It’s that time of year again. Oh yes, it is indeed the holiday season, and whether you call it Christmas, Yule, Saturnalia, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or Winter Solstice, chances are you clothe it in some kind of celebration. If you’re like most of us, you probably don’t even think about where your traditions come from, since these are things you’ve been doing all your life, and which your parents and grandparents most likely did before you. You probably imagine that this is how it’s been done since time immemorial.
Not so. Before author Charles Dickens “invented” Christmas, most people would have spent a quiet day at home or, if they were of a religious bent, in church. For the average working person, not possessed of inherited wealth, taking several days off work (as we do nowadays) to shop and visit friends (not to mention eating and imbibing) was unheard of. The Victorian working classes simply could not afford to miss more work than was absolutely necessary, thus most people would work right up till the day itself, as Bob Cratchit does in Dickens’ immortal A Christmas Carol. Directly the holiday was over, he would most likely go straight back to work. Such was life for a worker in the Victorian era.
The depictions of Christmas that occur in contemporary Victorian literature, then, are very often those of the upper classes, the people for whom fancy dress balls seem to have been invented. Even the celebrations recalled in Jane Austen’s earlier Regency/Georgian era are frequently lavish affairs requiring the burning of many candles and the consumption of much coal!
A Victorian-era Christmas involved the decorated tree that is so familiar to many of us, festooned with home-made ornaments that could be readily fashioned out of common, everyday materials. Garlands made of popped popcorn, for instance, or cranberries strung together like beads, were common, as was the astonishingly dangerous practice of putting lit candles on the tree branches. The custom of decorating a cut evergreen tree came of course from Germany, and many agree that it was the German Prince Albert who brought the custom to English shores (from which it of course spread throughout the Commonwealth – which is why I, in Newfoundland, have a lit tree in my living room window.) The tradition of bringing a cut tree into the house dates back to at least the 15th century in what is today Estonia and Latvia; unlike our trees, however, the Estonians and Latvians (or Livonians, as they were then called) would sing and dance around the tree before setting it on fire. A thrilling climax, certainly, but one wonders whether such a fiery end occurred on purpose or as a result of all those candles. For the Germans, who adopted the Christmas tree around the 16th century, the cut evergreen represented the “tree of Paradise,” a prop used on the December 24th mystery play. A wikipedia article tells us that:
“The modern Christmas tree . . . originated in western Germany. The main prop of a popular medieval play about Adam and Eve was a fir tree hung with apples (paradise tree) representing the Garden of Eden. The Germans set up a paradise tree in their homes on December 24, the religious feast day of Adam and Eve. They hung wafers on it (symbolizing the host, the Christian sign of redemption); in a later tradition, the wafers were replaced by cookies of various shapes. Candles, too, were often added as the symbol of Christ. In the same room, during the Christmas season, was the Christmas pyramid, a triangular construction of wood, with shelves to hold Christmas figurines, decorated with evergreens, candles, and a star. By the 16th century, the Christmas pyramid and paradise tree had merged, becoming the Christmas tree…”
The Victorians, ever eager for the newest sensation, took the Christmas tree to their hearts and made it the centerpiece of their holiday celebrations. For many homes it was considered bad luck to remove the Christmas Tree from the house before Twelfth Night (6th January), a date known in other parts of the world as “Old Christmas,” a reference to the Eastern Orthodox practice of celebrating Christ’s birth on January 6.
Christmas presents in the Victorian era were much less lavish than they are nowadays; naturally a 19th century man could not go out and purchase, say, an iPad for a friend but could and would purchase a packet of handkerchiefs or a book. The giving of intimate articles of clothing (what were then known as ‘combinations’ for men and ‘unmentionables’ for ladies) was unheard of: for the Victorian wife who was urged to ‘lie back and think of England’ the gift of lingerie (especially exotic lingerie) was in the poorest possible taste. My own Inspector Philip Devlin resolves to purchase handkerchiefs for his Freddie, and perhaps the gift of a book; even for men who are such intimate friends, humbler gifts were considered to be in good taste. (Never mind that Devlin, earning a mere policeman’s salary, couldn’t afford much more!)
As for the threatened lump of coal in your Christmas stocking, this tradition started in Holland, where children who had misbehaved were given nothing for Christmas but a lump of coal – an injunction against further acts of childish rebellion.
Happy Christmas. 
December 19, 2011 at 9:09 pm
My mother, born in 1918, remembered lit candles on her tree when she was small. That is the way her German grandmother, born 1855 liked it to be done!
December 19, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Stephanie,
My grandmother, who survived the Blitz in London as a young girl, would tell me how they had electric lights on their tree, but this was very ‘forward’ – this would have been in the 1920s.
December 19, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Magic post, in more ways than one. Have you seen The Lion in Winter with its anachronistic christmas celebrations?
December 19, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Charlie,
I’ve only ever seen that one in bits and pieces…I must give it a look next time it’s on TCM.
December 21, 2011 at 10:37 am
Is there a heritage of the idea that a piece of Coal in a child’s Christmas Stocking did not always mean he or she was a “naughty child” but instead was a practical lesson to teach contribute to others? The child’s new piece of “Shinny Coal” in their stocking is to be placed in the fire to help warm the house.
December 26, 2011 at 12:56 am
I love learning about the history of various traditions (and the sobering reminder that most of what we learn about the past comes represents the “1%” of those times). I was just telling my family the other day about the roots of many Christmas traditions, like the Slovakian ‘koleda’, the precursor to Christmas caroling.
December 26, 2011 at 12:56 am
Whoops, I meant Slavic, not Slovakian.