The Christmas tree, colorful packages, cards, the big family dinner... you know the schtick. You've seen it in the movies, heard it in so many Christmas carols, and perhaps even lived it. But how did that simple feast day from Medieval times turn into such a big deal? Was it, as Lucy Van Pelt claimed in A Charlie Brown Christmas, a result of a Big Eastern Syndicate?The British Royal Family probably had more to do with it than any Syndicate. Prince Albert and Queen Victoria gathered their large family around a Christmas tree each year and celebrated with a feast. The public learned about it from the colorful annuals issued at the time. We have just finished cataloging an enormous collection of Victorian and Edwardian illustrated annuals. The color saturated chromolithograph covers did for Christmas what Norman Rockwell's Life covers did for the American Dream: richly and romantically illustrated it for middle class aspirations.
For some examples, ask for The Illustrated London News (Sine Serials AP4.I3) or Pears' Annual (Sine Serials AP4.P349)
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