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Victorian Christmas “Cracker” How To

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Christmas Cracker

Materials:

  • 1 toilet tissue roll
  • snapper (available at craft stores)
  • any small favours you wish to add
  • an 8 x 10″ piece of crepe paper
  • 2 pieces of 8 x 5″ crepe paper
  • decorative trimmings
  • glue
  • transparent tape
  • decorative string
  1. Centre the toilet tissue roll lengthwise along the 10″ side of the 8 x 10″ piece of crepe paper. Wrap the crepe paper around the roll, securing it with 1 or 2 pieces of transparent tape. (The tape can be attached to the underside of the crepe paper so that it does not show.)
  2. Insert snapper and favours (e.g. paper party hats, candies, nuts, riddles, trinkets, etc.) into the roll. The ends of the snapper should extend beyond the ends of the cracker.
  3. Tie each end of cracker with string.
  4. To make fringe, take an 8 x 5″ piece of crepe paper and fold in half lengthwise. Cut 1″ deep slashes about _” apart along unfolded edges. Repeat with second piece of 8 x 5″ crepe paper. cc5.jpg (5342 bytes)
  5. Take about 12″ of decorative string (gold, silver, etc.) and place along inside fold of fringe. Gather and tie around end of cracker, over first tie. Repeat with other end, using second fringe. Ends of fringes may be curled gently.
  6. Decorative trims, lace, ribbons, glitter, etc. may be used to decorate the body of the cracker.

Victorian Advertising Cards

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On many Victorian Parlor tables, a place of honor was reserved for the Bible, family album, post card album and a huge scrapbook. In the latter were lovely pasted advertising cards which were acquired by different members of the family. When members of the family went out to shop, they were given colorful trade cards with their purchases. At the local food store, many of these cards came packaged in tins of teas and coffees. Each member of the family would have been quite delighted to receive these free cards. The color cards were the most cherished. Lithography had just been introduced and any colorful bits of paper were treasured. As family members brought new cards home, everyone became excited. The family members began to go to many different stores to see if they had any cards and if they would look nice in their books.

Images of Santa Claus and other Holiday symbols were always welcome during the Christmas season. Advertisers during the Victorian period were no different than advertisers today. They wanted people to spend lots of money on their products for the Holidays. Cheerful images of Jolly Old St. Nick, Christmas trees, and happy children with toys were designed to promote the “giving spirit”. Christmas, followed by Easter, was the most popular holiday in which you will find trade cards

Although the commercial aspects of Christmas were greatly looked down upon from many of the church pulpits, merchants continued to promote Christmas. Toy stores, confectioners’ shops and German bakeries began to stay open late and to festoon their windows with red silk bunting and holly. Holiday shoppers could not resist the cakes, the smells of cinnamon kuchens and sweet almond paste. 1874 was the year of the first window displays with a Christmas theme at Macy’s. One window displayed an amphitheater of wax, rag, bisque and hand-painted porcelain dolls imported from Germany France, Austria, Switzerland and Bohemia. In another window, scenes from Uncle Tom’s Cabin were composed in a panorama with steam-driven movable parts. 1867 was the first year that Macy’s department store in New York City remained open until midnight on Christmas Eve. In 1880 Woolworths first sold manufactured Christmas tree ornaments, and they caught on very quickly.

Victorian Trade Cards were a popular way for advertisers to lure customers to purchase their products or to shop in their stores. Victorian Trade Cards featuring scenes of families celebrating Christmas give us a wonderful glimpse of what it must have been like in many Victorian homes during the Holiday season. If you look closely at many of the pictures, you will see Christmas trees lit by candles and covered with handmade decorations and fancy hand-blown glass balls. Some of the images show presents hanging from the tree branches. This was a common practice during the Victorian Era. Other cards show decorations inside the homes featuring fresh evergreens and berries.

Victorian Christmas Decorating

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The Victorians decorated their homes in bold wallpaper, ornate furnishings, lace, and richly-colored draperies, and this love for decorating carried right over into the way they decorated for the holidays, as well. Although many of the Victorians had very little money to spend on extravagant decorations, they were enthusiastic in their celebration of the Christmas season. They turned to nature for inspiration and found fresh, rich greenery, flowers, pinecones, berries, and fruit which were all used to create colorful displays. Early in December the Victorian household began to decorate, covering every available inch of the house with greenery. Spruce, balsam, laurel, cedar, ivy, mistletoe, and holly graced tables, banniesters, chandeliers, archways, columns, and woodwork. Mistletoe dangled from the ceiling of the entry hall. Even picture frames and mirrors were wrapped with evergreen rope. Wreaths could be found hung on doors or behind windowpanes.

The Victorian parlor played an important role for the holiday season. The parlor was transformed into an enchanted winter wonderland filled with decorations such as garlands of cranberries and popcorn, tinsel and paper chains, paper and lace ornaments, tissue-paper snowflakes, glittering glass balls, angels, fairies and Santas. The candles on a glittering tree adorned with an angel or star on the treetop became the centerpiece of the room. Under the Christmas tree sat the tempting gifts, wrapped in colorful paper and tied with taffeta ribbons. Some were lavishly garnished with the addition of fine flowers and greenery. Colored glass lamps and candles throughout the room cast a festive glow. The fire blazed merrily, and stockings dangled from the fireplace filled to bulging with gifts and treats. An army of toy soldiers marched on the mantel above. The fragrance of cedar boughs drifted throughout the house, and arrangements of holly and ivy brought the peace of the winter woods indoors.

A Victorian Christmas Tree History

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Behind the double doors of the Victorian parlor stood the Christmas tree, an old German custom the Victorians enlarged upon both in style and decoration. This tradition had come to England by way of Queen Victoria’s great-great-grandfather King George I.

When she was Queen, Victoria had a Christmas tree at Windsor Castle. In 1848, an etching of Victoria, Albert, and their children gathered acround their decorated tree was published in The Illustrated London News. At about the same time, Charles Minnegerode, a German professor at the College of William and Mary, trimmed a small evergreen to delight the children at the St. George Tucker House. Martha Vandergrift, aged 95, recalled the grand occasion, and her story appeared in the Richmond News Leader on December 25, 1928. Presumably Mrs. Vandergrift remembered the tree and who decorated it more clearly than she did the date. The newspaper gave 1845 as the time, three years after Minnegerode’s arrival in Williamsburg. Perhaps the first Christmas tree cheered the Tucker household as early as 1842.

As a result, Christmas trees became the popular fashion in England and the central feature of the Victorian family Christmas. German settlers had brought the custom to America, but when the same illustration of Victoria and her family appeared in Goody’s Lady’s Book in 1850, Christmas trees became even more popular in American then in England.

What made the Victorian Christmas tree so special was its elaborate decoration. Decorations included gingerbread men, marzipan candies, hard candies, cookies, fruit, cotton-batting Santas, paper fans, tin soldiers, whistles, wind-up toys, pine cones, dried fruits, nuts, berries, and trinkets of all kinds. Paper cornucopias filled with nuts, candies, and other treats were the Victorian favorite. It was not uncommon to find some small homemade gifts, such as tiny hand-stitched dolls or children’s mittens, and freshly baked treats like sugar cookies. Hand-dipped candles were placed carefully on each of the branches. A Christmas doll or angel could usually be found adorning the top of the tree.

Children often helped to make the tree decorations. They would string garlands of popcorn or cranberries, or make chains of paper flowers. Some families set up a Nativity or outdoor scene under the tree, using moss for grass and mirrors for ponds.

Later in the century imported ornaments from Germany began to replace the homemade ones. First came glass icicles and hand-blown glass globes called kugels. Dresdens, which were embossed silver and gold cardboard ornaments, took exotic shapes–moons, butterflies, fish, birds, ships, animals, flowers, trolley cars, and even automobiles.

A Victorian family’s most prized ornament was the Nuremberg angel atop the tree. It had wings of spun glass, a crinkled gold skirt, and a wax or bisque face. Angles or cherubs represented the Victorian ideal of childlike or womanly innocence.

Victorian Poetry

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The word Victorian or Victoriana has connotations of repression and social conformity, however in the realm of poetry these labels are somewhat misplaced. The Victorian age, which is defined as the events in the age of Queen Victoria’s reign of 1837-1901, provided a significant development of poetic ideals such as the increased use of the Sonnet as a poetic form, which was to influence later modern poets.  Poets in the Victorian period were to some extent influenced by the Romantic Poets such as Keats, William Blake, Shelley and W.Wordsworth. Wordsworth was Poet Laureate until 1850 so can be viewed as a bridge between the Romantic period and the Victorian period. Wordsworth was succeeded by Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria’s favourite poet.

Victorian Poetry was an important period in the history of poetry, providing the link between the Romantic movement and the modernist movement of the 20th Century. It is not always possible to neatly categorise poets in these broad movements. For example Gerard Manley Hopkins is often cited as an example of a poet who maintained much of the Romantics sensibility in his writings.

Before the Victorian era there were very few famous female poets. In the early nineteenth century writing was still seen as a predominently male preserve. However despite views such as this the Victorian period saw the emergence of many important female poets.

The Bronte sisters were perhaps better known for their romantic novels but their poetry, especially that of Emily Bronte, has received more critical acclaim in recent years. Many have suggested that her works were a reflection of the difficulties women of that period faced. Other significant female poets include Elizabeth Browning and Christina Rossetti. Christina Rossetti in some ways could be viewed as a more typical Victorian poet. Her poetry reflected her deep Anglican faith and frequently pursued themes such as love and faith.