Gifts

In Canada, the custom of giving gifts for Christmas is relatively recent. From the beginning of New France up to the end of the 19th century, gift giving was done at New Year’s and not at Christmas. Because of commercial publicity in newspapers, people progressively began giving a part of the gifts at Christmas and keeping the other for New Year’s Day. With gift giving, the Christmas stocking soon replaced the shoes placed by the chimney.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, in wealthier families, Christmas became the favored time to give the gifts to children. Large stores offered a huge variety of children’s toys and games for children and large selection of Christmas gift suggestions for adult gift exchanges. With the growing popularity of the legendary Santa Claus, in the 1930’s, we soon started to give gifts only at Christmas and the New Year’s gift giving tradition died away.