This is from my family, 1900. The man is my GGF and the woman my Great GM's sister. My GGM could not be in the pic, because she was pregnant with my grandmother.
GM was born January 22, 1901.

Mother told me that Santa brought the tree and they did not see it until Christmas morning. The candles were lite for just a short time, for fear of a fire.

The trees were cut fom someone's ranch or farm. They were native cedars from Fayette county, TX

{{gwi:764781}}

That photo is just purely precious!

My family did not have a cottage! However, they all lived in Cottage Country as some parts of Northern Ontario are called. Grandma and the Grandpa I never knew had a Victorian home. Christmas meant ONE gift and one only for each child. No family came as nobody was here yet then...my grandmother only had one brother, her youngest emigrate to Welland, Ontario - a good long distance away from Victoria Harbor. Grandpa was home then, home from the boats as he was a ships engineer and the ice too deep on most of the Great Lakes by the middle of December. There was no income in these months as my entire family except for Grandma would eventually work the boats...they would grow vegetables and save them, someone would make sure they had meat - Grandma might do some sewing or make a quilt to barter, the boys help them with chores etc. Milk came from the cow they kept in the back yard. My mom said it was a quiet day - all except the year that my uncle carved a pair of skis for his siblings and they all went out and played on those.

GGG

My mother was raised next to the Canadian border in northern Vermont. I think the cottages were all pretty much in the woods up there! As a school girl in the 1930's she once received a gift of two oranges wrapped in tissue paper, which would have been quite a treat for most folks in her neighborhood. All the gifts she received as a child were handmade, except for a very special china doll. Until that time she had a stick of wood for a doll. As she examined her new store-bought doll, someone picked up her stick doll and tossed it on the fire, my mother SCREAMED in horror and luckily someone rescued her stick "baby", who continued to be her favorite.

When I was about 5 my grandma was making rag dolls for some missionary society. As she would finish one, she would toss it in a box. My brother, age 3, kept getting the same doll out of the box. So she gave it to him for Christmas.
I don't remember, but I bet Daddy had a stroke over that.

I did not understand that they would be at a sale. I could not understand why those missionaries needed all those dolls.

"Anybody have some thoughts on an old-fashioned cottage Christmas?"

My vision of an old fashioned cottage Christmas is the one described in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women". Sorry it's too big to paste here, I'm including a link below. Grew up with this story and wished some of the values depicted there were still around in today's Christmas.

Eduarda

Here is a link that might be useful: Little Women - A Merry Christmas

I love that story!! always have. My grandma is 95 and can't remember who i am sometimes but boy does she remember when she was a little girl. she also recieved oranges and nuts for christmas. one year she recieved a dress someone made her out of a feed sack. i have a pic of her in it. I also love the "little house" christmases. make you so thankful for what you have. My kids are all technos. my oldest is finally growing up some and realizing what it's all about. I am making breads, and giving jams and salsa for christmas. i also took black and white photos of all the kids for the grandparents as gifts. my hubby and i are both not working right now. DH is bringing in an income tho pickin mushrooms. so we are definitly going with a homemade christmas. my mother in law is also a gardener and i am making her a gift basket of seeds i've recieved from the seed exchange. I prefer the cottage christmas feeling! My house was a cottage 864sq ft but since we added on it's not. everyone calls it that though. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Tanya

My idea of a cottage Christmas is pretty much based on childhood books and their descriptions of Christmases. The one I liked best was the Tasha Tudor one, out of print now, or at least it was the last time I looked. Handmade gifts, stockings by the fire, and no television. A tree and a cozy fire and singing. Currier and Ives villages and sleighs and skating on the pond. I probably wouldn't really like to live in that world, but I would enjoy an idealized version of it. I think this is the source of all the village-y miniature buildings people collect. I've never bought any, but I always feel the urge when I see them displayed. The trouble is, you need at least half a dozen, even more, to start to make the picture work.

Speaking of handmade gifts, the other night I had my first lesson in learning how to knit. My husband is intrigued, and has let me know that if I made him a cardigan someday, he would be pleased. Maybe that is next Christmas's gift for him, depending on how fast I improve. Right now we have a quilt of my making on our bed, pieced cotton with a wool batting. Maybe that cottage Christmas will actually happen in our house someday.

Rosefolly

A good old fashioned Christmas, somehow they seem to have been lost along the way. I agree with Roefolly's version of a cottage Christmas.
I have just finished my fourth very long scarf. That's what the gals in our family are getting for Christmas this year. This scarf was very easy to knit, big needles, 2 skeins of thick yarn and only 16 stitches, it's done in garter stitch . When casting off... k2, cast off 12 stitches, the last 2 stitches you slip off the needle, slip the 2 knit stitches off the other needle as well. Then you unravel the two stitches along both sides. You end up with loops along both edges giving a nice effect.

Annette

That photo looks so much like the ones my family has managed to preserve through the years. It's wonderful! I only have one living grandparent now to ask about Christmas as a child. But she has mentioned getting fruit and nuts before as special Christmas treats. Also, as a southerner they had fireworks at that time of year to celebrate Christmas and not in July for Independence Day.
All year long a man with a funny accent pushed his cart around selling "fresh ripe bananos."