2022 Christmas – New Year Photo Contest

By | January 22nd, 2023|Categories: Christmas, Contests and Games, Uncategorized|

Thank you to all of our wonderful customers who entered the Christmas - New Year 2022 Photo Contest. The panel of judges made up of members of the Recollections crew thought these first 5 photos best captured the spirit of the holidays! The runners-up follow. Visit us at recollections.biz – we design and manufacture history-inspired [...]

Head-scratching Victorian Christmas cards

By | December 26th, 2022|Categories: Christmas, Holidays, Victorian culture, Victorian Era|

Happy Holidays! I have such an interest in learning new things about Victorian culture. Last year I discovered that clovers and pigs were popular symbols to represent the start of a new year and were featured on greeting cards for decades. I wondered if there was a similar thing to learn about 19th-century Christmas cards [...]

Holiday reading: from daring Victorians to It’s a Wonderful Life and MUCH more

By | December 19th, 2022|Categories: Christmas, Holidays|

Happy Holidays, dear customers! It has been a great year at Recollections and we are so thankful for all of you and your support. It has also been a great year for the blog and we are hard at work planning another great year of content. In the meantime, I thought it may be fun [...]

The Victorian Study of Snowflakes

By | December 3rd, 2022|Categories: Christmas, Victorian Era|

Victorians were innovators with a deep curiosity about the natural world. They also had a real knack for creating beautiful visuals, especially to our modern sensibilities. As we saw in my look at the life of Marianne North a couple of weeks ago, their scientific explorations often ended with beautiful aesthetics that we still enjoy [...]

These Good Housekeeping Gingerbread Houses Will Get You in the Holiday Spirit

By | December 2nd, 2022|Categories: Christmas, Holidays|

The holidays are upon us and that means once-a-year decor, food, and music. I have really enjoyed exploring Christmas traditions on the blog over the last few years. The holiday season is a fun topic to explore as one is unlikely to run out of ideas. Don’t believe me? Check out the multitude of podcasts [...]

Being Mrs. Claus: an interview with Cynthia Perkins

By | July 30th, 2022|Categories: Christmas, Holidays, Women's History|

I love connecting with the Mrs. Claus actors in our community! I have had the unique privilege of connecting with one each year since beginning to write for Recollections in 2019 and am very aware of how lucky I am! I enjoy telling their stories because I know how useful their expertise is for our [...]

Happy Christmas in July!

By | July 20th, 2022|Categories: Christmas, Holidays|Tags: |

Happy Christmas in July! I have loved writing blog posts for this fun occasion for the past two years. I have had the chance to meet some of our talented Mrs. Claus customers, learn about the history of Christmas in July, and offer ideas on how to celebrate. It seems that everyone is more excited [...]

Victorian New Year's Blessings: Pigs and Clovers

By | December 26th, 2021|Categories: Christmas, Holidays, Victorian culture, Victorian Era, Victorian Era Celebrations|Tags: , , |

When it comes to the holidays, some things change and some things stay very much the same. One thing that has changed since the Victorian era is that fewer cards are now sent for the holidays. While we now typically see mass amounts of cards being sent for Mother’s Day, Christmas, and to a lesser [...]

Snapdragon: Extreme Victorian Parlour Game

By | December 22nd, 2021|Categories: Christmas, Entertainment, History of the home, Holidays, Victorian Era, Victorian Era Celebrations|Tags: , , , |

How do you spend time with family and loved ones over the Christmas holiday? Are there games or traditions that you enjoy? Do any of them involve trying not to catch on fire? In the Victorian era, that is exactly what one could anticipate with the playing of a popular Christmas eve parlour game, snapdragon.  [...]