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.