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The Victoria and Albert Christmas Tree

Article provided by Douglas Anderson HymnsAndCarolsOfChristmas

The Christmas tree was not widely known in Britain until the middle of the 19th century. On October 10, 1839, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coberg and Gotha and his older brother Ernest visited Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. Albert and Victoria had met three years earlier in 1836 -- before Victoria ascended to the throne -- but nothing came from the meeting at that time. This meeting, however, was significantly different.

As a minor German prince, Albert could not propose marriage, but Queen Victoria could -- and did. The couple was married on February 11, 1840 at St. James Chapel in London, and honeymooned at Windsor Castle.

Albert brought his love of the Christmas tree into the marriage, which had not been a widespread custom in England at that time.

Victoria, however, was familiar with the custom, which had been introduced by her grandmother, Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, in 1800. The decoration and 'lighting up' of the Christmas tree was a central feature of Princess Victoria's childhood Christmases. In her journal for Christmas Eve 1832, the delighted 13-year-old Princess wrote: "After dinner...we then went into the drawing-room near the dining-room...There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees..." That tree had been erected at Kensington Palace by Queen Adelaide, consort of King William IV.

The tree that Price Albert provided his family in 1841 at Windsor Castle was decorated with the finest of hand blown glass ornaments from Germany, and with candles and a variety of sweets, fruits and ginger bread.

In 1847, Prince Albert wrote: "I must now seek in the children an echo of what Ernest (his brother) and I were in the old time, of what we felt and thought; and their delight in the Christmas trees is not less than ours used to be." The generous Prince Albert also presented large numbers of trees to schools and Army barracks at Christmas.

He would decorate the trees himself with sweets, wax dolls, strings of almonds and raisins, and candles. The candles were lit on Christmas Eve for the distribution of presents, relit on Christmas Day, after which the tree was then moved to another room until Twelfth Night (January 5). Traditionally, gifts were laid out on linen-covered tables beside the tree.

In December, 1848, the Illustrated London News published an engraving of the Royal Family gathered around a Christmas tree. The scene helped popularize the tabletop Christmas tree in England. Since Queen Victoria was widely admired, her subjects copied the Christmas customs of the Royals, including the Christmas tree and ornaments.

The Queen's journal of 1850 describes the scene: "We all assembled and my beloved Albert first took me to my tree and table, covered by such numberless gifts, really too much, too magnificent". The presents which delighted Victoria that year included a water color by Corbould, oil paintings by Mrs. Richards and Horsley, four bronzes, and a bracelet designed by Prince Albert which included a miniature of their daughter Princess Louise.

Another extract from Queen Victoria's journal of 24 December 1850 records: "The 7 children were taken to their tree, jumping and shouting with joy over their toys and other presents; the boys could think of nothing but the swords we had given them, and Bertie of some of the armor, which however he complained, pinched him!

For Victorians, a good Christmas tree had to be six branches tall and be placed on a table covered with a white damask tablecloth. It was decorated with garlands, candies and paper flowers. Young ladies spent hours at Christmas crafts, quilling snowflakes and stars, sewing little pouches for secret gifts and paper baskets with sugared almonds in them. Small bead decorations, fine drawn out silver tinsel came from Germany together with beautiful angels to sit at the top of the tree. Candles were often placed into wooden hoops for safety. Other decorations included apples, nuts, cookies, and colored popcorn.

Around this time, the Christmas tree was spreading into other parts of Europe. The Mediterranean countries were not too interested in the tree, preferring to display only a crèche scene. Italy had a wooden triangle platform tree called 'ceppo' with a crèche scene and decorations.

By 1871, the twin influences of the Royal Christmas Tree and Dicken's Christmas Carol had brought Christmas into full bloom. In that year, St Stephen's Day ("Boxing Day" in England -- December 26th to the rest of us) was included in the Bank Holiday Act.

By the 1870's glass ornaments were being imported into Britain from Lauscha, in Thuringia. It became a status symbol to have glass ornaments on the tree, the more one had, the better ones status! Still many homemade things were seen. The Empire was growing, and the popular tree topper was the Nation's Flag, sometimes there were flags of the Empire and flags of the allied countries. Trees got very patriotic; this theme would occur especially at times when countries have felt threatened, as during World War II.

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