My husband and I are very fond of trivia and historical trivia is among the best. Imagine our surprise as we were looking for new bits of trivia to tease and entertain each other with that we came across this little gem. Many of us are familiar with the story of A Christmas Carol written by Charles Dickens in the 19th century.
What I didn’t know is that when he released his little gilt-edged book, the phrase Merry Christmas was rarely said and businesses rarely closed for Christmas day. After all, it was the midst of the Industrial Revolution and business owners, like Scrooge, were interested in profit and not in giving employees the time off for the holidays.
It’s also important to note that during the reign of Oliver Cromwell and his puritans, the Christmas celebrations were outlawed as pagan festivities. While his reign did not last that long, the memory of those outlawed celebrations doled out a blow to the Christmas season. Also, more and more rural communities were being depleted to the industrial cities.
Traditional Christmas celebrations lasted 12 days in that time period and there was no business willing to close down for that long. Dickens gave many readings of his novel during that first year of its release and he was a very compelling reader and the sales of his book climbed and more and more, people began to recognize that they, like the Cratchitt family could be together on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
It took time, but even the business owners who did not want to be seen as Scrooge, miserly and alone, began to close on Christmas Day to urge their employees to be with their family. There’s a tale that when Dickens died in 1870, there were many who feared that Father Christmas would go with him, but as we all know – from the many Christmases past to the Christmas of the present and the Christmases yet to come – the spirit of the Dickensian dream is still very much alive and well.
I don’t know if this story is completely true – but I do know that I’ve always found A Christmas Carol to be a beloved Christmas story and if it’s true that Scrooge saved Christmas – as Tiny Tim said – God Bless Us … every one.
Do you think the story is true?
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