These Victorian Christmas images will get you in the holiday mood

By | December 22nd, 2023|Categories: Christmas, Holidays, Victorian Era, Victorian Era Celebrations|Tags: , |

“I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas. It brings people together while time stands still.” -Rachel Cohn  Happy holidays, dear customers! We hope that the jingle bells are jingling and that you are already creating memories you will cherish. The Christmas season is a time of year with a hard-to-describe ethereal thickness [...]

A Beatrix Potter Christmas

By | December 13th, 2023|Categories: Christmas, Holidays, Women's History|

I know our readers love them some Beatrix Potter. For me, her illustrations bring to mind thoughts of warm summer days at my grandparent's house - open fields and veggies growing for what seemed to be miles when I was young. I am sure many of you feel the same. And I am sure that [...]

Why are red and green Christmas colors?

By | December 6th, 2023|Categories: Christmas, Holidays|

We enjoy covering holiday traditions on the Recollections blog. One of the most pervasive traditions is almost overlooked because it is so ingrained in the season, the use of red and green. How did the colors become the colors of Christmas? Let’s look at some theories, including what I believe to be true.  Red and [...]

Black Friday: five theories and facts

By | November 24th, 2023|Categories: Christmas, Holidays, Thanksgiving|

We hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving! The holiday shopping season is here! We love offering you special discounts as part of the beginning of the holiday shopping season and of course, Black Friday.  Some believe that the term was created to refer to the fact that the holiday season supports retail establishments to [...]

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 [...]