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The Victorian Christmas

The Victorian Christmas

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 In this opening episode, Barnaby Ellison Thatch explores how the 19th century invented the Christmas we consider "traditional." He guides listeners through Charles Dickens's emotional reinvention of the holiday, the introduction of Christmas trees to England and America, the birth of the commercial Christmas card, and the era's unique blend of industrial hardship and domestic celebration. Barnaby reveals that most customs we assume are ancient — decorated trees, carol singing, family gatherings, charitable giving — were actually constructed or codified by Victorians responding to the alienation of industrial life. The episode shows how the Victorian Christmas was fundamentally about creating warmth, meaning, and moral purpose in a rapidly changing world, inventing nostalgia itself and establishing Christmas as a feeling as much as a date.

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