11th December 2016
Dec. 11th, 2016 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silvs_advent_dw
Early 20th Century - Gifts and shopping
Gifts have been exchanged at Christmas and New Year for many centuries. By the early 20th century, the availability of a huge range of gifts for both children and adults had increased dramatically. The streets of London thronged with shoppers in the days up to Christmas, and the shops were open and ablaze with a riot of light and colour even on Christmas Eve.
Manufacturers and shopkeepers both large and small were keen to capitalise on the commercial potential of Christmas. Gamages, a vast department store in Holborn, offered nearly 500 pages of gifts in their Christmas Bazaar catalogue of 1913.
Children's gifts proved a particularly lucrative market, and the sheer variety of games, toys and other gifts thrilled Christmas shoppers. Some gifts were considered suitable for both sexes. These included rocking horses, wooden farmyard animals, board games, picture and adventure books, magic tricks, Noah's Arks and mechanical or stuffed animals.
In 1911, Gamages filled its window with stuffed animals made by Steiff, including the teddy bears which were hugely popular and became a symbol of the period. Other toys and games were targeted specifically at one sex or the other. For girls, skipping ropes and, of course, dolls were available in huge variety. Boys could expect toy soldiers and train sets.
Some of these gifts were left under the Christmas tree, but small treats could be left in a stocking to be filled by Father Christmas. This custom was derived from a Dutch tradition, whereby children fill their shoes with straw as a gift for Saint Nicholas's horse, in the hope that sweets will be left as a reward for their thoughtfulness. If they were deemed to have been naughty, they received nothing.
Stockings were generally hung by the fireplace but were also left at the end of beds, as one boy living in Shoreditch, in East London, described in 1881:
'Woke up early in the morning ... found a crammed stocking hanging helplessly over the side of my bed, for the next 10 minutes busily engaged in ransacking its contents which were 2 bags of sweets, a pocket knife, oranges, almonds and raisins, packets of sweets and 2 jockie's caps ...'.
Information from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/ten_ages_gallery_08.shtml
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no subject
Date: 2016-12-11 02:20 am (UTC)We don't have it here in Austria... but then, we don't have Santa delivering our presents, either.
We do, however, leave our shoes out for Saint Nicholas on December 6th.
Turns out we do have the christmas-stockings thing after all, but not on Christmas Eve... the things I learn from you! Very cool!
no subject
Date: 2016-12-11 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-12 01:15 am (UTC)I wanted to introduce christmas stockings in my family, but my mum put her foot down on the idea - she thinks it's bad enough that I still demand an advent calendar (one filled with little presents, not the store-bought chocolate ones) from her every year *pouts*
I don't care if I'm a grown-ass woman, I want my Christmas traditions! :D
no subject
Date: 2016-12-12 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-13 12:34 am (UTC)I might just do that (but knowing me, I will also have forgotten I have filled one by then, too...)!
(Or I'll blackmail Himself into doing it *rubs hands*)
no subject
Date: 2016-12-11 11:12 am (UTC)The boy's description about the things what his stocking filled up with is very sweet. It seems almost same kinds what my son used to get, but he always found a small box of LEGO instead of jockie's caps.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-11 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-11 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-11 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-11 08:44 pm (UTC)I guess that a lot of the "traditional" toys for each sex still apply even now, which is quite nice in the spirit of 'childhood' which seems to disappear quite quickly these days!
I'm loving these bits of social history; it's a great way to pass Advent.
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Date: 2016-12-11 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-12 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-12 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-12 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-12 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-12 11:34 pm (UTC)The stocking was left at the foot of the bed. All other presents were downstairs under the tree.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-13 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-13 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-13 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-13 10:41 pm (UTC)'Fun-cooking' (I'm sure you remember) has become a tradition for many people at Christmas, due to the fact that you can do it with many people and everyone can bring something to use.
Others still have a formal Christmas dinner and keep the fun cooking for New Year's Eve (that's us)*g*.
Visiting family at Christmas is a big tradition. We still have (in our case) my parents over one day and my brother has them over on the other day.
My own tradition is watching Scrooge (the musical version with Albert Finney) at least some time before, during or after Christmas. *g*
Not much special traditions, I mean the tree, the Christmas songs, the Christmas decorations are all as we all know and love.
I have my candle steps in the window sill, which you see a lot here, but I have no idea whether it's used anywhere else.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-14 08:10 am (UTC)I remembered seeing Scrooge in the cinema as a little girl. The ghost of Christmas Future scared me senseless. I've never watched Horror films since!
no subject
Date: 2016-12-13 07:50 pm (UTC)Not so much when you forget to take out the straw or carrot and put in some sweets and have to
rush downstairs before they wake up. *g*
Oh, steiff... I have a small rabbit from steiff. It's very life-like but the price was ridiculous. I paid fl120,- for it...
I blame it on being pregnant at the time. :)
no subject
Date: 2016-12-13 09:52 pm (UTC)"Is he asleep yet?"
"How about now?"
no subject
Date: 2016-12-13 10:05 pm (UTC)I didn't even try the tooth fairy... Opening the door to her room was enough to have Sarah awake and NOT going back to sleep. She would be "done with sleeping". *g*