During the recent Christmas season I saw references everywhere to “Victorian” Christmas celebrations– house tours, store windows, magazine advertisements, etc. I can understand people pining for a simpler time, provided we overlook such details as child labor, Jim Crow laws, and women not having the right to vote.
What I wonder is whether people in Victorian times waxed nostalgic about prior eras. Did they have “Federalist” Christmases idealizing the late 1700s? For that matter, did the Federalists have “colonial” Christmases idealizing the late 1600s? Or did prior generations have enough sense to appreciate their own time?
