascination for me because it is often thought of as a time so different and old-fashioned from our own that there is nothing to relate to.  However, when I look at the Victorian era I see so many similarities.  I would like to explore one of these similarities today – specifically that of Victorian Christmas traditions that we still practice today.

One of the most enduring Christmas traditions to come out of the Victorian era is the Christmas tree.  Setting up Christmas trees in one’s home and decorating them was a German tradition.  When Queen Victoria married the German Prince Albert, one way for the royal couple to make Albert feel at home in Britain was to adopt some of his traditions, one of them being to set up a tree in Buckingham Palace at Christmas time.  In 1848 the Illustrated London News published an image of the Royal couple around their tree with their children.  Because Victoria was the equivalent to a modern movie star in her ability set trends and to make the public go wild over her, when the British public, and in turn the British colonies, learned of this practice they had to imitate their Queen.  And so happened the adoption of a German tradition into not only British practice, but into a world-wide phenomenon.  We don’t all necessarily decorate our trees with paper chains, popcorn & cranberry strings, candles, and placing presents in the boughs as was common in the Victorian era, but we do modern equivalents of tinsel garlands, electric Christmas lights, and putting presents under the tree.

1848 image of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children that was published in the London Illustrated News

Another wildly popular Christmas tradition that began in the Victorian era is the sending of greeting cards to friends and family.  The first-ever Christmas card was commissioned by the Londoner Sir Henry Cole and sent in the year 1843.  The card was designed by John Callcott Horsley and showed a family drinking wine together.  The card may have started out as a marketing trick by Cole, trying to drum up more business for the penny post that he had been influential in establishing (another great Victorian invention), but the practice stuck and millions of modern families still send cards to loved ones far and near as a way to keep in touch.

First-ever Christmas card that was made and sent in 1843

 The Victorian era also lives on in the Christmas carols we sing, so many of which were penned in the 19^th century.  Some examples of carols that have their origins during Queen Victoria’s reign are: Angels from the Realms of Glory (1816), Angles We Have Heard on High (1862), Away in a Manger (1865), We Three Kings of Orient Are (1863), and Good King Wenceslas (1853).  I know that, for me, the Christmas season really begins when I decide to start listening to carols at home, and we would be much poorer for choice were it not for the Victorian carol writers.

 The last issue I want to discuss is Santa Claus.  Santa Claus is an interesting figure who has roots in many cultures and is known by many names, but I would argue that the modern, western perceptions of who Santa Claus is and what he does were solidified in the Victorian era.  St. Nicholas was made popular in the 1823 poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, which appeared anonymously in the New York Sentinel.  The poem was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore and we now know it as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’. It establishes the modern ideas that Santa travels by sleigh pulled by reindeer, comes down chimneys, and is plump.  In 1881 the famous cartoonist Thomas Nast drew an image of Santa Claus that was published in Harper’s Weekly that even further cemented the image of Santa as a plump, jolly old bearded man who brings gifts to children on Christmas Eve.

Nast's famous 1881 cartoon of Santa Claus that appeared in Harper's Weekly

 

I hope that because of these examples you too can see the relevance of the Victorian era and how its traditions and ideas continue  to live on in our everyday 21^st century lives.