Snow At Christmas

Christmas — that most magical time of the year — and what signifies it most is snow falling gently from the sky and creating a magical white carpet on the ground. This image can’t help bring out the child in us all — remembering a childhood of snowball fights, sledging and building snowmen in the garden.

- Richard Payne

Snow and Christmas have gone together like strawberries and cream for what seems like for ever. But how often has it snowed on Christmas Day and why do we hold such affection with it at this magical season?

Many of us still watch the weather avidly on the days before Christmas to see if this year the magic will return. But does the mind play tricks — “Well it was always cold and snowy at Christmas time when I was young,” we hear — and where does the association come from?

The Christmas that we now love in Britain is very much a recent affair — mostly adopted by the Victorians. Before this there were no Christmas cards, no Father Christmas, no Christmas crackers, no Christmas trees and it was certainly not a holiday.

All of these were adopted during Queen Victoria’s reign, many coming from her German husband Prince Albert, and where the Royal Family led, the other great families followed, and so it transcended down through the classes.

It is interesting that these early images of Christmas did not, however, feature snow — families, yes, but no snow. Listen to the carols that are sung and these are pretty much snowless affairs referring instead to a biblical image — although it is mentioned in “In the Bleak Midwinter”.