Count down to Christmas day one
To what extent do we owe a lot of our Christmas celebrations to Charles Dickens? There could be an argument for a fair amount. Dickens wrote a series of Christmas stories in his career, with the most famous being A Christmas Carol (1843). There were others though, The Chimes (1844); The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) and The Battle of Life (1846).
They cover themes we would expect of Dickens as a social commentator. A Christmas Carol and The Chimes' have moral messages to not look back to the past and to not be greedy at Christmas or any other time of year. They are tales of repentance and of making things right at Christmas and the whole year through. 'The Cricket on the Hearth' is a tale of love and one of the characters finds the joy of festive cheer at the end of the story in the style of Scrooge. There are elements of love and family and anti-greed morals throughout all the stories.
There are some things in the stories that we have as part of our modern Christmas. There are many elements that we find familiar. The idea of eating goose at Christmas is not so common today but we do eat things such as Turkeys at Christmas. The descriptions of decorations, food and party games are familiar to us all.
The Victorians were living in an age where the world had fallen out of love with Christmas. Not many people celebrated the day and took it seriously. The phenomenal popularity of the works of Dickens captured the imagination and made people take notice of Christmas again.
Dickens wasn't the only one. Prince Albert is famed for introducing the Christmas Tree to the public consciousness (although there is evidence that there had been decorated trees in England before he bought this to people's attention).
The romantic descriptions of Christmas that Dickens wrote are what people found engaging. People liked the idea of family and of romance and love and forgiveness. There was a sense of nostalgia about the celebrations. The Victorians were very fond of the Middle Ages and brought many of the old customs back into their Christmas celebrations. These are mentioned in the stories Dickens wrote and, although hard to tell if these customs were coming back into fashion anyway, it is clear that his stories increased public awareness and helped them to grow in popularity.
From a modern perspective we do owe a lot to Charles Dickens and his Christmas stories.
They cover themes we would expect of Dickens as a social commentator. A Christmas Carol and The Chimes' have moral messages to not look back to the past and to not be greedy at Christmas or any other time of year. They are tales of repentance and of making things right at Christmas and the whole year through. 'The Cricket on the Hearth' is a tale of love and one of the characters finds the joy of festive cheer at the end of the story in the style of Scrooge. There are elements of love and family and anti-greed morals throughout all the stories.
There are some things in the stories that we have as part of our modern Christmas. There are many elements that we find familiar. The idea of eating goose at Christmas is not so common today but we do eat things such as Turkeys at Christmas. The descriptions of decorations, food and party games are familiar to us all.
The Victorians were living in an age where the world had fallen out of love with Christmas. Not many people celebrated the day and took it seriously. The phenomenal popularity of the works of Dickens captured the imagination and made people take notice of Christmas again.
Dickens wasn't the only one. Prince Albert is famed for introducing the Christmas Tree to the public consciousness (although there is evidence that there had been decorated trees in England before he bought this to people's attention).
The romantic descriptions of Christmas that Dickens wrote are what people found engaging. People liked the idea of family and of romance and love and forgiveness. There was a sense of nostalgia about the celebrations. The Victorians were very fond of the Middle Ages and brought many of the old customs back into their Christmas celebrations. These are mentioned in the stories Dickens wrote and, although hard to tell if these customs were coming back into fashion anyway, it is clear that his stories increased public awareness and helped them to grow in popularity.
From a modern perspective we do owe a lot to Charles Dickens and his Christmas stories.
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