Charles Dickens and the Commercialisation of Christmas

For as long as I can remember, people have been bemoaning the commercialisation of Christmas, but it isn’t the current generation that is responsible, nor their parents, nor even their parents’ parents. The blame – if that’s what you want to call it – for the commercialisation of Christmas can be laid firmly at the door of the Victorians, and Charles Dickens has to take his fair share of responsibility.

 

According to the historian Ronald Hutton, it was Dickens who revived the holiday, principally thanks to his novella, A Christmas Carol, creating a ‘family centred festival of generosity,’ contrasting with the declining community and church-based observations.

Charles Dickens - the man who invented Christmas

 

Many of the elements that make up Christmas as we know it today began during the reign of Queen Victoria, who ascended to the throne in 1837, so if a family from the mid-1800s were transported in time to the present day, there would be as much of a 21^st century Christmas that they would recognise as would be unfamiliar.

 

The idea of a holiday on Christmas Day and Boxing Day began because of the wealth generated by factories and the industrial revolution, which was also responsible for the mass production processes which enabled toy makers to produce dolls, games, books and other toys at affordable prices, well, affordable for the upper and middle classes at least. Father Christmas as a bringer of gifts for children gained popularity in Victorian times, before which he had largely been associated with adult feasting and merry-making.

 

The Christmas tree was introduced to Britain by Queen Victoria’s German husband, Prince Albert. He first brought one to Windsor Castle during the 1840s, when the typical Christmas dinner for the royals would have included beef and swan, but not turkey. For Victoria’s subjects, beef was popular in the north, while goose was favourite in the south – the poor everywhere had to make do with rabbit. By the end of the 19^th century turkey had taken its place as the typical Christmas meat.

 

Victoria, Albert, and tree

Crackers were another invention of the 1840s, created by a London sweet maker by the name of Tom Smith, who found that his original idea of wrapping sweets in a twist of coloured paper sold much better when he added a joke, a hat, and a toy, and made them go bang. The company that Smith started is still going, and supplies crackers to the royal family.

 

The creation of the penny post in 1840 by Rowland Hill facilitated the birth of the Christmas card as we know it today, although the first record of a Christmas card being sent dates back to 1611, when the German physician Michael Maier sent cards to James I of England and his son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. In 1843, Sir Henry Cole had a thousand cards printed which he sold for one shilling each from his London art shop, but the popularity of the Christmas card hit new heights in the 1870s thanks to the half-penny postage rates and the coming of the railways.

 

In 2019, the UK card industry made sales of £1.7bn, and it is estimated that the British send almost a billion Christmas cards a year, more per person than any other country. If our experience is anything to go by, the number must be on the decline however, as this year the number of cards we have received is down on last Christmas, and that was lower than the year before.

 

This reduction in the number of cards hitting our doormat may be down to any number of reasons, the pandemic probably being a factor, although I can’t rule out the possibility that we – or more probably I – have simply dropped off some people’s Christmas card lists! In all seriousness though, the cost of sending cards is becoming quite prohibitive. Sir Henry Cole’s one shilling Christmas card of 1843 would have been out of the price range of all but the very wealthy, as in today’s money it would have cost the equivalent of around £5, although individual cards in the shops today can easily cost as much as that.

 

Let’s say for the sake of argument that a reasonably priced pack of Christmas cards come in at about £5 for ten cards. This year we sent fifty, so that would be £25. Then add postage. As usual, we left it late to post our cards and had to send them first class, which is 75p a stamp, so £37.50 on top, making a total of £62.50 for Christmas cards. And even if they were charity cards, not all of the cost goes to the charity itself in most cases. It is little wonder that many people are ditching the Christmas card and making donations to charity instead, something which I think it very likely that I will do next year.

 

Looking at the somewhat diminished number of those that we have received this year, it is a fact that the design of Christmas cards not changed much over the years, as these cards from the late 19^th century show.

 

18th century Christmas cards were not so different from today's

The images of robins, and of Father Christmas, jolly lamplighters in Victorian streets, and general snowbound scenes have featured on cards since the very beginning, even though most of the country sees very little snow on 25^th December – the last White Christmas in London was ten years ago.

 

The fact that a Victorian family would recognise a lot of a 21^st century Christmas is because our traditions have ossified. Christmas is stuck in a time-warp, with everyone doing the same things year in year out. Even the Christmas songs have got stuck in one decade, albeit a fairly recent one, with the best dating from the 1970s (there were a few in the 1980s though). You know it’s Christmas when you hear Noddy Holder scream, “It’s Christmasssssssssss!” although ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ is now old enough to actually be one of the songs "your granny always tells ya...are the best."

 

Our Christmas was little different this year, as I expect yours was, although in all honesty, ours was only marginally different. We don’t have a large family, and although we weren’t able to have our elder daughter and her boyfriend join us on Christmas Day, most other things we did were pretty normal. Coronavirus restrictions aside, Christmas was pretty much the same as it ever was, and likely ever will be.

 

To my surprise, my Christmas supermarket shopping was less stressful than usual. We ate and drank pretty much what we normally do, although the present buying was scaled down from previous years, which was a relief – not because I’m a Scrooge, but because I lack inspiration (I don’t even know what I want, let alone what anyone else does). We are probably not typical however, and for many people, Christmas 2020 will have been one to remember for the wrong reasons.

 

The Christmas traditions that we know, and by and large, hold dear, will take years to change other than subtly – our time-travelling Victorian would probably find Christmas 2119 little different from 1849 – but I think that next year I’ll be making a donation to charity rather than sending cards, and our gift buying may well be scaled back still further. Doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy next Christmas though, and I’m sure that we all fervently hope that it will be a better one than this year.

 

 

 

doomscrolling

 doomscrolling

When you keep scrolling through all of your social media feeds, looking for the most recent upsetting news about the latest catastrophe. The amount of time spent doing this is directly proportional to how much worse you're going to feel after you're done.

 

 By nature I am a pessimist; I have also been called a cynic, with which I find it difficult to argue.

 

My pessimism is not helped by my habit of doomscrolling. The last few years have been fertile ground for doomscrolling (or doomsurfing, as it can also be termed); Brexit, Trump, and now coronavirus having dominated the news and social media. Each has provided more than enough, without sundry more minor content keeping the doom mongers ‘happy.’

 

The more I doomscroll – and I realise I started doing it long before I knew it had a name - and the deeper I delve into threads, comments, and replies, the worse it gets – there’s real anxiety brewing each time I click ‘Show this thread,’ or ‘Comment’ – especially on Twitter where the arguments are more persuasive, opposing views sometimes equally plausible. Facebook, on the other hand has a greater proportion of tin-foil hat wearing, certifiable nut-cases.

 

What is clear from my almost incessant doomscrolling is that there are dozens of people - hundreds, thousands even – who know exactly what the government are doing wrong (just about everything), but who never, ever, offer an alternative. Let’s face it, the views of experts – men and women with impeccable qualifications and years of experience in the field – are no match for the Karens and Kevins whose expertise is gleaned from Facebook, Google, and tabloid newspapers with sensational headlines backed up by bullshit.

 

Let’s be honest, we may have the worst government in living memory at exactly the worst time in recent history, but criticising their actions without offering a better alternative is not helpful, not practically nor in terms of our morale. Spreading outrageous conspiracy theories that will likely only make matters worse is indefensible.

 

I have often justified my pessimism (and on occasion I’ve had to, I’ve been chided about it by my wife often enough in the past) on the basis that it is based on (bitter) experience, and besides, pessimists are rarely disappointed. Being a pessimist is actually a positive state of mind, the upside (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms) is that some days, I am delighted to be proven wrong as something I have been expecting to be a disaster turns out to be not too bad at all.

 

Today, however is not a one of those days. Today, London and parts of Essex are to be moved into Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions. Given the alarming rise in new cases, this was inevitable – even the most ardent optimist must have expected it – and just in time for Christmas too, when we were supposedly all being allowed greater privileges, not that I was anticipating taking advantage anyway.

 

A couple of things struck me about the Christmas relaxation of restrictions. Firstly, given the tendency for people to take a mile when given an inch, it looked foolhardy (the much vaunted British common sense that some politicians have cited in recent months looks in short supply, and given a couple of glasses of anything alcoholic was likely to disappear completely). And secondly, where in any relaxation of restrictions is there any remote reference to following the science? It was recently revealed that the recent move to place a 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants was a policy decision, not a scientific one.

 

The striking thing about each and every government announcement on coronavirus is how singular it is, rarely having any reference or relation to any previous measures, nor being taken into account in subsequent ones; how else to explain the refusal to walk back the Christmas relaxation of social distancing rules on the same day that London and parts of Essex and Hertfordshire join Kent in Tier 3? And how do Essex and Herts get split when Kent had to be treated as a single entity?

 

This tweet sums it up:

 

Still, Christmas – got to be saved, hasn’t it? No; it doesn’t. We don’t really celebrate Christmas in this country as a Christian festival, not on the whole. It’s almost entirely a purely commercial occasion, driven by present buying and excessive consumption of food and drink. There’s no real reason why we cannot put the non-religious elements of Christmas on hold and have the party to end them all when – eventually – we get to the other side of this pandemic.

 

So, Christmas being ‘saved’ is a commercial decision on one hand, and on the other, one which seeks to make the government popular and prevent dissent. Besides, it’s Christmas, people will flout the rules anyway, so why not sanction it?

 

I hear that Jeopardy is nice this time of year.

It would be hypocritical of me to criticise the government’s response to coronavirus without offering better alternatives but I do feel justified in criticising them for the inconsistency of their coronavirus restrictions and their failure to communicate any form of justification. Not being a doctor, an epidemiologist or a public health expert, I can’t speak for the science they claim to be following, but what I do see are mixed messages. We can’t mix with friends outdoors – even in our own garden – but we can in parks or on beaches, but not in sports grounds. Except that some sports grounds can have spectators, but others can’t – and some that can, can’t have spectators who support one of the teams, but only those who support the other one. It’s little wonder that people don’t follow the rules, even if we understand them; they are inconsistent and difficult to justify. It often feels as though when new regulations come along, no heed is paid to what they replace, and we get left with conflicting and contradictory rules that no one bothers to explain the logic behind.

 

My Christmas will be quiet. We don’t have a large family; we don’t go in for large gatherings any year. This Christmas isn’t going to be much different from any other, just fewer presents (at the time of writing I have bought the grand total of one gift; the prospects of a Christmas Eve raid on the local petrol station for some desperate last minute presents looms.)

 

I appreciate that just because my Christmases are usually low-key, and just because I am happy to tone it down still further this year, not everyone will think the same. I know that there are people who have not seen relatives very much this year and who are looking forward to celebrating the season with them. But there’s a balance to be struck. Is giving up a normal Christmas in 2020 a reasonable price to pay to ensure a normal one in 2021 and thereafter? Or is this Christmas so important that it’s worth putting up with longer and more stringent restrictions? Reading some posts on social media, it does appear that many people have a ‘live today, and hang the consequences,’ attitude.

 

This will probably be my last blog of 2020: it would have been nice to have ended the year on a more upbeat note, but c’est la vie. Let’s hope that in 2021 we can all get back to a more normal existence, and have fewer opportunities for doomscrolling.

 

Have as merry a Christmas as you can in the circumstances. Likewise, the New Year, when I resolve to try to reduce my doomscrolling.