Every Christmas, I return to A Christmas Carol. I love reading Dickens's original story, and I love watching the older film adaptations. I've read it and watched it more times than I can count, and I still enjoy it every year. Scrooge, the ghosts, the Cratchit family, all of it. I know exactly what's going to happen, but that doesn't seem to matter.
This year, while thinking about the Cratchits and their Christmas dinner, I started wondering about something that probably wouldn't occur to most people reading the story.
Their clothes.
I suppose that's what happens when you spend as much time sewing as I do. I can hardly read a historical account anymore without wondering about the fabric, how something was made, or who was responsible for making it.
And once I started looking into it, I found quite a bit more than I expected.
Christmas in 1843
When Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol on December 19, 1843, Christmas was changing in Britain. Many of the traditions we recognize today were becoming increasingly popular during the Victorian period.
The decorated Christmas tree, for example, wasn't an invention of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, although they're often given credit for it. The custom had German roots and had already been introduced to the English royal court by Queen Charlotte decades earlier. Victoria and Albert helped make it fashionable, particularly among middle-class families.
Christmas cards were another development. Sir Henry Cole commissioned the first commercial Christmas card in 1843, the same year Dickens published his story. Improvements in manufacturing and printing meant that ornaments, toys, cards, and decorations were becoming more widely available.
Dickens didn't invent the Christmas celebration, and he certainly wasn't the only person influencing how it developed. But his story was enormously popular. The first printing of 6,000 copies sold out within days, and its emphasis on family, generosity, and looking after those less fortunate fit right into the changing Christmas traditions of the time.
What interests me most, though, isn't the Christmas tree or the decorations. It's what Dickens tells us about the Cratchit family.
Particularly Mrs. Cratchit's dress.
A Dress That Had Already Lived Another Life
When the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to visit the Cratchit family, Dickens describes Mrs. Cratchit as wearing a "twice-turned gown" decorated with inexpensive ribbons.
I don't know how many times I've read that passage without giving it much thought, but this time I wanted to know exactly what a twice-turned gown was.
It turns out that turning clothing was a fairly common way of extending its life during the nineteenth century. Fabric was expensive, and people weren't nearly as quick to discard clothing simply because it had become worn, faded, or unfashionable.
Turning a dress could mean taking it apart at the seams, reversing pieces of fabric to expose a less-worn surface, rearranging the pieces to conceal damage, and sewing the whole thing back together. Sometimes garments were altered to fit another person or updated to follow a newer fashion.
Think about the amount of work involved in taking apart an entire dress and reconstructing it by hand. I have a sewing machine, a serger, and a collection of tools that would have made a Victorian seamstress weep with envy, and I'm not particularly excited about the prospect of doing that.
There are historical records of women doing exactly this. In 1862, Jane Macartney, living in colonial Victoria, Australia, recorded spending at least two days taking apart and turning a gray gown before sewing it together again. That gives us some idea of the time involved.
And it wasn't unusual for a garment to be altered more than once. Clothing might be remodeled to follow changing fashions, handed down to younger family members, or eventually cut apart to make something else.
Sewing was also a much more widespread household skill than it is today. Girls commonly learned needlework while growing up, and for working-class families, making and maintaining clothing was often a necessity. Many women also earned money sewing for other people, although that work could involve terribly long hours and very little pay.
Given the Cratchits' circumstances, I imagine Mrs. Cratchit was quite capable of turning her own gown. Dickens doesn't tell us who did the work, but I have a hard time imagining that family spending money on a dressmaker when they were struggling to put Christmas dinner on the table.
And apparently, that dress had already been turned twice.
By the time Christmas arrived, a few inexpensive ribbons were enough to dress it up for the occasion.
Dickens also describes her daughter Belinda wearing ribbons, while young Peter Cratchit is thrilled to be wearing one of his father's shirt collars. It's much too large for him, but he's quite proud of himself.
I love that. The clothes might not have been new, but everyone was making an effort to look their best.
An Old Practice with a New Name
Something else occurred to me while researching all of this. We're doing quite a bit of the same thing today, only now we call it repurposing, refashioning, or upcycling.
Take an old shirt and turn it into part of a quilt. Make a bag from a worn pair of jeans. Cut apart a dress and use the fabric for something else. There are entire books, websites, and social media accounts dedicated to ideas that would have been familiar to women living two hundred years ago.
Of course, the reasons aren't always the same.
For many families in the nineteenth century, reusing fabric was a financial necessity. Today, people might do it to save money, reduce waste, preserve something sentimental, or just because they enjoy making things. And for plenty of people, the financial considerations are still very real.
As quilters, we've been doing some version of this for generations. Clothing becomes quilt fabric, leftover scraps become another project, and a piece of material that isn't useful for one purpose might be just right for something else.
There's also a difference between repurposing something because you want to and doing it because you have no other choice. I can take apart an old garment because I have an idea for a quilt. Mrs. Cratchit was wearing a twice-turned dress because new clothing was probably well beyond the family budget.
Still, the skills themselves have a great deal in common.
We've just given them some newer names.
The Women Behind the Christmas Table
The clothes weren't the only thing that caught my attention when I went back through the Cratchit family's Christmas.
There was also the dinner.
Dickens describes the family enjoying a goose with potatoes and applesauce, followed by a Christmas pudding. The meal sounds wonderful, especially through the eyes of a family that clearly considers it a special occasion.
But somebody had to prepare all of that.
Mrs. Cratchit is busy with the pudding, worrying that it won't turn out properly. The children help with the meal, and Bob prepares a warm drink. It's a busy household, and everyone seems to have something to do.
I particularly enjoy the scene where Mrs. Cratchit finally brings out the pudding. She's been worrying about it, and when it turns out well, she's understandably pleased.
I can relate to that. There are few things more irritating than spending hours preparing something for a holiday meal only to have it turn out badly.
What Dickens shows us, though, is only part of the work.
Before that family could sit down to dinner, there would have been food to purchase and prepare, clothing to clean and mend, and a house to put in order. All the things that have to happen before a holiday celebration can actually begin.
For working-class women in Victorian Britain, much of that household responsibility generally fell to them, often with help from their daughters. Men and boys could certainly contribute, as Dickens shows us with the Cratchit family, but sewing, laundry, cooking, and much of the day-to-day management of the home were commonly considered women's work.
And that work didn't stop just because it was Christmas.
If anything, there was more of it.
Some things haven't changed nearly as much as we might think.
The Handmade Victorian Christmas
Victorian Christmas celebrations also included plenty of homemade decorations and gifts, although exactly what those looked like depended a great deal on a family's income.
People decorated with greenery, ribbons, paper ornaments, nuts, and other materials. Some families made elaborate decorations, while others had far fewer resources to work with.
It's worth remembering that the beautiful Victorian Christmas scenes we see in old illustrations often represent homes that could afford those celebrations. Not every family had a decorated tree surrounded by gifts, a table full of food, and the leisure time to make ornamental decorations.
For women in wealthier households, needlework might be an enjoyable pastime or a way to demonstrate their accomplishments. Embroidery, decorative sewing, and handmade gifts were all part of that world.
For women in poorer households, sewing was often something that simply had to be done. Clothing needed to be repaired, children needed things to wear, and there wasn't money available to replace everything when it wore out.
That doesn't mean women couldn't enjoy the work. I'm sure some did, just as some probably hated every minute of it.
But there's a considerable difference between spending an afternoon sewing because you want to and spending that afternoon mending because your family needs the clothes.
It's something I think about when I look at old quilts and garments.
Today, I can walk into a quilt shop and spend far too much time choosing fabric for a project. Sometimes I even know what I'm going to make with it before I buy it.
Other times, the fabric comes home with me and we figure that part out later.
For a woman managing a household in the nineteenth century, purchasing fabric could require much more planning and sacrifice. It was an investment, and getting as much use as possible from it mattered.
When I think about how much sewing equipment and fabric I have available today, the difference is remarkable.
What Dickens Wanted His Readers to Notice
Of course, Dickens wasn't writing a history of sewing or household management. He was writing about poverty, generosity, and the way people treat one another.
When A Christmas Carol was published, Britain was dealing with serious concerns about poverty and child labor. Dickens had seen enough of those conditions to understand how difficult life could be for working families.
Scrooge begins the story with very little sympathy for anyone who is poor. He views poverty as someone else's problem and sees little reason to help.
The Cratchit family helps change that.
Bob earns very little, Tiny Tim is ill, and the family has limited resources. Yet Dickens shows them enjoying Christmas together, making the best of what they have.
That doesn't mean their poverty is something to celebrate. Dickens makes it quite clear that their circumstances are difficult and that Scrooge is in a position to help.
And he should.
Even the small details, like Mrs. Cratchit's dress and Peter's borrowed collar, help us understand the family's situation. Dickens doesn't have to explain that new clothing is beyond their means. Their appearance tells us enough.
It's one of the things I appreciate about his writing. He can tell us quite a bit about a family without stopping to explain every detail.
Although apparently, almost two hundred years later, I felt the need to investigate the dress.
The Christmas We Inherited
Nearly two centuries after Dickens published A Christmas Carol, we still celebrate with many of the traditions that became popular during the Victorian period.
We decorate trees, exchange gifts, send cards, prepare special meals, and gather with family. Some of the decorations are different, and we certainly have more conveniences than Victorian families did, but much of the celebration would still be recognizable.
And despite having stores filled with things we can buy, plenty of us continue to make Christmas gifts and decorations ourselves.
In my family, our handmade Christmas gift exchange includes my parents, siblings, and children. Everyone makes something, and the recipient draws a name to determine whose gift they receive.
I enjoy making those gifts. There's something satisfying about spending time creating something that another person will use or enjoy. There's usually some planning involved, occasionally a change of direction, and sometimes a project that takes considerably longer than anticipated.
But that's part of it.
Maybe that's one of the reasons I enjoy reading A Christmas Carol every year. It's a reminder that Christmas has never really depended on how much money people spend, even if the modern holiday shopping season occasionally tries to convince us otherwise.
I still love the story for Scrooge, the ghosts, the Cratchits, and that wonderful ending. But now I've added Mrs. Cratchit's dress to the list of things I notice when I read it.
A twice-turned gown, a few inexpensive ribbons, and a family doing its best to make Christmas special.
I wonder how many other little pieces of sewing history I've passed over in books I've read a dozen times.
Apparently, I'll have to keep reading.
Chris
