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Charles Dickens has probably had more influence on the way that we
celebrate Christmas today than any single individual in human history except one.
At the beginning of the Victorian period the celebration of
Christmas was in decline. The medieval Christmas traditions, which combined the celebration of the
birth of Christ with the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia (a pagan celebration for the Roman
god of agriculture), and the Germanic winter festival of Yule, had come under intense scrutiny by
the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell. The Industrial Revolution, in full swing in Dickens' time,
allowed workers little time for the celebration of Christmas.
The romantic revival of Christmas traditions that occurred in
Victorian times had other contributors: Prince Albert brought the German custom of decorating the
Christmas tree to England,
the singing of Christmas carols (which had all but disappeared at
the turn of the century) began to thrive again, and the first Christmas card appeared in the 1840s.
But it was the Christmas stories of Dickens, particularly his 1843 masterpiece A Christmas Carol,
that rekindled the joy of Christmas in Britain and America. Today, after more than 160 years, A
Christmas Carol continues to be relevant, sending a message that cuts through the materialistic
trappings of the season and gets to the heart and soul of the holidays.
Dickens' describes the holidays 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, and to think of other
people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of
creatures bound on other journeys". This was what Dickens described for the rest of his life as the
"Carol Philosophy".
Dickens' name has become synonymous with Christmas. His classic
holiday story is a tradition in many American families today. This stage adaptation features a
large cast which helps depict a sense of an 1840’s Dickens’ village . . . and reminds us all to
dream big!
God Bless Us Everyone!
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