Victorian Christmas Decorations
The winter holidays are almost here, especially Christmas! While we all have our own special traditions with our families and friends, many of the things we do around this time of year to celebrate are actually pretty recent! Someone from 1818, about two hundred years ago, wouldn’t recognize the way we celebrate Christmas today – they probably wouldn’t have celebrated Christmas much at all! Like many other modern traditions, many of our Christmas activities started with the Victorians in the mid-1800s.
Both in Britain and in the United States, Christmas was not celebrated in our familiar way until the mid-1800s – Christmas only became an American federal holiday in 1870. Before 1840, most people hadn’t heard of Christmas trees, Santa Claus or Christmas cards, or even Father Christmas, let alone Rudolf and his red nose. The reason for the change in the Victorian era was the massive change of industrialization: many new machines and inventions were becoming popular, especially factories. Many people had more money as a result, and people began to spend more and more time with their families.
In the United States, Christmas had different meanings for Americans who came from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Many immigrants brought Christmas traditions from their own countries. Dutch and German immigrants especially brought ideas like Christmas trees and Santa Claus to their new homes, and helped spread these ideas throughout their communities.
Did you know that Christmas trees are a surprisingly recent tradition? The idea of Christmas trees originated in Germany, and became a standard Christmas decoration during the Victorian era thanks to Queen Victoria and her husband Albert. The Queen and Albert had German roots, and when they published a photo of their Christmas tree, people were inspired to try this tradition themselves. In these early Christmas trees, the presents were actually tied to the branches themselves. Early Christmas trees didn’t have strings of lights like we do today, so they used candles instead – with a bucket nearby in case of fire!
The Victorians loved to decorate, and went all-out for Christmas decorations with lots of greenery, sparkling knickknacks, and rich colors – in a time before big-box stores and shopping centers, many people made their own decorations with paper and fabric scraps. Try making these Victorian decorations for your own home!
You’ll need:
- Scrap paper. Like the Victorians, use whatever leftover paper you have on hand: craft paper, newspaper comics, wrapping paper – anything colorful works! We recommend thicker paper, like construction paper or card stock, which will make sturdier decorations.
- Scissors
- Staples, tape, or glue to hold everything together
- Odds and ends for decoration: ribbons, beads, bits of lace or fabric, sequins, glitter, and anything else you can think of!
Paper chains:
1. Have an adult help you cut scrap paper in your favorite colors into long skinny rectangles – the longer the rectangles, the bigger the loops in your chain will be.
2. Once you have a good pile of rectangles, take one and staple or tape the two short ends together to form a loop. Make a chain by feeding each strip through the previous loop before sticking together.
3. Make the chain as long and as colorful as you like – when you’re happy with the length of your chain, drape it around your tree!
Fan ornaments:
1. Take a piece of scrap paper in the shape of a rectangle, and place it in front of you lengthwise.
2. Start at one end of the paper, and start folding an accordion shape: fold a one inch crease, and follow that by flipping over your paper and making another one inch crease in the opposite direction. Repeat this until the entire paper is folded.
3. Take one end of the folded paper and pinch it together. This will leave the other end open and fanned out.
4. Finally, use staples or tape to secure the pinched end.
5. To hang it on the tree, use a hole punch to carefully make a hole in the open part of the fan, and then tie on some yarn or ribbon to make a loop to hang your fan from.
6.For extra fun, you can decorate your paper with markers or colored pencils before folding it, or glue on extras like bits of lace, ribbon, glitter, or other decorations to really make your fan stand out!
Christmas cones:
1. Take a square of paper, and twist it into an ice cream cone shape, securing the edges with tape or glue so that one end is open. You can also use this pattern to shape your cone: http://www.bry-backmanor.org/holidayfun/papercorn.html
2. Next, add a strip of paper along the top to create a handle to hang your cone, and glue or tape the ends of the strip inside the cone so they can’t be seen.
3.Feel free to decorate your cone! You can add ribbon or lace to the handle or the outside, draw pictures on it, or glue on beads or other decorations. For the finishing touch, fill your cone with nuts or small candies for a Victorian treat!
