Victorian Christmas Traditions We Still Love (and Where to See Them)
If you’ve ever mailed a Christmas card, hung ornaments on a tree, or left cookies out for Santa, you’ve celebrated a little piece of Victorian England. I’ll admit I fell down a research rabbit hole on this one, and it was so much fun. The Victorians didn’t invent Christmas, but they gave us so many of the traditions we still love, and you can still find their footprints in real places in the UK and the US. Grab a cup of tea and let’s take a cozy walk through the history of Victorian Christmas traditions in Britain and America, and then I’ll share where you can see them for yourself.
The Victorian era (1837 to 1901) shaped Christmas more than any other period. It was also a hard time for many families, especially children. A new law said children had to be at least nine years old before working in the textile mills, but it didn’t cover other industries, and many children still worked in hard conditions.
Reform was in the air. The middle class was growing, the old aristocratic order was giving way, and writers like the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, and Charles Dickens were writing about the world around them. Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” shined a light on the poverty of the lower classes and the hardships facing poor children.
Out of all of this came many of the traditions we love: Christmas cards, trees, Santa Claus, giving to charity, gift giving, the Christmas turkey, and new carols. The Victorian era was the prelude to the modern Christmas we know now.
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Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Table of contents
Boxing Day and New Holidays
New holidays came into being along with Christmas Day. The workers and servants celebrated Boxing Day on December 26, which was also known as the Feast of St. Stephen. Since the servants worked on Christmas day, they opened boxed gifts from their employers and charities from the church on the day after Christmas.
In Scotland, Hogmanay is the big celebration on New Year’s Day. The traditions include house cleaning on New Year’s Eve (December 31) for the festival on January 1st. Immediately after midnight, Scots gather to sing Robert Burns’ song “Auld Lang Syne” which he wrote down in 1788.
After the Reformation, the Church of Scotland discouraged Christmas as too Catholic, and Christmas Day didn’t become a public holiday there until 1958. Since many Scots worked over Christmas, they celebrated the winter solstice at the New Year with parties and presents.
Santa Claus
Father Christmas and Santa Claus came from two different sources. Sinterklaas from Holland became Santa Claus in America, and the reindeer and sleigh came from the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Father Christmas is a hold-over from the old English midwinter festival, and he was often pictured in green to represent the returning spring.
Children’s Stockings and Gifts
Factories and mass production made it possible for affordable games, dolls, toys and books as gifts in the new traditional Christmas Stockings for the middle-class children. The poorer children had their stockings too, but usually found only an orange, a few nuts and maybe an apple tucked away in their sock. When I was growing up, my stocking always held a shiny half dollar. My father was into coins, and he made sure my sisters and I knew it. I don’t know why it was always there, but I still remember it and to this day it still puts a smile on my face.
Christmas Turkeys
The feasting was still a major part of the holiday, but it was somewhat different from the Medieval Christmas banquets. Chicken and turkey were both too expensive for most people. Instead they dined on roast beef and goose. Poor folks feasted on rabbit.
By the end of the century, turkey was available to most people.
The turkey growers in Norfolk and Suffolk provided their birds with leather foot protectors and marched them to London on a trek of 80 miles or more. Beginning in August through October, the birds hiked to London where they arrived as scrawny, tired birds. But the turkeys enjoyed their last couple of months of life as they fattened up and rested, never knowing what was in store for them in December.
The Christmas dinner was generally a huge family affair. In addition to the main meat dish, they served Christmas pudding with beef suet, raisins and prunes. Mince pie was a traditional dish to be eaten during the Twelve Days of Christmas to ensure luck throughout the coming new year.
If you end up with leftover turkey, my Turkey Noodle Soup is my favorite way to use every last bit. My grandmother never believed in waste, and neither do I.
Christmas Crackers
Christmas crackers are another Victorian invention. In the 1840s, a London confectioner named Tom Smith began selling sweets wrapped in twists of paper, and the idea grew from there. Late in the Victorian era, small gifts and paper hats replaced the sweets, and the crackers on many holiday tables today are their descendants. In Britain, a family Christmas dinner still isn’t complete without everyone pulling a cracker and wearing a paper crown.
Cards, Carols, and Trees
Rowland Hill’s Penny Post made it cheap to mail a letter anywhere in Britain in 1840. In 1843, Sir Henry Cole had about 1,000 Christmas cards printed at his art shop and sold them for a shilling apiece. They were an immediate hit. I still love getting a real card in the mail. Reading it and then setting it out on the mantel adds to the holiday decor, and it gives me a little spark of excitement every time.
Then there’s the Christmas tree. Prince Albert helped popularize the German tree tradition in Britain with a tree at Windsor Castle in the 1840s, and a popular 1848 engraving of the royal family gathered around it helped the custom catch on across Britain and America.
Carolers came on the scene, visiting house to house with songs and Christmas cheer. Sometimes they carried candles, and the homeowners welcomed them inside to sing and enjoy a treat. They had something to sing about too. Several new carols became popular:
- O Come All Ye Faithful, 1843
- O Little Town of Bethlehem, 1868
- Away in a Manger, 1880s
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How Victorian Christmas Reached America
Americans adopted many of these British trends and added their own twist.
Christmas, Victorian Style, was not a commercial affair. It consisted mainly of food and handmade gift giving traditions. However, by 1870, manufacturers began the production of Christmas tree ornaments, angels and dolls. Macy’s in New York saw the potential, and by the 1880s the department store was advertising toys and dolls from Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland, with more novelties to follow.
Where to Experience Victorian Christmas Traditions
In the UK
- Windsor Castle, England: the home of the royal tree tradition Prince Albert popularized.
- Charles Dickens Museum, London: Dickens’ only surviving London home, often dressed up for Christmas.
- Edinburgh, Scotland: Hogmanay is the big celebration.
In the US
- Cape May, New Jersey: a Victorian seaside town known for its Christmas season.
- Galveston, Texas: Dickens on the Strand, held in early December.
- New York City: Macy’s Herald Square is still a holiday landmark. The Macy’s in our story was at an earlier location, but the department-store Christmas it helped start is on display every December.
- Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia: a colonial rather than Victorian Christmas, but a fun contrast.
Dates and tickets change every year, so check each website before you plan your trip.
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Wrapping Up
Whether you stay cozy at home with a cup of tea or plan a trip to see some of this history in person, I hope you’ll see your own Christmas traditions a little differently now. Many of them have been delighting families for well over 150 years.
My favorite tradition, hands down, was opening our presents on Christmas Eve. We’ve kept doing it that way ever since, and the gifts were always delivered early because, as the excuse went in our house, Santa has a lot of stops to make. Then it was cookies and milk, ready for his arrival. It turns out the Victorians shared their presents on Christmas Eve too, so we were following a very old tradition without even knowing it.
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About the Author
Hi, I’m Mary Ann, creator of My Tasteful Threads, a cozy lifestyle blog where I share left-handed crochet, meaningful travel ideas, from-scratch recipes, and simple everyday living. Most evenings you’ll find me with yarn in one hand, a cup of tea nearby, and a good book within reach.
I spent many years as an IT project manager, so I love a good checklist, and these days I put that planning to work in my kitchen, my travels, and my crochet basket. I’m also a grandmother, and when I’m not stitching or stirring, I’m sharing budget-friendly ideas at my sister site, The Frugal Nook.
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