Bringing history alive with a Victorian Christmas at historic Charlottetown house

A visit to Christmas past: A historic house in Charlottetown is giving a glimpse into what Christmas celebrations looked like in the Victorian Period.

The sights and sounds of Christmas are in the air at Beaconsfield Historic House in Charlottetown this weekend. It’s a chance to see what Christmas was like for people living more than 100 years ago.

Christmas had become fairly muted after decades of Puritan suppression in the late Middle Ages, but in the Victorian Era, that changed.

“You really began to see the emergence of a more secular Christmas -- of a Christmas that was about celebrating family, making a magical time for children, that was all born out of peoples’ changing ideas about what Christmas was, what family was, how children should be raised,” said historical interpreter Caitlyn Paxson. “It was all changing.”

The Industrial Revolution was part of that. Factories could produce toys and decorations more cheaply and on a scale never before seen. That alongside more money in the hands of people at all levels of society created many new traditions.

“Most of what we think about as our modern Christmas trappings were born in the Victorian period,” said Paxson.

That's what's on display at a historic Charlottetown house, decorated with greenery, historical ornaments, and toys from the period.

In the house, you’re immersed in a Victorian-era Christmas, but this isn’t the only time they do these immersive experiences. They also, near Halloween, do a Victorian Era séance. Both of them have the same goal: to bring people from the community into these spaces and immerse them in it, and immerse them in the history.

“People are going into the double drawing room for the first time and they’re really taking part in the activities, and that’s a definitely a hook for people, to bring them in, but it also is a much better experience for them,” said site manager Nick Longaphy.

This is the first year for the living history Christmas tour. The site has held Christmas events before, but not of this scope.

At the same time, they’re also hosting a community Christmas craft fair this weekend, another effort to shift this place from museum to a space for the community.