#Victorian Christmas

[noughticalcrossings]

Season’s Greasons

[misshollyslair]

🧸🎄 Clara ⚔️🐁

[onceuponatown]

The history of Christmas traditions kept evolving throughout the 19th century, when most of the familiar components of the modern Christmas including St. Nicholas, Santa Claus, and Christmas trees, became popular. The changes in how Christmas was celebrated were so profound that it's safe to say someone alive in 1800 would not even recognize the Christmas celebrations held in 1900.

Washington Irving and St. Nicholas

Early Dutch settlers of New York considered St. Nicholas to be their patron saint and practiced a yearly ritual of hanging stockings to receive presents on St. Nicholas Eve, in early December. Washington Irving, in his fanciful History of New York, mentioned that St. Nicholas had a wagon he could ride “over the tops of trees” when he brought “his yearly presents to children.”

The Dutch word “Sinterklaas” for St. Nicholas evolved into the English “Santa Claus,” thanks in part to a New York City printer, William Gilley, who published an anonymous poem referring to “Santeclaus” in a children’s book in 1821. The poem was also the first mention of a character based on St. Nicholas having a sleigh, in this case, pulled by a single reindeer.

Clement Clarke Moore and The Night Before Christmas

Perhaps the best-known poem in the English language is “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” or as it’s often called, “The Night Before Christmas.” Its author, Clement Clarke Moore, a professor who owned an estate on the west side of Manhattan, would have been quite familiar with the St. Nicholas traditions followed in early 19th century New York. The poem was first published, anonymously, in a newspaper in Troy, New York, on December 23, 1823.

Reading the poem today, one might assume that Moore simply portrayed the common traditions. Yet he actually did something quite radical by changing some of the traditions while also describing features that were entirely new.

For instance, the St. Nicholas gift giving would have taken place on December 5, the eve of St. Nicholas Day. Moore moved the events he describes to Christmas Eve. He also came up with the concept of “St. Nick” having eight reindeer, each of them with a distinctive name.

Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol

The other great work of Christmas literature from the 19th century is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. In writing the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Dickens wanted to comment on greed in Victorian Britain. He also made Christmas a more prominent holiday and permanently associated himself with Christmas celebrations.

Dickens was inspired to write his classic story after speaking to working people in the industrial city of Manchester, England, in early October 1843. He wrote A Christmas Carol quickly, and when it appeared in bookstores the week before Christmas 1843 it began to sell very well.

The book crossed the Atlantic and began to sell in America in time for Christmas 1844, and became extremely popular. When Dickens made his second trip to America in 1867 crowds clamored to hear him read from A Christmas Carol. His tale of Scrooge and the true meaning of Christmas had become an American favorite. The story has never been out of print, and Scrooge is one of the best-known characters in literature.

Santa Claus Drawn by Thomas Nast

The famed American cartoonist Thomas Nast is generally credited as having invented the modern depiction of Santa Claus. Nast, who had worked as a magazine illustrator and created campaign posters for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, was hired by Harper’s Weekly in 1862. For the Christmas season, he was assigned to draw the magazine’s cover, and legend has it that Lincoln himself requested a depiction of Santa Claus visiting Union troops.

The resulting cover, from Harper’s Weekly dated January 3, 1863, was a hit. It shows Santa Claus on his sleigh, which has arrived at a U.S. Army camp festooned with a “Welcome Santa Claus” sign.

Santa’s suit features the stars and stripes of the American flag, and he’s distributing Christmas packages to the soldiers. One soldier is holding up a new pair of socks, which might be a boring present today, but would have been a highly prized item in the Army of the Potomac.

Beneath Nast's illustration was the caption, “Santa Claus In Camp.” Appearing not long after the carnage at Antietam and Fredericksburg, the magazine cover is an apparent attempt to boost morale in a dark time.

The Santa Claus illustrations proved so popular that Thomas Nast kept drawing them every year for decades. He is also credited with creating the notion that Santa lived at the North Pole and kept a workshop manned by elves. The figure of Santa Claus endured, with the version drawn by Nast becoming the accepted standard version of the character. By the early 20th century the Nast-inspired version of Santa became a very common figure in advertising.

Prince Albert and Queen Victoria Made Christmas Trees Fashionable

The tradition of the Christmas tree came from Germany, and there are accounts of early 19th century Christmas trees in America, but the custom wasn’t widespread outside German communities.

The Christmas tree first gained popularity in British and American society thanks to the husband of Queen Victoria, the German-born Prince Albert. He installed a decorated Christmas tree at Windsor Castle in 1841, and woodcut illustrations of the Royal Family’s tree appeared in London magazines in 1848. Those illustrations, published in America a year later, created the fashionable impression of the Christmas tree in upper-class homes.

By the late 1850s reports of Christmas trees were appearing in American newspapers. And in the years following the Civil War ordinary American households celebrated the season by decorating a Christmas tree.

The first electric Christmas tree lights appeared in the 1880s, thanks to an associate of Thomas Edison, but were too costly for most households. Most people in the 1800s lit their Christmas trees with small candles.

The First White House Christmas Tree

The first Christmas tree in the White House was displayed in 1889, during the presidency of Benjamin Harrison. The Harrison family, including his young grandchildren, decorated the tree with toy soldiers and glass ornaments for their small family gathering.

There are some reports of president Franklin Pierce displaying a Christmas tree in the early 1850s. But the stories of a Pierce tree are vague and there doesn't seem to be contemporaneous mentions in newspapers of the time.

Benjamin Harrison's Christmas cheer was closely documented in newspaper accounts. An article on the front page of the New York Times on Christmas Day 1889 detailed the lavish presents he was going to give his grandchildren. And though Harrison was generally regarded as a fairly serious person, he vigorously embraced the Christmas spirit.

Not all subsequent presidents continued the tradition of having a Christmas tree in the White House. By the middle of the 20th century, White House Christmas trees became established. And over the years it has evolved into an elaborate and very public production.

The first National Christmas Tree was placed on The Ellipse, an area just south of the White House, in 1923, and the lighting of it was presided over by President Calvin Coolidge. The lighting of the National Christmas Tree has become quite a large annual event, typically presided over by the current president and members of the First Family.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus

In 1897 an eight-year-old girl in New York City wrote to a newspaper, the New York Sun, asking if her friends, who doubted the existence of Santa Claus, were right. An editor at the newspaper, Francis Pharcellus Church, responded by publishing, on September 21, 1897, an unsigned editorial. The response to the little girl has become the most famous newspaper editorial ever printed.

The second paragraph is often quoted:

"Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS."

Church’s eloquent editorial asserting the existence of Santa Claus seemed a fitting conclusion to a century that began with modest observances of St. Nicholas and ended with the foundations of the modern Christmas season firmly intact.

By the end of the 19th century, the essential components of a modern Christmas, from Santa to the story of Scrooge to strings of electric lights were firmly established in America.

Source

[jessfandrawer]

For Ichigo and Orihime, my little prompt generator gave me: Period costume, Seasonal, and Nature. This seemed the perfect opportunity to have the Kurosaki family dressed up for a Victorian Christmas. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. They look cute!

The nature theme is not strong, but is in there with the snow.

[aurora-doll-333]

winter wonderland .⋆｡⋆🎄˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.

[pastelslugcat]

Losing my mind laughing about Victorian Christmas cards

I don't even know what to say

Also why did the Victorian have such a big thing for frogs on christmas cards?

[afrenchladyinnc]

[quarles1845]

The kind of Christmas I want is YULE.

[gifs-of-puppets]

Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas (2016)

[arielleshaina]

Chapter 14 of Nocturne is up, which includes a glimpse of an 1896 Christmas! Several holiday traditions of the Western world originated in the Victorian Era, actually 🎄

[witchyfashion]

Spiritualism in the Age of Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe

A woman wearing a black veil convenes a séance. A magician puts a volunteer into a trance. A fortune-teller leans over a crystal ball. Everyone knows what Victorian mysticism looks like because our modern imagery, language, and practice of magic borrows heavily from the Victorians. But we have little understanding of its spiritual, cultural, and historical foundations.

What made the Victorians turn to mediumship, hypnotism, and fortune-telling? What were they afraid of? What were they seeking?

This book explores the history of automatic writing, cartomancy, clairvoyance, and more. It reveals how Victorian belief in ghosts, fairies, and nature spirits shaped our celebrations of Halloween and Christmas. With historic examples and hands-on exercises, you will discover how spiritualism in the time of Jack the Ripper, Jane Eyre, "A Christmas Carol," and Dracula left such a profound impact on both the past and present.

https://amzn.to/4ebtTqZ

[literatureaf]

Scroogey-scrooge on a t-shirt. Come give him a hug.

[holmesoldfellow]

Sherlock Holmes Society Christmas card for 2023

[gods-country024]

mentally i am a poor young victorian girl walking home from work thru the brutal cold of winter with a small christmas turkey to celebrate another meager yet very happy christmas with my younger brother, and my mother who is recovering from a near fatal illness.

[moonsugar-and-spice]

Nothing says Happy Holidays like a thinly veiled threat dressed up as a Christmas card.

(P.S. If you like Victorian Christmas cards, here's a fun watch on the history from the V&A museum.)

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Towards the end of each year, as fireplaces are lit and hot cocoa is made, Americans have made it a tradition to revisit their favorite classic holiday books, movies and songs.

And though ghost stories may seem out of place in present-day American holiday celebrations, they were once a Christmas staple, reaching their peak of popularity in Victorian England.

A Dark, Spooky Time of Year

Like most longstanding cultural customs, the precise origin of telling ghost stories at the end of the year is unknown, largely because it began as an oral tradition without written records.

But, according to Sara Cleto, a folklorist specializing in British literature and co-founder of The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic, the season around winter solstice, has been one of transition and change.

“For a very, very, very long time, [the season] has provoked oral stories about spooky things in many different countries and cultures all over the world,” she says.

Furthermore, spooky storytelling gave people something to do during the long, dark evenings before electricity.

“The long midwinter nights meant folks had to stop working early, and they spent their leisure hours huddled close to the fire,” says Tara Moore, an assistant professor of English at Elizabethtown College, author of 'Victorian Christmas in Print' and editor of The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories.

“Plus, you didn’t need to be literate to retell the local ghost story.”

Effects of the Industrialization Revolution

It was in Victorian England that telling supernatural tales at the end of the year — specifically, during the Christmas season — went from an oral tradition to a timely trend.

This was in part due to the development of the steam-powered printing press during the Industrial Revolution that made the written word more widely available.

This gave Victorians the opportunity to commercialize and commodify existing oral ghost stories, turning them into a version they could sell.

“Higher literacy rates, cheaper printing costs, and more periodicals meant that editors needed to fill pages,��� Moore says.

“Around Christmas time, they figured they could convert the old storytelling tradition to a printed version.”

People who moved out of their towns and villages and into larger cities still wanted access to the supernatural sagas they heard around the fireplace growing up.

“Fortunately, Victorian authors like Elizabeth Gaskell, Margaret Oliphant, and Arthur Conan Doyle worked through the fall to cook up these stories and have them ready to print in time for Christmas,” Moore says.

Industrialization not only provided tools to distribute spooky stories, uncertainty during the era also fueled interest in the genre, says Brittany Warman, a folklorist specializing in Gothic literature and co-founder of The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic. She adds:

"Interest was driven by the rise of industrialization, the rise of science, and the looming fall of Victorian Britain as a superpower.

All of these things were in people's minds and made the world seem a little bit darker [and] a little bit scarier.”

Stories Find a Wide-Ranging Audience

Telling horror-filled holiday tales continued to be a family affair in England, even when they were read rather than recited.

“We know from illustrations and diaries that whole families read these periodicals together,” Moore says.

The popularity of Victorian Christmas ghost stories also transcended socioeconomic status, according to Moore.

They were available to read everywhere from cheap publications to expensive Christmas annuals that middle-class ladies would show off on their coffee tables.

Their broad audience was reflected in the stories themselves, which sometimes centered around working class characters and other times took place in haunted manor houses.

“These upper class settings were intended to invite readers from all classes into an idealized, upper-crust Christmas, the type todays’ fans of Downton Abbey still enjoy as entertainment,” Moore adds.

Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol has forever linked the British author with the holiday season, but his contributions to Christmas in Victorian England — including the tradition of telling and reading ghost stories — extend far beyond Jacob Marley’s visit to Scrooge.

In fact, Cleto says that Dickens played a “huge part” in popularizing the genre in England.

“He wrote a bunch of different Christmas novellas, several of which involved ghosts, specifically,” she says, “and then he started editing more and more Christmas ghost stories from other people, and working those into the magazines he was already editing. And that just caught like wildfire.”

Dickens also helped shape Christmas literature in general, Moore says, by formalizing expectations about themes like forgiveness and reunion during the holiday season.

American Christmas Traditions: More Syrupy Than Spooky

Although countless trends made their way from England to America during the Victorian era, the telling of ghost stories during the Christmas season was not one that really caught on.

A Christmas Carol was an immediate best-seller in the United States, but at the time of its publication, Dickens was arguably the most famous writer in the world and already wildly popular.

The novella’s success in the U.S. likely had more to do with Dickens’ existing (massive) fan base than it did Americans’ interest in incorporating the supernatural into Christmas.

“American Christmas scenes and stories tended to be syrupy sweet,” Moore explains.

"There were a few American writers of the period trying to put Victorian-style Christmas ghost stories into American culture,” Warman says, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James.

Washington Irving made a similar and earlier attempt, slipping the supernatural into Christmas-themed short stories published in 1819 and 1820.

Warman theorizes that America’s reluctance to embrace the Christmas ghost story tradition had to do, at least in part, with the country’s attitudes towards things like magic and superstitions.

“In America, we generally had a bit of a resistance to the supernatural in a way that European countries didn't,” she explains.

“When you come to America, you come with a fresh start. You come with a secular mindset and the idea that you were leaving the past behind. And some of these spooky superstitions were thought of as being part of the past.”

Another reason telling spooky stories never took off as a Christmas tradition in the United States was because it became more firmly established as a Halloween tradition, thanks to Irish and Scottish immigrants.

“That really impacted culture here, because they brought with them a concept similar to Halloween and that became, for America, the time period for ghosts,” Warman explains.

Traces of the Tradition

Other than A Christmas Carol, there is another piece of pop culture that reflects the Victorian Christmas tradition: a single line from a song written and released in 1963 by American musicians.

First recorded by Andy Williams, the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” lists 'scary ghost stories' as one of the highlights of the holiday season.

Although it’s unclear why the writers of the song (Edward Pola and George Wyle) included the tradition, Cleto says that it’s possible that the lyric is a reference to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

“It's only the one text,” she notes, “but it's such a big deal here in the US and the UK, and is pretty much all that Americans know about Christmas ghost stories in isolation.”