The Young Victoria comes out this Friday, and since we love period pieces around here we thought we'd dive right into the Victorian era this week.
Queen Victoria came to power in 1837, right around the time many of our modern holiday traditions started to blossom. In fact, it was during the Victorian era when Charles Dickens published his classic A Christmas Carol in 1843, cementing the holiday spirit in the collective consciousness. But right before Victoria's time, the holidays were much less significant — the London Times didn't even mention Christmas between 1790 and 1835. Find out how the Victorian era helped England and the rest of the world go from indifference to total overload when it comes to holiday traditions.