New Exhibit! Victorian Christmas

The Victorian period (1837-1901) was a time that greatly changed how holidays were celebrated in the United States, oftentimes taking them from being relatively small affairs linked to particular ethnic groups to large, grand celebrations and demonstrations of wealth, prestige and the importance of family. Christmas is a perfect example of this holiday up-scaling within the upper classes of Victorian society. From the Christmas trees to gift giving and holiday games, the upper class Victorians-who were imitated by lower classes- left a deep and long-lasting footprint on the traditions that are celebrated today.

One of the most enduring symbols of Christmas is the Christmas tree. The history of the Christmas tree goes back over a thousand years and their earliest origins are widely debated. Prior to the Victorian period, Christmas trees were a German tradition that consisted of a few variant traditions including bringing small, trees indoors that would be hung from the ceiling of the home, decorated with edible ornaments, or stationed in an open public space to be danced around and burned. 

The tradition of bringing Christmas trees into the home made it to Great Britain at the beginning of the Victorian period when King Albert, Queen Victoria’s German husband, introduced the tradition to Buckingham Palace in 1841. These early Victorian trees were originally decorated with edible ornaments and lit with candles, featuring a baby Jesus, angel, or star on top. A popular drawing of the Queen and Prince around their Christmas tree was republished in the US in 1850 (pictured above), triggering an uptick in the tradition of decorating trees in the United States.  

Tree decoration preferences began to include glass ornaments around the latter half of the 19th century as mass production of glass décor became more prevalent. A notable tree décor tradition rooted in the Victorian period that has experienced a recent resurgence in popularity is the tradition of the Christmas Pickle, which is largely attributed to an old German tradition where the first person to find the pickle in the tree would be the first person to open presents on Christmas morning. While it is not a tradition in Germany today and some claim never was a German tradition to begin with, the attribution could be linked to the earlier traditions of hanging edible ornaments in the holiday trees, which was originally a German tradition. An alternate story linking pickles to Christmas is a surprisingly macabre story of two young Spanish boys were were murdered by an inn keeper, stuffed in a pickle barrel, and revived by St. Nicholas, who is also known as Santa Claus. The earliest glass Christmas Pickles in the United States were part of a shipment of glass ornaments from Germany and were sold by Woolworth’s Department store in 1880. Some say that the pickle story came from a shopkeeper who was trying to sell more pickle ornaments.

Modern day electric candles in a Christmas Tree

 As the tradition of decorating Christmas trees came into vogue, so did the tradition of lighting the trees with candles to bring out the sparkle of the glass ornaments. With the placing of candles on drying trees, there was a rapid increase in home fires leading to proposals led by insurance companies to ban the practice. A safer alternative was to use electric lights, which were in their infancy for production, meaning they were incredibly expensive. Early electric lights to illuminate a single tree could cost upwards of $2000 in today’s money, pricing them out of reach for the large majority of Americans.  

Christmas cards also came into being in the Victorian period and, with the aid of mass production, became incredibly popular and elaborate with reflective foils or fabric trim. In some places, cards would be hung from the trees as part of the décor. The cards festively illustrated the Victorian emphasis on the importance of family, winter motifs, the rise of mass-produced gift-giving, and subjects like Krampus, a half-man, half-goat demon who punishes naughty children as a counterbalance to Santa Claus. As Christmas cards started becoming more popular, producers experimented with a number of topics to find what consumer wanted and how to visually define the increasingly popular holiday- with some strange results, including cards displaying thieving clowns, torch-carrying birds, dancing frogs, and flowers with children’s faces.

Parlor games, a year-round past time, took a sometimes dramatic turn around Christmas and New Years, with a crowd favorite being Snapdragon. Snapdragon was played by filling a shallow bowl with rum, scattering some raisins in the alcohol, and lighting the whole thing on fire. The goal of the game was to pick the raisins out by hand and eat them while they were still on fire. Other less hazardous games included charades, the sculptor (where one person poses the others into difficult poses and shapes and everyone has to hold the poses without laughing, falling over, or otherwise breaking their pose), and name the nursery rhyme. Caroling or wassailing was also a pastime around Christmastime, with carolers being invited into the home to drink from the wassail bowl (a bowl of hot mulled cider). Traditions around kissing under mistletoe were also  popular at this time.

A group playing Snapdragon

This Christmas while your family is searching for the Christmas Pickle, decorating the tree, or sharing Christmas cards, take a moment to tip your hat to the Victorian traditions that still appear today- and be thankful that it’s fallen out for fashion for friends to send you a Krampus card. They’re rather scary.

Pass the Wassail!