A Victorian Christmas

At the darkest moment of the year, when the nights seem endless and the days very short, comes that most joyful of festivals. Christmas is a truly magical season, bringing families and friends together to share the much-loved customs and traditions that over the centuries have come to surround this heart-warming and deeply symbolic occasion. Each family has their own personal traditions, and ways they celebrate the special day. Yet underneath the tinsel, fairy lights and wrapping paper are many long-standing traditions that we all know and love. Why do we drag a fir tree inside our house and decorate it? How long Santa has been delivering gifts to good children? What would Christmas be like without mince pies? We owe a lot to the Victorians. They transformed the way Britain celebrated Christmas in the 19th century and we continue with their traditions today. In 1848 a British confectioner by the name of Tom Smith came up with the idea of wrapping sweets inside a package that snapped when pulled apart. It was the Victorians that really centred Christmas round the family, with the eating of a Christmas dinner together, giving gifts and playing games. All these things have become central to a British Christmas Day.

The author of Food Through the Ages presents a festive overview of Dickens-era Christmas traditions—from decorations and songs to games and recipes. Anna Selby discusses how the Victorians invented many of the Christmas traditions we enjoy today from Christmas trees and cards to carols and Father Christmas himself. Dickens and Prince Albert shaped how many people view the British Christmas, an idea explored in the opening chapter. There is an emphasis on Victorian food, including authentic wassailing recipes and an easy introduction to planning traditional Christmas foods and traditional decorations. It offers readers a chance to enjoy a traditional Christmas, one centered around the home, family, and simple decorations made from nature, a far cry from the materialistic Christmases we have today. This lovely book reminds us all just how enjoyable Christmas really is and shows us how to recreate our favorite traditions and recapture the magic of Christmas.

The first-ever collection of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, culled from rare 19th-century periodicals During the Victorian era, it became traditional for publishers of newspapers and magazines to print ghost stories during the Christmas season for chilling winter reading by the fireside or candlelight. Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume. "In the sickly light I saw it lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon that animated it?" - John Berwick Harwood, "Horror: A True Tale" "Suddenly I aroused with a start and as ghostly a thrill of horror as ever I remember to have felt in my life. Something--what, I knew not--seemed near, something nameless, but unutterably awful." - Ada Buisson, "The Ghost's Summons" "There was no longer any question what she was, or any thought of her being a living being. Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous passions which had animated her while she lived." - Walter Scott, "The Tapestried Chamber"

Using traditional Victorian methods of decoupage and painting techniques such as faux-plaid and simple gilding, the authors have designed ten Christmas gifts that anyone can make. In addition to complete instructions, the book also contains a history of all the customs and rituals of Victorian Christmas, charming festive quotations from literature, and seasonal recipes. 75 embossed cut-outs.

Prosperous families of the 1800s loved to surround themselves with lavish, beautiful objects creating Christmas traditions that are still carried on today. Victorian Christmas shows how the traditions of decorating the evergreen tree, gift-giving, Christmas caroling, and even jolly old St. Nick were started and embraced during the Victorian era. Full color.

Christmas fascinated the great Victorian novelist Charles Dickens, and to Victorian England, Dickens was Christmas. Following the enormous success in 1843 of A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote several other Christmas books, sketches, and short stories, and the holiday plays a part in many of his novels. Dickens' public, it seemed, couldn't get enough of his depictions of the season. This beautifully illustrated anthology contains the entire text of A Christmas Carol as well as excerpts from Dickens’ other writings that vividly describe houses decked in greenery and lighted candles, mistletoe in the hall and holly wreaths on the door, and lavish, waistcoat-popping dinners. Authentic recipes for 19th-century treats like plum pudding, mince pies, and gingerbread men allow readers to pop a few buttons of their own. Packed with delightful seasonal illustrations, including many original Dickens illustrations, this lovingly compiled book celebrates the Victorian Christmas in all its warmth and charm.

A romance anthology that features four Victorian-era novellas, each set at an elaborate tea party during the Christmas season.