A Victorian Christmas?

Hi everyone!

I hope you all are doing well and staying safe during this absolutely insane year. I know it hasn’t been an easy year for any of us. I have personally really struggled with writing motivation, however, I also know that writing is so much more to me than just some hobby. It can be therapeutic, help me to see my own life more clearly, and brings me joy and a purpose.

That being said, I have also been more focused on my short stories and working on building a small elite group of my work to start submitting into competitions. But, I decided it would be worth it to take a bit of a break from all of that and write another blog post!

The holiday season is upon us. Crisp cold air, sleigh bells, carols, lots of sweets, lights of all kinds of colors, presents, and beautifully decorated trees. It truly is a magical time of the year. A time in which light shines through the darkest time of the year (meaning the shorter days) and bringing a sense of hope to many. My hope, especially after this year, is that the light shines even brighter this year, helping us all to start to recover from all of the challenges of 2020.

The holiday season is also a time of a beautiful blend of many varying traditions, celebrations, and just good fun. Since I personally celebrate Christmas, that will be the holiday that I focus this blog post on.

Upon my recent reflection in mental preparation for this holiday season, I had this odd realization. I noticed something a bit odd when it comes to many of the traditions, food, music, decorations, and many other aspects of Christmas. The fact that a lot of these aspects of Christmas have an origin or are deeply connected to the Victorian era!

(Mind you, the only reason why made this discovery is because I am a history/literature nerd and it just kinda hit me all of the Victorian connections 😂)

But seriously! Think about it for a moment! Christmas villages are often set in the Victorian era. Choirs get dressed up in Victorian garb to go caroling (at least on TV shows and in the movies). There are songs about gentlemen and sleighs. There are (at least by today’s standards) strange foods and drinks like Fruit cake, Eggnog, and Figgy pudding (which I honestly can’t decide if I would ever want to eat or not, seriously look up a picture 😕). Not to mention a favorite Christmas story A Christmas Carol, is written by none other than the incredibly famous Victorian author Charles Dickens.

You don’t need to be a history nerd to know those things seem a bit off compared to a lot of our other traditions surrounding the holiday (which, don’t get me wrong, they all have their own weird origins, but I don’t currently want to commit to ALL of that haha. However it is a fun topic to research for those interested). Once I made this observation, I (naturally) needed to know more! And learn why there is such a strong presence of Victorian culture in our modern Christmas celebrations.

So I did some research and I have landed on some interesting conclusions.

(Additionally for reference, the Victorian Era lasted between the years 1837-1901, or in other words the reign of Queen Victoria)

1. Queen Victoria (in which the Victorian era is, of course, named after) and her husband popularized some of our most famous and favorite traditions today. Including, but not limited to:

• Turning Christmas into being a more family-centered holiday. (In short, Christmas was an attempt from the fourth-century church to make the pagan holiday, Saturnalia was otherwise known as the Winter Solstice, into a Christian holiday. Eventually succeeding in this endeavor. However, throughout the majority of history, Christmas celebrations didn’t have the same morals as today. During the Middle Ages it is believed that Christmas was more on par with Mardi Gras.)

• The widespread use of Christmas trees.

• They helped popularize Christmas Cards.

(Fun Fact: Queen Victoria was an incredibly influential Queen for many reasons. In addition to her massive influence on Christmas, she is also the reason why many women today wear a white dress on their wedding day. Queen Victoria wore a white dress on her wedding day. This led to the wealthy class women following suit and now 120 years later the majority of western women wear a white dress on their wedding day.)

2. The Victorian Era in general was a breeding ground for many other beloved Christmas traditions. Other traditions that were popularized during this time include:

• The Christmas Cracker (For our non-Anglophiles out there, this is a popular British tradition where twisted paper packages are snapped apart by two family members, then paper hats, small favors/toys, and a cheesy joke falls out.)

• Gift giving was popularized, along with the tradition of placing the gifts underneath the Christmas Tree (there was a small evolution of the gift-giving tradition during the Victorian era itself. Gift giving was usually smaller gifts, treats, nuts, homemade items, and these gifts were at first hung on the tree. However, as time went on the presents got bigger and eventually had to go underneath the tree.)

• Many of our traditional Christmas foods (however this ranges quite a bit more now since so many other cultures have also now adopted Christmas and with that has come a much wider spread of traditional foods during the Christmas season) came out of this time. This includes roasted Turkeys, Goose, and Beef; but it also, of course, includes foods we would more readily believe to originate during the Victorian era such as Eggnog, Mince Pies, Figgy Pudding, Yorkshire Pudding, and fruit cakes.

• The popularization of Santa Claus/Father Christmas as the bringer of gifts (He has existed long before, but similar to many other traditions he wasn’t “mainstream” until the Victorian era.)

• The origin of many beloved Christmas Carols. Including: O Come All Ye Faithful (1843), O Little Town of Bethlehem (1863), Away in a Manger (1883), Angels We Have Heard on High (1862), O Holy Night (1847), and What Child is This (1865).

3. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has left a HUGE cultural impact, particularly in two major ways. Firstly by the documentation, spread, and lasting power of Victorian traditions during Christmas. Secondly the story’s message and influence to the humanitarian side of Christmas.

Other than just telling incredible stories, literature has this beautiful innate ability to historically document moments in time and cultural phenomenons. For example, we probably would not know nearly as much as we do about the Regency Era’s courtship traditions if it weren’t for Jane Austin and her many beloved books (Aka Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, etc). Charles Dickens happens to be another author who incredibly documented his time period’s culture and traditions.

A Christmas Carol has many examples of documented culture strewn across the text. Some of the best examples include:

• Scrooge’s repeated use of the slang term “Bah Humbug,” which was the equivalent of calling something nonsense or gibberish.

• The description of different kinds of decorations and popular foods for feasts surrounding the Ghost of Christmas Present when Scrooge is introduced to him.

• Multiple scenes showcasing different approaches to Christmas parties of the period between Fezziwig’s Christmas Eve party (while Scrooge traveled with the Ghost of Christmas Past) and Scrooge’s nephew’s Christmas party (while Scrooge traveled with the Ghost of Christmas Present).

• Showing how a poor family (aka the Cratchit’s) would have celebrated Christmas and the foods they would have eaten (as well as some of the details on how they cooked the food).

• Scrooge (at the end of the story) hiring a random boy on the street to go and buy him the prized Turkey (Turkey was also a more rare meat to find on holiday tables at the time, so this really highlights how big of a gift this was).

A Christmas Carol has become one of the most beloved Christmas stories out there. There are countless, film, television, and play adaptations of the story and honestly, it would be hard for many to imagine Christmas without it. I personally believe that A Christmas Carol’s cultural stamina has had a huge influence on many Christmas traditions, probably more than most people are consciously aware of! Like perhaps part of the reason why the Christmas Villages trend took off is because people wanted to have their own little London that they could “fly above” just like Scrooge. Nonetheless, A Christ Carol has certainly aided in the continuation of some Victorian-based Christmas traditions because it documents many of them so well.

The other major cultural impact I believe A Christmas Carol has influenced is the charitable and humanitarian side of the holiday season. Looking beyond the surface level plot of Scrooge simply becoming a better person, A Christmas Carol has a pretty clear deeper message. Go help those who can’t help themselves.

This message is even more clear when you read the original novel or watch certain film adaptations. The novel’s Ghost of Christmas Present section is longer than most adaptations cover, including the Ghost of Christmas Present and Scrooge visiting a couple of additional abysmal locations during their travels and a particularly unsettling scene at the end of the section (as the Ghost of Christmas Present is dying) where he reveals two gruesome children clinging to his robes. The Ghost of Christmas Present shares that the boy is Ignorance and the girl is Want, Scrooge (now more tender-hearted after most of his ghostly visits) asks “Have they no refuge or resource?” In which the spirit cruelly replies, “Are there no prisons?... Are there no workhouses?” Using Scrooge’s own words. The adaptations that do have this scene (or one similar) also often add on another particularly cruel line of Scrooge’s from earlier in the novel at this point, “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population,” really driving home Scrooge’s own cruelty from early in the novel.

But wait! There’s more! Something most people don’t know about A Christmas Carol is it wasn’t intended to be a story at all! Originally Charles Dickens intended on writing a social justice pamphlet about some horrific child labor stories he had recently learned about, with the intention of imploring the public to go and help these children. However, he eventually scrapped the pamphlet idea and chose to go with a narrative which eventually turned into A Christmas Carol. I personally am so grateful he did decide to change directions! Sure, a pamphlet would have gotten a decent amount of recognition during its time and probably would have been documented for historical purposes, but more likely than not, it would have eventually passed into obscurity. A small footnote in a famous novelist’s long successful career. But instead, A Christmas Carol has become one of Charles Dicken’s most famous and beloved pieces (which is saying a lot because he has so many culturally significant novels).

Additionally using a narrative to highlight his message actually solidified the longevity of the message. Going out and helping others is just as relevant of a message today as it was when Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. Sure, things look different and there are some different scenarios in which people need help, but there is still suffering in this world and we are all capable of sharing some light. Dickens helped to make this time of the year not just about receiving presents, but also about giving back to the community and helping our fellow brothers and sisters in life or our “fellow-passengers to the grave” as the novel states. Surely if a man like Ebenezer Scrooge can change, then we are all capable of spreading light and love, especially during this special time of year.

Well, there you have it! Victorian culture has deeply influenced many aspects of our modern Christmas celebrations. I love digging into the why of it all and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed researching and writing this blog post.

I wish you all the Merriest Christmas, Happiest Holiday, and a Wonderful New Year! Thank you so much for reading!

Works Cited:

Broich, John. “A Christmas Carol: The True History Behind the Dickens Story.” Time, Time, 13 Dec. 2016, https://time.com/4597964/history-charles-dickens-christmas-carol/

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Germany, Createspace Independent Pub, 1843.

Erway, Cathy, and author of "The Food of Taiwan: Recipes from the Beautiful Island". “Why Is Christmas Food in America Inspired by Victorian England? This Isn't 'A Christmas Carol'.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 24 Dec. 2019, www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/why-christmas-food-america-inspired-victorian-england-isn-t-christmas-ncna1106611.

History.com Editors. “History of Christmas.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 27 Oct. 2009, www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas.

James. “Victorian Christmas Facts and Information.” Primary Facts, 27 Sept. 2016, https://primaryfacts.com/210/victorian-christmas-facts-and-information/

Johnson, Ben. “A Victorian Christmas.” Historic UK, 2013, www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/A-Victorian-Christmas/.