Giving gifts for special occasions and events is a really popular custom all over the globe. Whether it is exchanging Christmas gifts, giving your friends and family presents on their birthday or celebrating a couple’s marriage with wedding presents, swapping gifts has got a long standing tradition in lots of cultures.
In more recent years, various other events have also become synonymous with giving gifts, so we now give Christening gifts and Anniversary gifts in addition to presents for Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, Valentine’s Day and life events such as graduations and retirements.
It’s considered that the custom of giving gifts dates back to Roman times. They were the very first to celebrate birthdays by having extravagant parties in addition to birthday gifts, and they also enthusiastically celebrated the festival Saturnalia each and every December.
This week long celebration took place between 17 and 23 December and it saw the Romans visiting friends and family, enjoying feasts and of course, giving gifts to each other. Popular gifts for men and presents for women included candles, earthenware figures, clothes, books, crockery and also perfumes.
Saturnalia was one of the festivals that contributed to the origin of Xmas. When Christianity began spreading, customs had been taken from numerous ancient and Pagan festivals. Gift giving ended up being taken from Saturnalia, greenery and lighting from the Roman New Year and meals from Germanic festival of Yule.
The celebration of Xmas transformed significantly throughout the Middle Ages. At the start of the period, it involved eating, drinking and carolling for the whole duration of what we know now as Advent and Christmas gifts were given on New Year’s Day. Through the 16th-17th centuries, Christmas time evolved to include far more luxurious feasts and gifts being given on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
Even though the festival was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell in 1647, it still remained popular however it was the Victorian time period which saw Christmas become the event that we all know today. Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert brought over the custom of Christmas trees from Germany, and then the giving of Christmas presents to the entire family became extremely popular. Victorian gift ideas included both practical and also ornamental gifts. Christmas gifts for men included slippers, scarves and cigar cases, while girls received stationary, aprons as well as pin cushions. Personalised gifts as well as handmade gifts were very popular, with a lot of families spending the dark winter evenings creating unique gifts for each other.
Christmas time is not the only event to involve gift giving, and also many other traditions have got a rich history of showing love by way of presents. Anniversary gifts are believed to date back to the Middle Ages in Germanic countries. A wife was handed a silver wreath by her friends to commemorate 25 years of marriage and a gold one to commemorate a 50th anniversary which is where the modern day terms originated from.
Over the years, many more dates became eligible for anniversary gifts. From the Victorian period, wood became a common gift for the fifth wedding anniversary and also six decades of marriage turned out to be known as a diamond wedding anniversary following celebrations of Queen Victoria’s 60th calendar year as monarch. Other significant anniversary dates celebrated with special anniversary gifts range from the 20th (china), 30th (pearl) and also 40th (ruby), and now there are actually modern gifts recommended for each and every wedding anniversary, from the 1st (clocks) to the 100th (10-carat diamond).
Although many see gift giving as a modern day trend, the exchanging of presents has been done for hundreds of years and the traditions behind giving gifts on special occasions are just as important as the events themselves!