Queen Victoria's New Year's Day Gift Giving

The rich charitably giving food and drink to the poor at Christmas, from Thomas Kibble Hervey's Book of Christmas, 1837. Public Domain

The German custom of Christmas trees on New Year's Eve or Day  was certainly introduced, and though now it has been so extensively adopted in England as to have  become almost an English custom, for many years it was seen in very few houses beyond the Court. Queen Victoria and her family keep the custom on New Year's Eve. A large tree covered with lights and presents, is prepared for the servants of the Royal Household, and the Queen herself distributes the gifts which surround the tree to each individual. 

The ladies and gentlemen of the household are equally smiles are much more becoming than frowns. This seems an actual encouragement to good humor, as much as to say, if people have a mind to be handsome they must be peevish and untoward.  - Jeremy Collier, Christmas among Royalty, Cottage Hearth: A Magazine of Home Arts and Home Culture, Volume 11, Issue 1 - Volume 12, Issue 6