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Richard Blystone: How the Scrooge saved Christmas

blystone.richard
Richard Blystone  

CNN Senior Correspondent Richard Blystone reports on Charles Dickens and the lasting impact of "A Christmas Carol" on the holiday.

Q: In what ways did the Scrooge save Christmas?

BLYSTONE: At the time Charles Dickens wrote 'A Christmas Carol' in 1843, the observance of Christmas in many quarters was dying out. Earlier in the century, the practice of singing Christmas carols had dwindled away, almost to nothing, and the Industrial Revolution was absorbing all of people's energies and they didn't have time for fripperies like celebration of a Medieval, Christian and pagan festival in the middle of the winter.

Shortly before Dickens started writing that, the husband of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, had brought over from Germany some German Christmas customs, including the Christmas tree, which we still have.

So, that was a boost for the celebration of Christmas. But it was sort of struggling there for a while, so the historians tell us, when Dickens sat down and struck just the right chord with the Victorian people of the time.

'A Christmas Carol' really isn't a lot about Jesus Christ. What it's about is good times and goodwill and good food.

And Dickens, of course, was a major social critic of his time. He had grown up in poverty; went to work in a factory at the age of 12; his father had been in debtors' prison twice. And Dickens was really angry at the way Victorian society was organized to deal with the problems of the poor and the problems of those who could not keep up with all of this bustle that was going on.

Q: In what ways does the Dickensian Christmas live on in London?

BLYSTONE: You see manifestations of it everywhere you look at Christmas. The old- fashioned idiom that many people associate with Christmas goes straight back to the times of Charles Dickens.

The idea that you are supposed to be generous at Christmas was reinforced by Dickens. In a way, the secular view of Christmas, the dwindling of the religious impact of Christmas in the minds of many people, relates back to the way Dickens handled 'A Christmas Carol.'

He was writing at the time of a beginning of a long process of reform that didn't really come to its fullest fruition until right after World War II, when labor laws were formed that guaranteed workers more than they had ever had -- in terms of holiday time, pay and other rights.

Again, Dickens reinforced the secular view of Christmas. There wasn't a lot in there about the religious. It was after all a ghost story. It was supposed to be a cracking good read, and it is.



RELATED SITES:
Dickens on the Web
A Christmas Carol - the full text


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