We can thank the Victorians for the way we celebrate Christmas today. Forget the the ancient traditions because so far as Christmas was concerned they hardly existed. It wasn't much of a festival until they got their hands on it.
It was possibly due in some part to Queen Victoria's german husband Prince Albert and his import of some traditions from the fatherland. A magazine published a sketch of the royal family gathered around a tree with decorations on it. This caught on like wildfire and soon houses big and small across the land sported trees covered in decorations.
By the 1880's sending cards had also caught on. The first commercial card was, of course, british. Tom Smith and his crackers also arrived and have still not left.
Probably the oldest surviving tradition was the Christmas dinner which dated back to the middle ages. But this too was re invented by the Victorians to be closer to that we enjoy today. They made the turkey the main element surpassing the earlier choices of beef and goose.
Finally they made the family the centre of activities supported by books such as Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Clever lot weren't they.
