My lovely wife says that I was born a Victorian (no, I’m not actually that old!) and she has a point as, for the first half of my life, I had Victorian moral attitudes and beliefs. Then I had teenage children and discovered that life isn’t as black and white and right and wrong as I thought it was, it’s grey and messy and fuzzy and is much better and richer for being so. Thank you my children for making me see the light. And, for the last forty or so years, my interests, well some of them, have revolved around Victorian social history.
Victorians invented many aspects of Christmas that we recognise today and, for them, a magic lantern slide show, perhaps at Church or in the village hall or at home, with Dad showing the family’s favourite story slides and probably putting them in his magic lantern projector upside down and back to front, was an important part of their Christmas festivities.
I offered to give my family a magic lantern show this year on Christmas Day but they’re not keen ….. can’t think why!
Anyway, here’s some Christmas magic lantern slides from my collection. They were hand tinted when produced in the 1890s. The one of the group of people may seem a little weird but when you’ve seen as many lantern slides as I have, you realise that Victorians liked quirky stuff as much as we do!
I hope you have a lovely Christmas.
If you found this interesting, please share it with your family and friends. If you’re not reading it on my ‘Magic Lantern World‘ website, then please visit. There are over one hundred illustrated articles about Victorian slide projection and links to my historical photo-booklets on Amazon, my Ebay shop for magic lantern slides and Etsy store for historical photo greetings cards with a twist. You can read about my authentic Victorian magic lantern shows and talks on ‘Optical entertainments before the movies’ and lots more!
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