The Spirit Of A Victorian Christmas

There’s more to the spirit of Christmas than spending money...

a lesson the people of the Victorian era understood. In fact, Victorian Christmases were based on the principles of thoughtful, personal gifts created with love and generous doses of time and personal attention.

Handmade gifts of needlework were common. A Victorian lady might give and receive handcrafted tokens of affection, including embroidered dresser cloths, monogrammed handkerchiefs, embellished purses, or fancy broom covers. In an age long before disposable ink pens, a Victorian man might be presented with a fresh pen-wiper or a new pair of hand-embroidered slippers. Children would jump for joy (some things never change!) at the sight of wooden tops, charming homemade dolls, or rocking horses carved by hand.

But no Victorian Christmas was based purely on the gifts. Food, (remember that some things never change!) was an essential part of the holiday celebration. Apples, oranges, and nuts filled stockings. Victorian Christmas trees were festively decorated with strands of popcorn and cranberries, which of course had to be sampled as the stringing was taking place. And then there was the plum pudding, doused with brandy and flaming brightly, carried to the family table surrounded by jovial Victorian men and smiling Victorian ladies.

But it wasn’t just the gifts and the food that created that special aura; it was also the way that gifts were distributed at a Victorian Christmas.

Each person’s gift might be tied with a very long ribbon with a tag at the end. The tag was placed on a tree in the center of the room, and then it was wrapped around all kinds of objects and furniture. Everyone had to take their gift tag from the tree and follow the trail of ribbon before opening the gift. Another approach was to tie a colored balloon on the end of a long ribbon attached to a lightweight child’s gift float the balloon to the ceiling.

For Victorian-era families, half of the fun of giving was in how the gifts were presented, and the other half was in spreading holiday joy to the people they love. Some things, after all, never change.