No Dickens Christmas

It was not only Scrooge who had his Christmas spoilt by Charles Dickens; he ruined mine as well. To be fair, it was probably not his intention to burden my yuletide festivities with unrealistic expectations. I rather suspect he had something else in mind with A Christmas Carol and it did not include bringing disillusionment to a small boy one hundred and fifty years later.

In the age before Dickens, Christmas was a much more manageable affair. Of course, it has always been a significant date in the Christian calendar; after all, it is the birthday of the innocent baby who started it all. Nevertheless, it was always Easter that ruled supreme. Hardly surprising, since the anniversary of the founder’s death and resurrection cemented the religion into the hearts of believers around the world. Christmas is just a birthday party but Easter is a funeral and rebirth rolled into one. It is of such importance that Pope Gregory XIII reorganised the whole calendar around it in 1582. Christmas, on the other hand, has been banned by Oliver Cromwell for being too frivolous and generally ignored by the Scots until the 1950s.

England might have stayed the course if it had not been for the meddling of that ambitious novelist. According to Charles Dickens, Christmas is a time for closing down the workplace and bringing families together for some conspicuous consumption. In this way, he not only invented Christmas as we know it but probably the modern divorce rate as well.

Growing up, I may not have read A Christmas Carol but then I did not need to, its fiction was displayed all around. Cards, carols and frosted cakes all push the fantasy of an impossible Christmas. Every year we speculate on the possibility of a white Christmas but not only have I never experienced one my entire life, it is unlikely to be seen by anyone living south of Chesterfield. The burning desire to celebrate the season with retail rituals is fuelled by corporate connivance, it being said that our crimson Santa was invented by Coca-Cola and his trusty reindeer by Walt Disney.

And I believed it all, that was my Christmas. At least it was the Christmas that was promised to me. Sleigh rides, eggnog, snowmen that come to life and fly through the sky, even the faintly alarming prospect of an old man creeping into my bedroom because he has a “gift” for me. Every year I was filled with expectation, every Christmas I was disappointed. So yes, for that I blame Charles Dickens. Maybe that is why I decided to tweak his beard with my novel, Out With Time. He spoiled my Christmas so I took my revenge on Oliver Twist. If only I could do it every year.

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