The 25 Strangest days of Christmas Day 12 - Christmas Trees Often Featured Taxidermy

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Strange History Podcast and

0:03 Speaker 1: Day twelve of our Victorian Christmas countdown the twenty five

0:07 Speaker 1: Strangest Days of Christmas. Victorian decorating style can be summed

0:12 Speaker 1: up as if you love it, put it on display,

0:16 Speaker 1: even if it's dead. Victorian households often decorated their Christmas

0:20 Speaker 1: trees with taxidermied birds, especially robins and owls, perched like

0:26 Speaker 1: ever watchful guardians of holiday cheer. This was actually considered tasteful,

0:31 Speaker 1: a nod to nature's beauty during the bleak winter, but

0:35 Speaker 1: some displays went further. In eighteen seventy eight, Lady Charlotte

0:41 Speaker 1: Musgrave hosted a Christmas gathering where her tree featured two

0:46 Speaker 1: stuffed squirrels, a fox posed as though climbing toward the star,

0:51 Speaker 1: and what she referred to simply as the owl of contemplation.

0:55 Speaker 1: Guests reportedly found the display both majestic and deeply un settling.

1:01 Speaker 1: Victorian Christmas decor lived in the Uncanny Valley and liked

1:05 Speaker 1: it there.

1:06 Speaker 2: This episode is sponsored by Stuff and Fluff, Ethical Foe Taxidermy,

1:11 Speaker 2: all the woodland charm, none of the glassy eyed judgment

1:15 Speaker 2: available in Owl Fox Squirrel and bird that Knows too much.

1:21 Speaker 2: No animals were harmed in the making of these creatures.

1:24 Speaker 2: We have a team of grannies crocheting them in a

1:27 Speaker 2: back room.

1:28 Speaker 1: Next episode, holiday pageants, but everyone has to freeze in place.

1:33 Speaker 1: Bring your best serious Victorian staring face.