Lately, as I’ve been engrossed in my annual reread of A Christmas Carol, I’ve been finding myself drawn once again to that glowing, sentimental vision of Christmas Dickens gave us. The Victorians, with their love of family, storytelling, and beauty, didn’t just celebrate Christmas. In many ways, they invented the holiday as we know it. I love studying Victorian Christmas traditions. I wrote another blog post about it here. I also wrote a whole novella, Christmas at Hembry Castle, a Christmas novella set in Victorian England, just to immerse myself even more in the era. 

Before the nineteenth century, Christmas was a far more humble affair marked by church services, small gatherings, and simple feasts. By the end of the century it had blossomed into a season of joy and generosity. The Victorians, with their love of family, sentiment, and ceremony, transformed Christmas into an art form filled with evergreen boughs, plum pudding, ghost stories, and the glow of gaslight through frosted glass. 

Although snow does not feature much where I live in Southern Nevada, it is cloudy today and I do have my fireplace going as I write this. Now is a good time to step back into nineteenth-century England to the world of carols, cards, and ghost stories by the fire.

The Royal Christmas Tree

I wrote here about the beginnings of the Victorian Christmas tree. Like many Victorian fashions, it began with the royal family. In 1848, The Illustrated London News published an engraving of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert standing with their children around a beautifully decorated Christmas tree.

The tree was a tradition Albert brought from his German childhood, and the image captured the public imagination. Within a few years, Christmas trees appeared in parlors across Britain and they were hung with candles, sweets, paper garlands, and small gifts; as a result, they became the centerpiece of the Victorian home. The Christmas tree spoke to the Victorian era’s love of beauty and domestic virtue, and the vision of family gathered together symbolized both nature and eternity.

Dickens and the Spirit of Christmas

A Christmas Carol was published in 1843. In Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation, Dickens reminded a rapidly industrializing England of the values it risked forgetting such as kindness, charity, and compassion. His tale rekindled old traditions and invented new ones, inspiring readers to see Christmas as a time of generosity and grace.

Altogether Dickens wrote five Christmas books, the others being The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. In his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, he edited (or “conducted,” as he called it) a special Christmas edition each year with contributors such as Wilkie Collins and Mrs. Gaskell. A Christmas Carol, Dickens’s first Christmas story, is by far his best, but the others also do a good job of sharing the Christmas spirit.

In time, many nineteenth-century periodicals were filled with Christmas stories, and reading aloud by the fire became as important to the holiday as the feast itself. Through Dickens, Christmas became more than a date on the calendar. It became a state of the heart. Dickens was hugely influential in making Christmas ghost stories mainstream and respectable. 

Ghost Stories By the Fire

Dickens wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary for his time by telling a ghost story at Christmas. The Victorians loved their ghosts, and for them no night was better suited for a ghost story than the Christmas season. Winter was believed to be a liminal time when the veil between worlds grew thin. Telling ghost stories around the fire was not considered macabre since such stories served as reminders of the past while providing hope. One nineteenth-century editor wrote, “Christmas Eve is the night for shadows, for memories, and for spirits—of the heart and otherwise.” During the Christmas season, families and friends would gather around the fire and take turns telling ghost stories that ranged from terrifying to moral.

Due to the high mortality rates in the nineteenth century, especially among children, the Victorians were fascinated with death, spiritualism, and the supernatural. I wrote about the nineteenth-century fascination with spiritualism here. The era saw a rise in séances, mediums, and spiritualist movements, which was a big reason why Christmas was such a perfect time for ghost stories. 

Cards, Carols, and Greenery

The very first Christmas card was commissioned in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole, who also founded the Victoria and Albert Museum, which I’ve visited and it’s awesome. The card featured three panels–the center showed a family celebration while the two side panels showed acts of charity. While the card looks quaint to us today, at the time it was controversial because it showed children drinking wine. 

Christmas cards became popular when the penny post in 1840 made sending mail more affordable for more people. Before that, postage was expensive and paid for by the recipient, which isn’t the nicest way to receive a Christmas card. There was a community aspect to sending Christmas cards, which emphasized the Victorian wish to maintain social connections. The cards could also be a way to display wealth and good taste. In the 1840s – 1850s, cards were still expensive and they were often handmade, but when chromolithography (color printing) arrived in the 1860s, the creation of cards became more affordable and sending cards became a national pastime. Artists filled the cards with robins, holly, snowy landscapes, and even dead birds (?).

Homes were decorated with holly, ivy, and mistletoe, using greenery that reached back to pagan winter rites. Carols, too, experienced a revival in the Victorian era. “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” were sung in parlors and church choirs, preserving the old songs even as new ones were written.

Feasts and Family Gatherings

For the Victorians, the Christmas table was as sacred as the Christmas story. In earlier centuries, only the wealthy could afford a lavish holiday feast. By the mid-nineteenth century, rising prosperity and industrialization brought abundance to the middle class. Goose, roast beef, and later turkey filled the carving dishes, followed by plum pudding drenched in brandy, mince pies, and steaming bowls of punch were popular then.

Gift-giving shifted in the Victorian age from New Year’s to Christmas Day. Christmas presents at the time were modest by today’s standards, and books, gloves, sweets, or handmade trinkets were popular. By the end of the nineteenth century, the rise of department stores made gift-giving a holiday industry, much as it is today. Parlor games, charades, and songs filled the evenings. Children hung stockings by the fire, and popular stocking stuffers were oranges, apples, gingerbread, plum pudding, marbles, wooden toys, and ribbons or hairpins. 

The Legacy of the Victorian Christmas

More than a century later, the Victorians still define our vision of Christmas. They gave us trees and cards, carols and feasts, as well as the very language of joy that carries us through the season. When we hang ornaments on the tree or send cards through the mail, we’re echoing the very rituals the Victorians cherished. Their Christmas was not only a season but a philosophy—a belief that kindness and generosity could soften even the harshest winter.

I always decorate my home for the holidays the day after Thanksgiving. This way I can enjoy the lights and the ornaments for one whole month every year. I hope that the holiday season is full of candlelight, kindness, and good stories for you.

Further Reading About the Victorian Christmas

Here are the websites I used to write this post. I visit them whenever I’m studying Victorian Christmas traditions. If you’d like to learn more about how nineteenth-century England transformed Christmas into the holiday we know, these websites are a great place to start. 

“Victorian Christmas Traditions” English Heritage. An overview of how the Christmas tree, decorations and other customs spread in Victorian England. English Heritage

“Victorian Christmas Traditions” Victoria & Albert Museum. Discusses key Victorian era Christmas practices including cards, trees, and decorations. Victoria and Albert Museum+1

“The Victorians at Christmas” Ashmolean Museum. Examines the transformation of Christmas during the 19th century in Britain. Ashmolean Museum

“Victorian Christmas Traditions: the Good, the Bad & the Batsh*t Mad” by Alex Meddings. A more informal but richly detailed article on lesser-known Victorian customs. Alexander Meddings

“Victorian Christmas Traditions” by Molly Brown House Museum. Historic Denver/Molly Brown House Museum

“Victorian Origins: Christmas Cards & Crackers” Ironbridge Gorge Museum. Focuses on the origin of Christmas cards and other material traditions. Ironbridge

“A Short History of Christmas Greenery” English Heritage. Covers holly, ivy, mistletoe, and evergreen decorations in the Victorian era. English Heritage

“Victorian Christmas” Royal Museums Greenwich 
Explores how the royal family influenced Christmas traditions from trees to carols to cards.
rmg.co.uk