The 25 Strangest days of Christmas Day 2 - “The Mourning Tree: Victorians Who Decorated with the Dead”

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

0:03 Speaker 1: day two of our Victorian Christmas countdown the twenty five

0:07 Speaker 1: Strangest Days of Christmas. Today we unwrap a tradition that

0:11 Speaker 1: proves holiday cheer has never been straightforward. Let's talk about

0:15 Speaker 1: Christmas cards starring dead birds. Victorian Christmas cards were not adorable.

0:19 Speaker 1: They often featured images of tiny dead robins and sparrows

0:23 Speaker 1: lying in the snow, with captions like a joyous Christmas,

0:27 Speaker 1: and people happily sent these to loved ones. Why Because

0:31 Speaker 1: Victorians adored sentimental symbolism. The robin, associated with Christ's sacrifice

0:37 Speaker 1: and winter hardship, became a poetic metaphor, touching in a

0:41 Speaker 1: grim Victorian way. And eighteen seventy one card reads, though

0:47 Speaker 1: death be cold, love is warm over a freshly expired sparrow.

0:52 Speaker 1: Nothing says holiday cheer like tiny corpse imagery.

0:56 Speaker 2: Apparently, today's episode is brought to you by Cheery's memorial taxidermy.

1:02 Speaker 2: Did your canary cross the rainbow bridge? Don't bury the memory?

1:06 Speaker 2: Display it in a jaunty holiday waistcoat. Tiny waistcoats not included.

1:11 Speaker 2: Please do not hang on the tree. Learn that one

1:14 Speaker 2: the hard.

1:14 Speaker 1: Way Victorian Christmas wasn't afraid to blend beauty with the micawbre.

1:19 Speaker 1: Tomorrow we talk about candles on trees. Yes, actual open flames. Yes,

1:24 Speaker 1: it went exactly how you think. So tune in each

1:27 Speaker 1: day as we bring you the twenty five Strangest Days

1:30 Speaker 1: of Christmas