Pigeon Pie and Christmas Cake

Posted by Anna D'Ambrosio on December 15th 2010 | 0 Comments

Tags: museum

Fountain Elms Parlor

Twenty-one years. That’s how long I have been thinking about Victorian-era holidays. When I gripe about stores and malls pulling out Christmas decorations immediately after Halloween, I have to remind myself that in the Decorative Arts Department at MWPAI we start thinking about Christmas around the 4th of July.

Christmas in America is a true mixture of ethnic traditions and a topic with endless research opportunities. The decorative arts staff spends weeks investigating 19th-century American Christmases and ethnic traditions, to introduce fresh themes to the annual Victorian Yuletide exhibition in the Museum’s period rooms in Fountain Elms. Holiday meals interpreted in the dining room have included a pigeon pie and a three-tiered Christmas cake. Parties in the parlor have varied from a simple family gathering of the 1860s to the revival of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s 1848 Christmas tree to an 1899 New Year’s Eve ball. The best part of it all? From families and girl scouts to Red Hat Clubs and school tours, people come back year after year knowing that they will see something special, something authentic, and that they will create memories while learning history.

Fountain Elms Dining Room

The Victorian Yuletide exhibition always includes several types of Christmas trees. In the United States we can thank German immigrants for introducing their custom of bringing a fir or pine tree into the home for Christmas. The first printed reference of a Christmas tree in the United States is in 1747, from the diary of a German Moravian, settled in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, appropriately enough. The first documented Christmas tree in the Utica was at Zion Lutheran Church on Columbia Street in 1845.

Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children with a Christmas tree

The Christmas tree was popularized in the States after Queen Victoria, her German-born husband Prince Albert and their children were depicted standing by their tree in an etching that was published in the 1848 Illustrated London News. By the 1850s American magazines ran illustrated stories about Christmas practices such as tree decorations and gift giving. In fact, the gifts initially were the decorations on American trees. Small, wrapped packages complemented strings of popcorn and handmade ornaments.

What are some of your family’s favorite holiday traditions? Do you have special foods you prepare during the holidays?