For children, Christmas means Advent calendars, Nativity scenes, and a fir tree. For adults, Christmas brings office parties and cozy notions of home: a tartan throw, a wreath on the door, decorations handed down through generations. With the emergence of technology and as religion’s influence wanes, yuletide magic somehow steadfastly remains.
These Anglo-Saxon Christmas traditions date back to the Victorians—and particularly to a literary event: the publication, in December 1844, of a book by Charles Dickens. Titled A Christmas Carol, the novella was both a ghost story about giving and an old man’s epiphany on mortality and the meaning of life. Over the days that followed, lines of people snaked out of bookstores. By Christmas Eve, the first edition was sold out.
