IT seems hard today to believe that for centuries, Christmas Day went by without a single present being exchanged.

Special celebrations had long been celebrated with gifts -- the Romans swapped tokens on the festivals of Saturnalia and Kalends, while the Norsemen called their chief god Odin the Gift-bringer, and celebrated his generosity during the feast of Yule.

But to early Christians, these pagan traditions smacked of excess and wildness, and could have no part in a holy holiday such as Christmas Day.

That's not to say they didn't give gifts -- but they exchanged them at New Year or Twelfth Night, a tradition still followed in many European countries.

So up the the last part of the 19th century, Christmas Day was a celebration with none of the excited unwrapping we enjoy -- and foot the bill for! -- today.

What made the change? Queen Victoria, of course, the founder of our modern-day 'traditional' Christmas with all its trimmings.

She and her beloved husband Albert were horrified at the drunken and often bawdy way Christmas was celebrated, and set about turning it into a family occasion.

Victoria always remembered the first Christmas she spent at home with Albert, whom she adored, after their marriage.

The young couple spent it at Windsor Castle, where they each had a tree set up in their own rooms, surrounded by gifts 'with which each took pleasure in surprising each other.' It started another Christmas custom, although it took a while to catch on. Poorer children started to benefit, though, when well-heeled ladies began providing Christmas gifts for charity.

The most popular gift in those hard times was food, but children would often receive knitted clothes, sweets and fruit. When the notion of Santa Claus arrived in Britain, the same ladies would dress up as the bearded gent to visit poor homes with a toy for each child.

By Edwardian times, presents were expected, but children, even of well-off families, seldom got more than one.

Many gifts were hand-made; embroidered handkerchiefs and samplers, home-made peppermints or sugared almonds wrapped in hand-decorated paper.

The luckiest children got a Dutch doll or a doll's house, or a new gift which was gaining tremendous popularity at the time, a teddy bear.

The best bears were made by the German company Steiff and are collector's items today.

As the 20th century wore on, gifts stayed fairly home-spun. Then, after the war, increasing affluence brought more toys for children -- tin soldiers, tops, and dolls made of an exciting new material called plastic.

Board games, popular for decades, remained steady favourites and have retained their popularity even in today's huge toy market.

The micro-chip revolution has seen video games soar to the top ten of the popularity charts since the Nineties, while cleverly-marked collecting crazes such as Pokemon have driven sales to new heights.

But there are some favourites, around since the Sixties, which remain outstandingly popular -- Action Man and Barbie, those dress-up dolls with a world of possibilities for an imaginative child.

Somehow, you can't help feeling that Queen Victoria would have approved...