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The holidays are all about long-held traditions. I recently delved into Victorian Christmas history, how Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and the Victorian’s practice of telling ghost stories at Christmas helped shape the way we celebrate Christmas today.
Christmas wasn’t always as celebrated as it is now. In the early 19th century, many people and businesses didn’t consider it a holiday. According to an article by BBC, Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert is primarily attributed to changing that. Prince Albert brought his German traditions, like putting up a Christmas tree, that forever changed the way we now celebrate Christmas.
The tradition of putting up a Christmas tree, for example, spread into British culture. In 1848, the Illustrated London News published a drawing of the royal family around their decorated tree. During Victorian times, trees were decorated with candies, small gifts, candles, and other homemade ornaments.
Another new tradition that emerged during the Victorian times was the holiday greeting card. In 1843, Henry Cole commissioned the art for a holiday card. The cards weren’t affordable to the general public, but this inspired children to begin making their own cards for their loved ones. Over the next few decades, though, industrialization made printing more assessable, and by the 1880s, it had become a massive industry, producing 11.5 million cards per year.
The art of decorating was encouraged by popular magazines at the time. People began spending lots of time and care to create elaborate, elegant decorations for every public space in the home and the outside.
Before the Victorian Era, gift-giving was generally practiced during New Year. This quickly shifted after the Victorians began to embrace Christmas in huge celebratory form. Early on, the gifts were homemade treats and trinkets, but as the years passed, the gifts became bigger and store-bought and moved under the tree.
But Queen Victoria and Prince Albert aren’t the only figures responsible for the Christmas traditions we know and love today. In 1843, Charles Dickens…
