Every year around Christmas something which I find puzzling starts to happen to the otherwise urbane and unemotional people around me. They start to honor, mimic and well- nigh worship all things Victorian. But the Victorian England that they seek to recreate never existed. It is a product of their own imagination about how people acted in the last half of the nineteenth century. It is the result of some of the most maudlin of Dickens’ writings, of early Hollywood interpretations of those writings, and of the human tendency to yearn for an idealized past. The yearning is genuine, and it is perfectly true that Victorian society loved Christmas. But the idea that 19th century Londoners set unattainable standards for proper Yuletide behavior is not supported by the facts.

Victorian Christmas Card with Flower Design - Photo by Black Country Museums, Flickr

When Victoria became Queen in 1837, the celebration of Christmas in London was barely noticeable, and was mainly enjoyed by the victorious Captains of the Industrial Revolution. Everyday folks were too busy trying to eke out a living. There was no provision for the factory workers to have time off in order to celebrate the event. Christmas was largely ignored.

It took Queen Victoria many years to introduce many of the activities which we now think of as essential parts of the Festive Season. Gradually, with the introduction of Christmas trees, cards, gifts, carols and obligatory family gorge-fests, regular English people joined in with the popular new Christmas activities. They have repeated them ever since, adding to them and inventing more. So we tend to think that if we could be transported in time back to those merry times, our enjoyment would reach new heights. I have a different view, however.

If a person were to be transported from 2008 in North America to Victorian England between 1837 and 1901 (Victoria’s reign,) he would immediately become disillusioned about the pretty Christmas scenes that we so admire today. His senses and sensibilities would be offended by the unsanitary, disease-ridden people around him, and he would soon realize that his rose tinted glasses had obscured the truth about the lives of London’s inhabitants. The 21st century visitor would be assaulted by the information gathered immediately from his 5 senses.

He would see people with all manner of physical deformities and infectious diseases. The sights would include the war veterans who were missing limbs, the survivors of industrial accidents, children barely clinging to life because of poverty, starvation and lack. Also visible would be the prostitutes and other desperate beings, clinging to life by any means, enduring the cold shoulder of their more fortunate city dwelling contemporaries. But closing his eyes would not deliver him from his uncomfortable sensory experience.

He would still be able to hear the roar of the city, which ceased only for a few overnight hours. The roar would be partly caused by the shouts of carriage-drivers as they made their way through the muddy ruts and around jaywalkers and street vendors. The distant hum of factories and mills would add to the aural tapestry. Dogs and horses would add their voices to the uproar, protesting their place at the bottom of London’s food chain. Housemaids would be screeching at the street urchins who tried to hang around the well-to-do Londoners’ back doors.

The sounds would assault the visitor’s ears, and he may dive into a pub for some quiet. Yes, the sounds are more muted in here, except for the two old sailors in the corner who are arguing some point over a shared pint. As he sits in a corner, Mr. 2008 would become aware of the unpleasant odors around him. Although almost empty, the pub holds the left-over funk of the many unwashed bodies which have sheltered there from the dampness and noise over the last two hundred years. The sawdust on the floor is filthy enough to have been sprinkled on the floor on opening day! The traveler may feel his stomach heave, and taste the gall in his throat. He may rush outside where the noise, the sights and the smells would assail him anew. So much for those romantic Christmas cards showing snowy London streets where smiling ladies in fancy bonnets hurry up and down the row of shops, serenaded by carolers. They’d have needed earplugs. Oh! Maybe THAT explains ear-muffs!

In a final attempt to experience the wonder of a Victorian Christmas, the traveler may insert himself into a family Christmas dinner in progress. He probably would sense what seems like a vague decomposition taste in the turkey meat. This is because he cannot forget that it has hung in the butcher’s window, unrefrigerated, for a week. He finds a fingernail in his soup and an unidentified crusty spot on his wine glass. Oh, will this experience never end?

He would no doubt try to leave this cesspool of unidentified toxins but be obligated to shake the hands of all the gentlemen in the room. He feels that all of his handshaking has ensured that his palm is now crawling with bacteria, germs and general crud. How he would long to be back in his own time, away from the unsanitary Victorian environment. How he would crave the simple predictability of eating properly refrigerated foods off dishes fresh from the dishwasher.

Fearing that he’s about to have an all too personal an experience of Victorian funereal customs, he would wish himself back to the twenty-first century. Never again would he crave old London’s unsanitary, disgusting Christmas torture! Hurrah for our low- class, redneck Christmas ways. Beer and pork-rinds, coming right up!