by Linore Rose Burkard

When I studied English Literature at the City University of New York, the professors never included writings by famous British authors that paid homage to Christmas or Christ. Authors like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (Even Wordsworth, you ask? Yes, though not overtly.¹) 

When researching my book, Regency House Christmas: A Remarkably Regency Yuletide,² I was pleasantly surprised to find material from these writers of my favorite historical era that revealed a faith my college professors avoided.  

I included brief snippets from Coleridge’s “A Christmas Carol,” Wordsworth’s “The River Duddon,” Scott’s “Christmas in England,” and Tennyson’s “Christmas Eve.”

Other Regency Christmas tidbits of interest:

• Decorating wasn’t done until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
• Decorations were real holly and ivy, and a small tabletop tree, if there was a tree at all.
• Mistletoe was popular among the lower classes but rare in the gentry and aristocracy (despite what some Regency authors would have us think).
• The first Christmas card wasn’t sent until 1843, post- regency. (Victorian)
• The first full-size Christmas tree in England appeared in 1800 when Queen Charlotte (of Germanic background) had one installed. The tradition wasn’t popularized, however, until Prince Albert’s tree appeared in a newspaper illustration, and the masses followed suit.
• Plum pudding, which dates to around 1670, contained no plums as early as the Regency, but raisins or currants instead.

^{1 The Christian Wordsworth, by William A. Ulmer, SUNY Press, traces the evolution of Wordsworth’s faith from pantheism to monotheism.}

^{2 The book is not currently available, and was originally only a PDF. An updated edition in the works will hopefully find a publisher this year.}

Linore Rose Burkard

Linore Rose Burkard writes “Inspirational Romance to Warm the Heart, Fiction to Stir the Soul.” Her newest books include Sheila’s Christmas Blessing, and The Hidden Locket at Holly Berry Inn, part of a multi-author Christmas novella compilation.

For more information on Linore, please visit https://www.linoreburkard.com/