Page 7 - Christmas2

Introduction

A

s I said in the introduction to the first Victorian Christmas Treasury, I’m addicted to
Christmas. I’ve often thought that if I weren’t a writer, my dream job would be to run a
year-round Christmas shop. So I’m delighted to be able to bring you a second Victorian
Christmas Treasury, with an all-new selection of articles, stories, poems and pictures from a host
of Victorian magazines from Britain and America.
It isn’t quite accurate to state that the Victorians “invented” Christmas. Obviously, Christmas
has been around quite a bit longer than the Victorians! However, it’s fair to say that they went
quite a ways toward reinventing it—and, in the process, creating many of the holiday traditions
and practices that we are more familiar with today.
For example, today we probably can’t imagine Christmas without an exchange of Christmas
cards between family and friends. For that, we can thank the Victorians; the first Christmas card
was designed in 1843. The very possibility of sending Christmas cards all around the country is
thanks to the Victorian invention of the modern postage stamp. And the fact that we can buy
cards by the box is due to Victorian industry; by the 1890’s, Victorian card manufacturers were
turning out Christmas cards by the hundreds of thousands every year.
Indeed, what the Victorian era brought to the holiday was the new concept of “mass
production.” Besides Christmas cards (printed from stone “lithographs,” as you’ll see in this
volume), Victorians mass-produced such holiday items as Christmas crackers (see the first
treasury), and of course a host of toys and gifts. This transformed the “giving” side of Christmas
from being primarily a tradition of exchanging one or two hand-made items between family
members, to the tradition of (dare I say it) Christmas shopping. With shops stocked with
hundreds of inexpensive dolls and toys, the Victorian era began to transform the season into a
time of “giving lots of presents to children.”
Perhaps in part because of this, the Victorian era also brings us the first hints of the conflicts
we all tend to feel, or observe, at this most beloved holiday season. Is this the season of giving,
or of getting? As our first article points out, Christmas can be a season of a “rush and a hurry”
that is more stressful than “a May moving.” Today’s seasonal hustle and bustle also has its roots
in the Victorian era—and so does our tendency to create stories and TV-movies about the “real
meaning of Christmas.” This dichotomy, again, goes right back to the Victorian era, where you
have Clement Moore’s “A Vision of St. Nicholas” on the one hand (a jolly old elf whose primary
purpose is simply to deliver toys), and Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” on the other.
In this volume, you’ll find a host of articles and stories that demonstrate what Christmas
meant to the Victorians. While Londoners might have been turning the holiday into a bustling
spending-spree, Victorians in more remote locations clung tightly to the traditions of the season,
finding ways to “keep Christmas” no matter where they found themselves. Here, you’ll see how
Christmas was kept in the snow-covered prairies of America, and under the blazing sun of
Australia. Nor could I resist sharing, on page 221, a rare print from a Victorian scrap album
showing the tradition in India of bringing in, not the Yule log, but the Yule block of ice!
I hope that this volume, and the one before it, becomes a cherished part of your Christmas
traditions—a book that will find a treasured place on your shelf, a reminder of the meaning this
holiday has held for generations beyond count. And most of all, I wish you the merriest and
brightest holiday season!
—Moira Allen, Editor
VictorianVoices.net
December 2018