Holidays not only celebrate our culture and religion but bring generations of family and friends to the table. For these occasions, we take out our special china, prepare traditional meals, and decorate our home with meaningful objects, many passed down through the generations or more recently purchased to create new family traditions.

For Christmas, we light up our house, hang stockings on the fireplace mantle, decorate our tree with our favorite holiday ornaments, pull out the Christmas albums and sheet music, and generally deck the halls with tinsel and holly. But where did these family traditions originate?

While many of the traditions we honor at Christmas time today may go back several generations within our family, the truth is that the modern, commercialized Christmas we celebrate today did not emerge as the unifying national holiday it is today until the first half of 19th century when Americans began to reinvent the holiday by combining ancient Christmas traditions from different cultures with modern American influences.
Initially, Calvinist Christians in America banned the celebration of Christmas while groups such as Episcopalians and Moravians (a Protestant denomination from what is now the Czech Republic) honored the day with religious services and seasonal decorations; however, by the mid-1800s, Christian groups began to ignore their religious differences over the meaning of Christmas and instead focused on honoring the day, which in 1870, President Grant and Congress declared a national holiday.

Many of the symbols and traditions we associate with Christmas today emerged during the Victorian Era or were brought to this Country by immigrants now free to worship and celebrate as they chose.
For example, the decorating of evergreen trees is a German custom that began in the 16th century and was popularized in England and America during the reign of Queen Victoria after she married Prince Albert in 1840. Albert would decorate the trees at Windsor Castle with wax candles and sweets. By the 1860s, hundreds of Christmas trees were sold in Covent Garden and eventually the trend made its way into American tradition.

Originally, trees would be decorated with oranges stuck with cloves, cinnamon sticks, and pinecones. Sometimes, the nut would be removed from a walnut shell and replaced by a small gift or candy before being hung on a tree.

As the tradition of setting up and decorating a Christmas tree spread to many American homes, so did the practice of giving people presents to hang on or put under the tree.

Gift-giving has its roots in pagan rituals held during the winter. When Christianity folded these rituals into Christmas, the justification for bearing gifts was redirected to the Three Wise Men, the Magi, who gave gifts to the infant Jesus. Gifts were initially rather modest – fruit, nuts, sweets or small handmade trinkets – which were usually hung from the tree. But during the Victorian Era, Christmas gift-giving went to a whole new level.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who set religious traditions that reverberated across the pond to America, laid out all their presents for each other and the royal children on present tables in a decorated room at Windsor Castle each year, a tradition she maintained well after her husband passed away. As these traditions increased in popularity so did the modern trade and business linked to Christmas, from Christmas cards to Advent calendars and such popular stocking stuffer items as snow globes, all covered in this month’s issue.

Want to stroll down the Lane of Christmas Past and gift a memory? What better place to start than an antique shop? Some of our favorite antique shops, holiday shows, and upcoming auctions can also be found in this month’s “Holiday Shopping Guide” pages.

The holiday tradition of charity and goodwill also emerged during this era, moved and inspired by Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale, A Christmas Carol. The story’s message -the importance of charity and goodwill towards all humankind – struck a powerful chord in the United States and England and showed members of Victorian society the benefits of celebrating the holiday and the true meaning of Christmas.

A tableau of sculptures or living beings, the Nativity scene (as well as the closely related Adoration of the Magi) traces its origins back some 1,500 years but it was Catholic immigrants who brought the tradition started by Saint Francis of keeping small nativity scenes in their homes to America.

The act of going from house to house during the darkest time of the year to spread hope through song has its origins throughout Europe and takes many forms dating back to 998 B.C. In many traditions, people would go door to door and ask for permission to perform. They would recite poetry, sing, and sometimes perform a skit. The idea was that these acts would bring about good fortune to influence a future harvest. Today, door-to-door caroling is a tradition that means as much to give as receive.

And of course, no discussion of Christmas would be complete without talking about one of the holiday’s most iconic representations, Santa Claus.

The modern image of Santa Claus as a gift-giver and reindeer pilot comes from the 1822 poem “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” more popularly known today by its first line: “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas.” The poem, written by Clement Clark Moore, is based on the story of Saint Nicholas, a Christian holy person believed to have lived in the third century. Saint Nicholas became known as a protector of children. Different cultures have given him different names – Sinterklaas, Kris Kringle and Father Christmas – but for most Americans today his name is Santa Claus.

Moore depicted Santa Claus as a jolly man who flies from home to home on a sled driven by reindeer to deliver toys; however, the iconic version of Santa Claus as a jolly man in red with a white beard and a sack of toys was immortalized in 1881, when political cartoonist Thomas Nast drew on Moore’s poem to create the image we associate with him today.

As you unpack this year’s ornaments and decorate your home and table for the holidays, think about and share with others the stories behind what you have and why it’s meaningful to you. As the author Henry James said, “It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.”

Happy Holidays, from all of us here at the Journal of Antiques and Collectibles to all of you!