Art History Series: Queen Victoria and the Christmas tree

This illustration appeared in December 1848 in the "Illustrated London News" newspaper and brought a great thrill to its readers. On it, we can see Queen Victoria in Windsor Castle with Prince Albert and their children. This painting made Christmas tree decorating a much more common custom in Britain and then the world. It is believed that it was mainly Prince Albert who maintained the tradition, as it was already part of the holiday in Germany by then, but it was not entirely new to Queen Victoria. Her mother is also of German descent and it was part of their celebration long before Prince Albert made decorating a Christmas tree a real sensation. In fact, Queen Charlotte, the German wife of George III, is the first royal known to have introduced a Christmas tree as part of her Christmas celebrations, but she introduced a yew tree, not a fir tree. This happened in December 1800 again at Windsor Castle. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert decorated their tree with lots of wax candles and sweets, barley sugar and sugar plums. Queen Victoria's love of the festive season was evident as early as 1841, when she wrote the following: "Christmas I always look upon as the most dear happy time, also for Albert, who enjoyed it naturally still more in his happy home which mine certainly as a child was not. It is a pleasure to have this blessed festival associated with one’s happiest days, the very smell of the Christmas trees of pleasant memories.'' After these illustrations, the sale of Christmas trees grew enormously in Covent Garden by 1860 and decorating became a favourite part of the family holidays. The trees were much smaller than today and were often placed on the Christmas table. Oranges filled with cloves, pine cones and of course, wax candles as the royals did were common decorations. As for the trees at Windsor Castle, they became more lavish and gifts began to be placed under them, following the German tradition of exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve, which is still observed by the royal family to this day.

Happy holidays,

Julia

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