A Victorian Christmas at McCrae House

Photo Credit: Laura Waldie

Have you ever wondered what a Victorian Christmas looked like in Canada? Did Victorian Canadians celebrate Christmas much the same way Canadians do today? The answer is yes, many Victorian Christmas traditions have continued through the years and one place to see those traditions is at the Colonel John McCrae Birthplace and Memorial Gardens in Guelph. 

From now until Christmas, visitors will get a chance to see what kind of Christmas John McCrae and his family experienced when living here. Their traditions were typical of what Canadians experienced right across the country in the 1870s and 1880s. Many Canadians had a Christmas tree in their homes with lots of decorations. However, the decorations were much different then. Typical Victorian tree decorations consisted of food items such as popcorn and cranberry strings, gingerbread and sugar cookies, nuts, small fruits like sugar plums and assorted candies . The children would get up very early in the morning, much like today, and come down to the front parlour and start eating the treats from the tree. Imagine Mum and Dad’s surprise to come downstairs and see the tree had been picked clean by voracious little hands!

Other tree decorations also consisted of small toys like wooden horses or trains, carefully coloured pictures of the Union Jack flag, paper cut outs such as snowflakes and several small candles. Before the days of electricity, the only means of lighting up a tree was through small candles. Of course, this was potentially dangerous and they were generally lit just once, on Christmas Eve, and only for about an hour in total. If a candle accidently fell over, there was a serious risk of the tree going up in flames and perhaps the house itself. All Victorian families kept a bucket of water nearby to douse the tree should a candle fall over by accident.

Photo Credit: Laura Waldie

Photo Credit: Laura Waldie

In the dining room of McCrae House, you will also see what a traditional Victorian Christmas dinner looked like on the table. Typical nineteenth century dinner items included sugar plums, Christmas pudding, pies and oyster stuffing. Oyster stuffing? Yes, oyster stuffing was the most common type of stuffing used in the Victorian era both in Canada and England, and Guelph was no exception. A turkey dinner was just starting to become popular in Canada in the late Victorian era. John McCrae may have had turkey dinner, but he may have had roast goose as well. Roast goose was more common among the middle classes while upper class Victorians traditionally had roast beef for their Christmas dinner. Victorian children in Canada also had stockings that would be hung up on the mantelpiece at night and in the morning they would find it filled with candies, nuts, perhaps a small toy or two, a pair of knitted gloves or socks and quite often, the most cherished treat of all, an orange. In the days before international cargo flights and year round mass food production from greenhouses, Canadians ate what happened to be in season at the time. Winter fruit usually consisted of apples, pears and plums that were picked from their own trees and placed into cold storage bins for the winter. To receive an orange in the depths of a Canadian winter was considered a very coveted prize as it had come from a very long distance away and were quite expensive for the day. We think nothing now about jumping into our cars and driving to the local grocer to buy a bag of oranges whenever we want. But when John McCrae was a young boy, children were lucky to see one orange all winter and that was usually in their stockings at Christmas. Even as late as the early 1960s, many Canadian children saw very few oranges in winter and it is only in the last 45 years or so that oranges in Christmas stockings have fallen out of favour. Some of you may remember your grandmothers placing an orange into your stocking when you visited them and you may have thought that to be strange. You probably wanted for example Star Wars figurines, My Little Pony items, gift certificates or good quality chocolate instead. We have to remember that oranges in winter, for their generation, were a very big treat indeed!

So, to enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of a traditional Victorian Christmas in Guelph, please visit McCrae house. The staff have done a remarkable job in decorating the house and all of us look forward to your visit this Christmas season.

Photo Credit: Laura Waldie

Fun Stuff Christmas, Guelph, John McCrae, traditions