Five... festive traditions that were invented in London
Sorry about the Christmas cracker jokes
Hi and welcome to your weekend newsletter…
This edition’s a handful of Christmas traditions that were born in London.
Not every trend that emerged over the years survived, nor should they have (RIP the ‘spinthariscope’, advertised by Mr Harrison Martindale of New Cavendish Street in 1903 as a popular Christmas gift for London women of fashion, which held a tiny speck of radium, whose radioactive decay causes flashes of light on specially coated zinc sulfide screen. So captivating! So radioactive!)
But others have gained some serious traction, including elaborate cards, massive turkey dinners, and — sorry — Christmas cracker jokes.
This article includes original research by Matt Brown.
A ‘Christmas Congratulation Card: or picture emblematical of Old English Festivity to Perpetuate kind recollections between Dear Friends’
Which would also come to be known as the catchier but less poetic: Christmas card.
The idea came from the ever-inventive Henry Cole, who helped create many wonderful things in his long life, including postage stamps, the V&A, and a prize-winning teapot. Among his inventions was the Christmas card in 1843 (the same year that Dickens published A Christmas Carol, so generally a strong year for contributions to the Christmas canon), commissioned by Cole from artist John Callcott Horsley in a batch of 1000, of which he used some personally and then sold the rest for a shilling each — you can still see one of the cards at the Postal Museum, who’ve also put together this whirlwind video tour through the birth of the Christmas card-sending tradition.