Christmas has been celebrated “forever”… However, there was a moment when it took on a very powerful cultural form without losing its religious essence. This happened in the mid-19th century for a collateral reason to the Christmas fact: Charles Dickens desperately needed money to support his large family, and the way to achieve it was by selling his literary talent.
Dickens was already a literary celebrity thanks to his books and opinion articles in the press of the time. Nevertheless, some of his later novels had not managed to sell the figures his publishers hoped for, and they decided to communicate to the writer that, or sales increased, or the decision to be made could be drastic. Dickens was responsible for four children plus another on the way, as well as his father, who kept accumulating debts. Then he had the idea of writing a story around Christmas, very original for then within the Christmas spirit.
Said and done; in just six weeks, he had created the character of the miser Scrooge as both rejectable as endearing. Dickens was very bold since the really important day of the winter holidays was January 5th. Before that day, there were dates of Advent, but they were more days of prayers than of parties without gift exchanges. This is how Christmas acquired a new popular and festive air around Christmas. His boldness must be valued from the certain fact that, at least since the 17th century, the Puritans commanded by Oliver Cromwell stifled attempts to transform Christmas into a joyful holiday.
Due to German influence, the first Christmas tree was installed at Windsor during the Christmas seasons of 1841. And in 1843, the first Christmas postcard was printed. Dickens helped quite a bit with his book *A Christmas Carol* to popularize Christmas as a holiday centered around family and celebrating with loved ones.
The book became an immediate success due to the approach he himself openly confessed had seemed essential to him: creating an atmosphere linked to the illusion and innocence of childhood that manages to drag adults along. Christmas of childhood belongs to the senses. For that very reason, the celebration doesn’t remain around childhood, but ends up being an event that dazzles children and is transferred to the adults.
For children, Christmas is excitement and nerves, surprises and gifts. Their joy is rooted in the present. According to Dickens, this immediate Christmas that enters through the senses enters a broader time full of meaning. What was a luminous sensory experience becomes a deeper and more enriching moral experience, capable of transforming: what previously delighted the senses now moves the conscience regarding the more supportive and Christian behaviors of adults. The true meaning of Christmas is love, and Dickens knew it. It is true that he felt comfortable with Unitarianism (rejection of the dogma of the Trinity believing that God is one person).
But his *A Christmas Carol* has a religious background with many quite concrete Christian religious references.
The action of the story, after all, unfolds around Christmas Eve, when Scrooge changes his life as a conversion. Some people laughed at seeing such a change, but he was not affected by it; his inner change was profound: “His heart was merry, and that was enough.” And this moving story of conversion closes with the invocation: “God bless us every, one!”
In such a different context as the present, the essential thing does not change: even if the night is dark, the light of Bethlehem guides us to find hope in this turbulent and seemingly meaningless world. We will even be able to give hope to those around us by seeking the deep meaning of these dates. Charles Dickens has also contributed to this.
Gabriel Mª Otalora
English version translated with AI