Crazy Victorians in Puyallup
PROF. REEVES: VICTORIAN COUNTRY CHRISTMAS LESSON >>>
Although it is de rigueur to deplore the commercialism of Christmas, the holiday, almost by definition, is a celebration of industrialist, capitalist society. Sometime in the mid-A.D.s (that’s after the B.C.s), Europeans combined their pagan and newly Christian traditions together in a half-assed sort of way and Christmas was born, albeit a Christmas that would be unrecognizable to us today.
It did OK, as holidays go, but the Protestant movement squelched any momentum it had in its youth.
The heretical holiday remained fairly unpopular through the mid-1800s (apparently, Dec. 25 was just another workday), but the Victorians brought it back (and changed it forever). Dickens put the kibosh on the naysayers with A Christmas Carol. And Prince Albert, as Zadie Smith notes in her book The Autograph Man, charmed all of America with the Christmas tree, a tradition from his native Germany.
Blossoming, as it was, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, Christmas couldn’t help but become the show of wealth, prosperity, and thingery that it is today.
That said, children of all ages should check out Victorian Country Christmas beginning Wednesday, Dec. 3 — after all, the holiday madness started with them crazy Victorians. History comes alive as you tour the lavishly decorated old-fashioned storefronts, listen to carolers and chow on home-style cooking inside the Puyallup Fairgrounds.
Dismissed.
[Puyallup Fairgrounds, Dec. 3-6 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Dec. 7 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., $8-$9.50, Ninth and Meridian, Puyallup, 253.770.0777]
