A Victorian Christmas

Since Advent is drawing to a close and the joyous time of Christmas is at last upon us, I thought I'd share with you a little tradition, which my wife and I have decided to incorporate into our family this year. I and my spouse are nostalgic, if not envious of all things Victorian and Georgian (or "Romantic" if you prefer). These periods span from roughly late 18th century to (very) early 20th century. Most of our knowledge of these time-periods are of English and American expressions, though we haven't altogether neglected the sometimes willing French expressions of the same movements. My wife and I are ever endeavoring to incorporate into our homes, as much as it is feasible and advisable to do, various traditions and ways of living borne out of these times.

One such tradition, which it seemed good to begin this year, was the inclusion of a Victorian maxim into our Christmas celebration with our three young boys. Linda Lichter, in her excellent book The Benevolence of Manners, recounts the story of a wealthy American businessman who annually abode by a certain maxim by which he gave gifts to his many children. (Victorian families were often large.) He was not constrained by the necessity of finances, mind you, for he was wealthy. He chose to abide by this maxim for much higher reasons than mere financial necessity. The maxim runs like this:

"Something to eat; something to read; something to play with; something they need"

It has long been a struggle for my wife and I to keep a good focus in the Christmas season, especially with our families on both sides all wrapped up, as it were, in the capitalism run-amuck spirit of contemporary American Christmastime. This year, we have an added difficulty of having begun last year, what turned out to be, a rather bad tradition (not that the tradition itself was bad; rather our incorporation of it) of the 12 Days of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day and end on Epiphany. What we did last year was to have gift-giving spread out over all 12 days, having the children open only one gift each during every day following Christmas Day. We could barely sustain such an endeavor, and it only seemed to lead to an even worse sense of Christmas (especially for our oldest son) - one which amounted to this: "what Christmas really means is that I get gifts for 12 full days instead of just on the big day of December 25th when not only do my parents give me gifts, but so do all my grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc."

So, hopefully this year, in order to more perfectly celebrate the birth of the Christ-child, we are abandoning the gift-giving over the 12 Days idea, and supplanting it with the Victorian maxim. What this maxim has amounted to is that for each of our children, their gifts from us are: one thing in each of the 4 categories. So, our oldest is getting one thing to play with; one book to read; Jelly Belly's (mmm, yum) to eat; and a pair of pajamas as his thing he needs. (His current "water-wading" version of pajama bottoms just isn't cutting it.)

Grandparents imbibed in the tradition of giving all sorts of gifts for Christmas are not going to change in that regard. We understand that perfectly well. But, at the very least in our little family's home on Christmas morning, we are going to abide by the Victorian principle (in a manner of speaking). And we hope it will make for a more peaceful time when we can reflect on the entrance of Christ into the world.

Combined with this, we have placed an emphasis on Christmas being the welcoming into our home of the Christ-child. And as we do not throw him a party and give him gifts from Wal Mart, we instead talk to our oldest son of the types of gifts this unique Son does want to receive, right along the lines of Matthew 25. Our acts of charity and mercy are the things we can give to Him. These are the gifts fit for the King of the Universe.

Merry Christmas to you all!