Christmas in Victorian America: City House/Country House

A festive look at how Christmas was celebrated with two real-life 19th-century New York families in both the city and in the country. 

Christmas traditions evolved over the 19th century combining influences from the days of the Dutch settlers to British practices inspired by the work of Dickens and came to become something truly American. In this special holiday episode, The Gilded Gentleman visits with Ann Haddad, House Historian of New York’s 1832 Merchant’s House Museum to take a look at how the well-to-do Tredwell family and their servants would have celebrated the holiday around mid-century. We then travel outside the city up to the Hudson Valley for a visit with Maria Reynolds, curator of the Mills Mansion in Staatsburgh, New York, a grand Stanford White-designed country house right out of the Gilded Age. For the Mills family, the holidays around 1899 and 1900 in the country included many outdoor winter activities including sledding and skating and even, with a great greenhouse on the estate, some special items served on holiday tables. And through some unique archival material, we’ll even get a sense of just who may have come to visit for a holiday dinner.