How To Bring Some Dickens Into Your Christmas
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“But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round…as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.”
I must admit freely that I didn’t grow up enamored with Charles Dickens. I didn’t watch The Muppet Christmas Carol, I didn’t eat plum pudding each year for the holidays, and my family didn’t once curl up around the fireplace with mugs of hot cider to listen to the most famous Christmas ghost story of all time. I did, one time, watch Scrooged starring Bill Murray as a modern day Ebenezer. It didn’t, however, become a yearly tradition.
My interest in Mr. Charles Dickens the author, and his stories, is a more recent one. While many of us are required to read Great Expectations at some point in our high school education, I believe none of us are then of an age to see the humor and levity with which Dickens laced his rather wordy story.
We see the poverty, the strange character names, the dreariness, and mostly Miss Havisham, who remains until today, remembered in my mind encumbered in grief, bitterness, revenge, and a very old wedding dress.
Yet, I have since become enthralled with Charles Dickens and his stories, and am reading through them, finding in each beautifully written tale. Still wordy tales, yes, but also full of compassion, hope, forgiveness, wit, and even great fun.
His most well known story of all is, of course, A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (mostly known now as just A Christmas Carol). It was written by Charles Dickens in 1843. I suggest we let this famous novella inspire a variety of beautiful and fun Victorian Christmas traditions and an aesthetic that can be incorporated into our modern holidays, adding both a touch of historical nostalgia and simple true joyfulness.
The following are some ideas of how you can bring a bit of Charles Dickens and his Victorian England into your Christmas:
01 | Read one of Dickens’ stories
Of course, I highly suggest you obtain and read, if you haven’t already, A Christmas Carol. It’s very doable, even in the busy holiday season, and is especially fun to read aloud to kids (do as many Scrooge-y and Tiny Tim-like voices as you can!). I read it to my son last year and was tearing up by the heart-swelling final scene.
There are many different bindings and covers for this classic and beloved story, but this one would make an excellent gift for a beloved bibliophile, or addition to your own home library:
Since Dickens did, of course, use Victorian English and expressions, a more modern English translation may be more to your liking (or more accessible for young listeners):
Mr. Dickens also wrote four other subsequent novellas that are set over Christmas or New Years: The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain.
You can buy them separately, or collected together, as in this hardback edition:
02 | Enjoy books and movies about Dickens writing A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in under a month, and the story of his life around this time makes for fascinating reading (or watching). I won’t give away the “plot,” but I find knowing the author’s life better in this case lends for a more appreciative reading of his story.
I just finished this fictionalized version titled Mr. Dickens And His Carol and it caught me up from the beginning:
A non-fiction version of Mr. Dickens’ writing A Christmas Carol:
And the fictionalized movie, starring Dan Stevens as the energetic Charles Dickens, based on the above book (which I’ve rewatched each Christmas since it came out in 2017):
03 | Watch a version of A Christmas Carol
Of course, there are so many versions of A Christmas Carol, to list them all would take all day, but here are a few to consider:
The Muppets Christmas Carol:
A Christmas Carol (starring Patrick Stewart):
A Christmas Carol (1971 animated version):
A Christmas Carol (starring Alastair Sim, rated 5 stars with over 10k ratings on Amazon Prime!):
04 | Eat like a Victorian at Christmas
There is a particular scene in A Christmas Carol where one of Scrooge’s spectral visitors guides him to a room filled with a holiday feast.
“The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed. It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.”
While not many of us have access to, or want, a sucking-pig at our holiday table, there are a few options listed here that may appeal even to our modern palate. Oysters make any table feel more special and festive, though not many of us in the United States think of them as a Christmas food. Why not get a dozen and serve them as an appetizer? Along with the Christmas turkey or ham, maybe a plate full of fruits on the table to add color and sweetness? Have you ever tried a plum pudding or twelfth-cake? Me neither! But here are a few recipes I found online that look tasty and may just become a new old tradition:
Plum Pudding (not the traditional English recipe, but with easier to find ingredients in the U.S.):
Photo from Taste of Home
Twelfth Cake (traditionally eaten on Epiphany, the twelfth of the twelve days of Christmas):
Photo from DBE National
A toast for the holidays:
There is plenty of alcohol in both of these recipes, so be forewarned. Dickens was not a fan of the Temperance movement of his time, but instead included the convivial spirit of good drink and good cheer in several of his books and novellas.
Charles Dickens’ own punch recipe (as penned in a letter):
Photo from Atlas Obscura
Smoking Bishop (referenced at the end of A Christmas Carol):
Photo from Country File
05 | Carol for all to hear
Christmas caroling really came into style during the Victorian times, when families started to celebrate Christmas together. Carols were often sung together after the Christmas meal. Join the Victorians of old by singing with your friends and family some of the more popular songs of that time:
“Go Tell It On The Mountain”
“What Child Is This?”
“O Little Town Of Bethlehem”
“Away In A Manger”
06 | Send Christmas wishes by post
The sending of Christmas cards hit its stride in the Victorian era due to color printing becoming much easier. While color cards were more expensive before this, being printed in black and white and then hand colored, they became cheaper with color now included in the mass production of cards. The penny post was already standard, so one could send a card for a standard and cheap rate.
I’ve noticed a trend away from sending Christmas cards, or those sent include a lovely picture of the family but no written words, and no original art. This year, maybe send just a few cards you pick up from a local market, hand made and beautifully done, with a special note inside to wish your mother, grandma, or best friend a more intimate “Merry Christmas.” It’s a treasure they’re likely to enjoy for years to come.
07 | Add a little Victorian flair to your wardrobe
The women of Dickens’ day were not their Puritan predecessors when it came to sartorial choices. They enjoyed ruffles, color, a variety of materials, and style was for all to see. We may not want to return to corsets, but why not add in a little modern Victorian style to your holiday outfit this year?
08 | Serve & give
Most of all, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is about generosity and giving to others. Many of his stories encourage his readers to see the poverty and needs all around them, and to go and do something about it. Scrooge famously realizes that a miserly life is no life at all because it lacks the relationships and joy that a life of giving and charity includes.
So this Christmas season, look for ways to give, to volunteer, to serve others around you, both those you know and those you don’t yet. This is the Christmas spirit that Dickens was writing about.
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.”
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