Best of "Victorian Work and Labor": Victorians Institute Conference Papers (Complete Versions Available Online).

This paper focuses on the Victorian Father Christmas/Santa Claus, charting his transformation during the era from a non-gift-giving character synonymous with festive cheer and social cohesion into the consumer deity that is more familiar today. Using Karl Marx's theory of commodity fetishism, this transformation is read in the context of the development of a consumer society and a consumer Christmas in the Victorian period. It is argued that the Santa Claus legend in its revised state enabled the origins of industrial commodities to be displaced, allowing the Victorian middle class to indulge in hedonistic festive consumption without being burdened by anxieties surrounding the true origins of the products they bought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]