The Victorian Christmas

The decorated indoor tree was a German custom, but it was the Illustrated London News that made it English. In 1848 the paper published an engraving, drawn by J. L. Williams, of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their children gathered around the Christmas tree at Windsor Castle — candles, gingerbread, and paper treats glittering in the branches. Middle-class families rushed to copy the royal example, and within a generation the tree was the centerpiece of the English Christmas.

The Victorians industrialized the season's other rituals too. In 1843 the civil servant Henry Cole commissioned the artist J. C. Horsley to design the first commercial Christmas card — a thousand were printed and sold for a shilling each. Around the same time, the London sweetshop owner Tom Smith, inspired by French bon-bons he had seen in Paris, invented the Christmas cracker; it was not until the 1860s, when he perfected its explosive 'bang,' that the cracker, with its motto, paper hat, and trinket, became the indispensable dinner-table toy.

Charles Dickens did the rest. A Christmas Carol, published on 19 December 1843, preached the gospel of the family Christmas to millions, while the new railways let city workers travel home for the holiday. Christmas Day became an official bank holiday under the Bank Holidays Act of 1871, and the Victorian template — roast goose or turkey, plum pudding, carol singing, and presents under a candle-lit tree — hardened into the tradition the whole English-speaking world still keeps.