A brief history of gift giving
Giving gifts for special occasions and events really is a popular tradition all around the world. Whether it’s exchanging Christmas gifts, giving your family and friends presents on their birthday or perhaps celebrating a couple’s marriage with wedding presents, giving gifts has got a long standing custom in several cultures.
In more recent years, many other occasions also have become associated with gift giving, so we now give Christening gifts as well as Anniversary gifts and even presents for Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, Valentine’s Day and also life events like graduations and retirements.
It really is believed that the traditions of giving presents goes back to Roman times. They were the very first to celebrate birthdays by having extravagant parties plus birthday gifts, and also they enthusiastically celebrated the festival Saturnalia each and every December.
This week long party occurred between 17 and 23 December and it saw the Romans visiting friends and family, enjoying feasts and obviously, giving presents to each other. Popular presents for men and presents for ladies included candles, earthenware figures, clothes, books, crockery as well as perfumes.
Saturnalia was one of the festivals which contributed to the origin of Xmas. When Christianity started spreading, customs had been taken from numerous ancient and Pagan festivals. Giving gifts was taken from Saturnalia, greenery and lighting from the Roman New Year and food items from Germanic festival of Yule.
The celebration of Xmas transformed significantly through the Middle Ages. At the start of the period, it involved eating, drinking as well as carolling for the entire period of what we know now as Advent and also Christmas gifts were given on New Year’s Day. During the 16th-17th centuries, Christmas time changed to include far more lavish feasts and gifts being given on Christmas Eve and also Christmas Day.
Even though the festival was stopped by Oliver Cromwell in 1647, it still continued to be popular but it was the Victorian period which saw Christmas develop into the event we know today. Queen Victoria’s partner Prince Albert brought over the custom of Christmas trees from Germany, and the giving of Christmas presents to the whole household became extremely popular. Victorian gift ideas included both useful and also ornamental gifts. Christmas gifts for men included slippers, scarves and cigar cases, whereas females received stationary, aprons as well as pin cushions. Personalised gifts and also handmade gifts were very popular, with many families spending the dark winter evenings creating unique gifts for each other.
Christmas is not the only event to involve giving gifts, and also many other traditions have a rich history of showing love by way of presents. Anniversary gifts are thought to date back to the Middle Ages in Germanic nations. A woman was given a silver wreath by her good friends to commemorate 25 years of marriage and then a gold one to celebrate a 50th anniversary which is where the modern phrases originated from.
Over the years, much more dates became eligible for anniversary gifts. From the Victorian period, wood was a common gift for the fifth anniversary and also 60 years of marriage turned out to be referred to as a diamond wedding anniversary right after celebrations of Queen Victoria’s 60th year as monarch. Other significant anniversary dates celebrated with special anniversary gifts include the 20th (china), 30th (pearl) and also 40th (ruby), and now there are modern gifts suitable for just about every wedding anniversary, from the very first (clocks) to the 100th (10-carat diamond).
Although a few see giving gifts as a modern trend, the exchanging of presents has long been done for hundreds of years and the traditions behind giving birthday gifts on special occasions are simply just as important as the events themselves!