dolls house source information history of christmas for dolls houses and miniaturists

The History Of Christmas

The first indoor Christmas trees were found in Germany during the sixteenth century. Christians brought decorated trees indoors or built wooden pyramids which they decorated with evergreens and lit with candles.

The United States were slow to catch on to this tradition and many Americans saw Christmas trees as Pagan symbols. By the 1830’s German settlers in Pennsylvania used to display evergreen trees inside their houses and they had community trees as early as 1747.

In England, Oliver Cromwell spoke against the frivolity of heathen tradition, believing that Christmas trees, carols and other forms of “joyful expression” desecrated the sacred event of Christmas.

By the 1840’s, Christmas was underway. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children were sketched around a Christmas tree. The idea of celebrating Christmas soon became fashionable, not only in England but on the American east coast. Whilst European Christmas trees tended to be around four foot high, Americans preferred theirs to reach from floor to ceiling.

Home ornaments and tree decorations tended to be home made and would be in full circulation by the mid nineteenth century. Apples, nuts, gingerbread and marzipan cookies were used. Popcorn was hung in strings interspersed with nuts and berries. Once electricity was available in homes, Christmas lights could be bought enabling the trees to light up for days on end. Red and Green were traditional Christmas colours. Red was a symbol of the blood shed at Christ’s crucifixion whilst green represented the continuance of life through winter. These colours were used to decorate wreaths and pieces of holly, ivy and miseltoe saw their way into domestic homes, although their origins stem back a lot further than the Victorian era. Holly was seen to be representative of Christ’s Crown of Thorns, whilst miseltoe had long been used in pagan festivals.

During the Victorian era, the custom of sending Christmas cards to friends and relatives flourished. The purpose of these cards was to send messages of good cheer to family and loved ones.

Christmas carols were composed during this period and a Victorian dolls house piano with sheet music for Silent Night or Hark! The Herald Angels Sing would not look out of place. O Little Town Of Bethlehem and O Holy Night had been sung at Midnight Mass as early as the eighteenth century. There were also non religious carols including Jingle Bells.

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