Christmas at the Geffrye Museum
Great Museum, nice cafe, good lecture on Christmas from the Staff but the Christmas displays themselves were a disapointment.
It felt as if the Museum had a Holly, Ivy, Mistletoe budget of about 10 sprigs . It was the opposite of 'bedecked'.
Christmas, through the ages, has been about conspicuous consumption and homely spectacle. Of course, it was downgraded in the Puritan period. So, I'm not sure whey the Museum decided to give us a minimal and tasteful Christmas. Perhaps, they did not want the Christmas displays to overwhelm the period displays? If so, then this meant that they were giving an inaccurate view of Christmas in the past.
Each room had interesting
information on Christmas but quite low key and really it did
not feel like a Christmas exhibition, it felt like a minor addition to the main displays, and I
think this is not in the spirit of 600 years of Christmas.
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