Most popular Christmas gifts Competitive gift-giving was a feature of Henry VIII’s rule, who was among the monarchs who utilised the gift-giving tradition to exact further tribute from their subjects. He is recorded in 1534 as having received a richly adorned table, compass and clock, among other presents.
Oranges and cloves were common presents among ordinary people. This possibly represented the gifts given by the Magi to Jesus. They may also be inspired by renderings of Saint Nicholas with three gold balls, which represented the gold he hurled through children’s windows.
Gifts to children
During the 16th century, a Christmas custom of giving Most popular Christmas gifts to children became widespread in Europe. It was also often an occasion for peasants and later working classes to insist on benefaction from local elites, in the form of food and drink.
The focus on gifting towards children may have been promoted later by initiatives to reduce rowdiness on urban streets around Christmas time, and by parents interested in keeping children away from those streets’ corrupting influences. In 19th-century New York, a city with a rapidly increasing population, concerns of radicalism among the city’s poor informed a revival of Dutch Christmas traditions and domestic festivities.
As a result, Christmas became a more private and domestic holiday, rather than one primarily of public carousing.
- ۰ ۰
- ۰ نظر