19th-Century Gift Giving for the Holidays
By Jennie Shurtleff
Elaborate gift giving at Christmas is a relatively new phenomenon. Case in point, the December 1846 editions of the local newspaper Spirit of the Age make little mention of Christmas, and one of the few items that was showcased as a possible Christmas gift that year was a book by T.S. Arthur entitled A Christmas Box, for the Sons and Daughters of Temperance.
According to the description, A Christmas Box depicted the “Festivities of Christmas in the same Family, under the different influences of Brandy, Wine, and Water.” The book’s promoter, William Sloanaker, proclaimed that it should be in the hands of “every family in the land.”
View of Central Street in the late 1880s or 1890s. It shows many of the stores that advertised their holiday wares in the December 10, 1896, edition of the Vermont Standard. © Woodstock History Center
While A Christmas Box had little advertising competition in 1846, if one fast forwards fifty years, the local newspapers were full of advertisements encouraging gift giving.
According to the Vermont Standard of December 10, 1896, Chapman’s Pharmacy (located on the southeastern side of Central Street) was stocked with Christmas gift items that were “valuable,” “beautiful,” “practical,” “economical,” and “appropriate.”
Two doors down from Chapman’s was W.S. Hewitt & Co., which offered such gift items as handkerchiefs, suspenders, fur gloves, neckties, and hosiery for men and boys. The J.B. Jones store (where N.T. Ferro is now located), in a half-page advertisement, promoted the sale of lamps, baskets, aprons, scissors, umbrellas, and mirrors.
Rounding out the stores on the south side of the Central Street block was the J.R. Murdock store. Murdock advertised such wares as jewelry, clocks, furniture, and silver items. According to Murdock’s advertisement, “Christmas time - ah, then’s when the human heart is made glad and such jewelry stores as ours are crowded. This year you will find here the greatest scope for your generous heart you ever had.”
Interior of Chapman’s Pharmacy, filled with valuable, beautiful, practical, economical, and appropriate goods. © Woodstock History Center
The Puritan View Toward Christmas
Above, a copy of a “publick notice” from 1659 informing members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony that a law had been passed which made the offense of "observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way” an offense punishable with a 5 shilling fine. This law was later repealed in 1681.
The change in the number and types of advertisements for Christmas presents from the mid to late 19th century was indicative of a universal trend that went well beyond the borders of Woodstock. While some people by the mid 19th century had begun to engage in the celebratory practices that we now associate with the holiday, such as decorated trees and gift giving, there were many others who appear to have clung to beliefs inherited from the Puritans that it was sacrilege to celebrate the day with song, merriment and gift giving. It wasn’t until the latter part of the 19th century that celebrating the holiday with such frivolity was fully embraced.
One of the major influences that led to the establishment of Christmas celebrations as we know them today was the appearance of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol which was first published in 1843. It wasn’t for another twenty-seven years, however, in 1870, that a bill was passed that first designated Christmas as a legal (although unpaid) holiday for federal employees in the District of Columbia.