Christmas Tree

The Queen's Christmas tree at Windsor Castle 1848. Republished in Godey's Lady's Book, Philadelphia, December 1850. Victoria's crown, Prince Albert moustache.

In Britain, the Christmas tree was introduced in the time of the personal union with Hanover, by George III's Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in early 1800s, but the custom hadn't yet spread much beyond the royal family.

Queen Victoria as a child was familiar with the custom. In her journal for Christmas Eve 1832, the delighted 13-year-old princess wrote, "After dinner...we then went into the drawing-room near the dining-room...

There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees...".

After her marriage to her german cousin, Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became even more widespread throughout Britain.[

In 1847, Prince Albert wrote: "I must now seek in the children an echo of what brother, Ernest and I were in the old time, of what we felt and thought; and their delight in the Christmas-trees is not less than ours used to be".
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