history: Oh Christmas Tree!

Charleston’s Christmas today is, in many ways, a beautiful reproduction of Christmas past. Victorian traditions still linger, woven into the city’s holiday traditions with a little more sparkle and a lot more illumination.

In Charleston, you know the holidays have arrived when trees begin going up—often the day after Thanksgiving—and homes turn their front windows into festive tableaux. Wrought-iron gates wear wreaths, piazzas are draped in garland, and the city seems to dress itself for the season.

But Christmas in Charleston wasn’t always quite so colorful, illuminated, or exuberant. It was during the Victorian era that the holiday took on a distinctly warm, intimate character, shaped by traditions that feel both nostalgic and surprisingly familiar today. Though the Victorian period ended in 1901, its influence remains woven into Charleston’s holiday aesthetic—from greenery and candlelight to the art of transforming the home into a welcoming celebration. In many ways, when we deck the halls today, we’re borrowing beautifully from Christmases past.

Valerie Perry is the assistant director of museums for the Historic Charleston Foundation (HCF), the history-centric organization that exists to understand how people lived in the past. “They knew how to decorate, but it was far more subdued than our modern standards,” Perry says of early Christmas celebrations at the Aiken-Rhett house.

 For decor, greenery was a staple in any Victorian household; however, the style at the time would have been more subdued, such as garlands on mantles and earlier forms of wreaths.

 The tradition of the Christmas tree seems as concrete as turkey on Thanksgiving or eggs at Easter, but the piney holiday staple that we know and love didn’t become widely popularized until around 1848, when an engraving in the Illustrated London News depicted the Christmas tree of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Windsor Castle.

 Unlike modern, massive floor trees, this particular tree was much smaller and actually sat on a tabletop. The royal household set up numerous trees throughout the castle, one for Victoria, Albert, and each of their children, and several for extended family members and staff.

 Not long after this engraving was published in “Godey's Lady's Book,” a women's magazine in 1850, the tabletop Christmas tree received even more notoriety thanks to the famous Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, who embarked on an extensive tour around the U.S. that same year, organized by P.T. Barnum himself. Fans of “The Greatest Showman” rejoice.

In mid-December of 1850, Lind arrived in Charleston with local newspapers covering her every step. Fans gathered outside her room at The Charleston Hotel on Meeting Street, hoping to catch a glimpse of the celebrity before her December 26 concert. The “Swedish Nightingale" obliged on Christmas Eve when she placed “a small forest tree at her window, decorated with variegated lamps, which attracted much attention,” reported the Charleston Courier.

 Lind performed three concerts during her time in the Holy City, but her impact on the holiday itself would influence family traditions for centuries to come.

 Another famous Charlestonian and artist, Meta Morris Grimball, was quoted in her diary describing the setup for her own Christmas tree. “… we had a tree fixed off in a very lively and interesting manner with little cabooses, ships, tables, chairs and dolls dressed, and lighted by little tapers.” (UNC Press, 1861)

 Christmas ornaments during the Victorian period were simpler than today’s commercialized, pop-culture figures, but far more complex in terms of being made out of materials such as wood or even glass in the traditional German style.

 “Ornaments included everything from wooden soldiers to small trains,” Perry added. “At the Aiken-Rhett house, we stick to the decorations of the period, including the family’s holiday and the holiday of the enslaved, which were immensely different.”

 Plants were a regular, albeit expensive, sight during the holidays. Fruit was also utilized in nearly every display in historical Charleston homes, including apples, sugared and dried fruits, grapes, bananas, and of course, the orange.

 One of Perry’s favorite decorations seen at the Aiken-Rhett House each year is the (now electric) candles on the Christmas trees.

 While some Victorian traditions may seem tame by today’s standards, the impact they made on the Christmas we know and love in Charleston is obvious, and this appreciation for historical traditions is preserved through organizations like the HCF.

 “Victorian Charleston Christmas was, to many, boring compared to today’s standards, but we at the Historic Charleston Foundation are here to provide education about the past, whether it’s flashy or not. We preserve the past to educate the future,” Perry said.

Visit historiccharleston.org to learn more about how protecting our past champions our future.