The Christmas tree lot was born in 1851. That was the year following the Christmas tree illustration in Godey’s. What happened is that a woodsman by the name of Mark Carr chopped down a couple dozen evergreens in the Catskill Mountains. He loaded them on a sled and transported them with a team of oxen to Manhattan’s [...]
In the days before social media, Twitter and TMZ, what happened behind palace doors did not filter down to the masses, who were largely ignorant of the lavish Christmas trees the royals decorated every year. But thanks to a 16-page illustrated supplement printed by the London Illustrated News on December 23, 1848, that landscape changed dramatically [...]
In 1800, Queen Charlotte decided to hold a huge Christmas party for the children of the nobility of Windsor, but instead of decorating a yew bough as she’d done in years past, she potted a live tree, covered it with baubles and fruit, and stood it in the middle of the drawing room at Queen’s Lodge surrounded by presents. “[F]rom [...]
