Christmas After Dickens

Well, I finally looked up what a humbug is. Forgive my ignorance if you’re privy already; it’s an accusation of a falsehood, a hoax, or a lying man (see here or the OED for the fascinating etymology). Dash your visions of yellow, horned beetles with Christmas scarves, mugs of Glogg, and thick scowling eyebrows! Ebenezer Scrooge, in exclaiming “Bah! Humbug!,” just meant that Christmas, and Christmas cheer are fraudulent.

Forgive me again, as in what follows I will attempt to out-gripe the beloved Christmas miser with regard to some seasonal humbugs. Many arise straight from the Ghosts of Charles Dickens.

And How Does That Make You Feel, Mr. Cratchit?

I spent an easy last Saturday editing poetry at a coffee shop near my parents’ house. The high was 69 degrees in Fairfax, VA, so it didn’t feel very much like Christmas. Thankfully, the music in the shop was Christmas-oriented, with such spiritual classics as Wham!’s “Last Christmas,” John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” and Bing Crosby’s (and Irving Berlin’s) “White Christmas.” But especially Wham!’s “Last Christmas.” There are so many covers, the D.J.s know it never gets old. It granted me legions of inspiration.

Three carolers met and suited up at a table next to mine. The women donned mourning hats, the man a top hat, and all wore capes, although they were entirely frivolous on the warm day. As intended, they looked like characters straight out of A Christmas Carol. I stepped outside for a bit as they sang “Silver Bells” in auditory battle with—what else—“Last Christmas” on the loudspeaker. The juxtaposition of the whiny 80s classic, played by a hip shopping area, with the saccharine 50s piece, sung by 1840s-dressed singers, made me laugh. It was the 1840s carolers who won my heart, though, in making me feel more in the Christmas mood. And then I wondered— does my Christmas experience depend upon saturation with some splicing of Victorian England and 1950s Hollywood aesthetics? These times and places hold favored spots in my seasonal imagination because of stories and songs that come from them.

The carolers know their archaic clothes signify wintry feasts, and that they help people feel more like it’s Christmas time. Dressing in costume can remind us of our need for inner transformation, giving us an affective thrill of being made new, really helping us if we’re mindful. When children dress as Mary and Joseph for Nativity plays they put on the purity and faith of Mary and Joseph. It is an imaginative exercise with spiritual benefits.

As adults, we must be mindful that our spiritual exercises remain in the now. It’s easy to disassociate our Christmas activities—movies we watch, songs we sing, games we play, and stories we tell that transport us to other places for necessary recovery—from our everyday tasks and comforts. We need to seek integration, and real communion with God, who comes to us presently.

Spiritual Anachronism

Is it fitting for Victorian English dress to signify Christmas for Americans in 2013? If we’re going in costume, why not dress like shepherds or wise men?

We’d rather enact A Christmas Carol than enact the Gospel. In his Introduction to A Christmas Carol, Dickens expresses a wish that his “Ghost of an Idea” may “haunt [his readers] houses pleasantly.” Success of successes! Its wit and pungent characters haunt our houses, TVs, stages, speech, and fare through recitations and adaptations. Not a single Christmas passes without them.

Another capstone ritual also began at the time of A Christmas Carol’s publication. The novella made its debut in 1843. Two years earlier, Germans introduced the Christmas tree tradition to Great Britain. In 1846, Queen Victoria and her family would be sketched around one in the Illustrated London News. Pennsylvania Germans were the first to lug evergreens into their homes in the U.S., around the same time, much to the dismay of American Puritans. Evergreens, after all, loomed large in pagan celebrations. Their perpetual green-ness symbolized life, and still makes them apt pieces in celebrating the birth of the Lord who overcame Death.

Today in America, a home is hardly considered ready for Christmas without a Christmas tree. But they’re no more essential than cold weather or snow to the liturgical observance we begin this evening. They are happy accidents. The trees are ever-new, and ever taking us back in time, to 19th century England, 16th century Germany, and to pagan days before the birth of Christ.

The tree will praises its Maker as it casts its protective shadow over the manger scene, as we’ll see in churches in a few hours. Psalm 148 declares, “Praise the Lord from the earth . . . Mountains and all hills! Fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!” All things praise God in their proper place.

In connecting us to our ancestors, traditions of décor and story affirm our human identity. That’s why we like the idea of “Last Christmas.” The mere reality that there was a Christmas before this one enriches our celebration with the splendid continuity of our existence, an existence held by the God who broke into time and space to be with us in the Flesh.

Humbug Bites, or Wash Me Whiter Than Snow

The “Last Christmas” mentality—extending back to Dickens and Queen Victoria, without regard to this Christmas and all its possibilities, or the one 2,013 years ago—contains the dangers of empty nostalgia, and rote worship. We don’t want to do things just because we did them before, any more then we want to stop doing things just because they’ve already been done. We want to do things because they bring us closer to our Heavenly Father.

Dickens wrote stories set in the time and place he lived. They stuck. They enrich us so long as we incorporate them into our own time.

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is redeemed when he learns to give his wealth to the poor. Typical Dickensian social justice theme. Right on. But still slightly off Christmas in the strict sense. Christmas is about giving, no doubt; moreover, it’s about receiving our Savior. Scrooge encounters ghosts, but not the divine. The cheer he discovers is the natural, inner joy arising from the giving of gifts, and of self, having little to do with Jesus Christ, at least not explicitly.

G.K. Chesterton, who wrote a biography of Dickens, and considered him a great man and writer, said of him:

The tone of Dickens towards religion, though like that of most of his contemporaries, philosophically disturbed and rather historically ignorant, had an element that was very characteristic of himself. He had all the prejudices of his time. He had, for instance, that dislike of defined dogmas, which really means a preference for unexamined dogmas.

Dickens enjoyed his popularity during his lifetime, even reading to fans though it was uncouth (seriously, check this out), but he may be surprised to discover that the dress of his era has become a kind of secular liturgical vestment, signifying a cheerful spirit without regard to the Giver of Cheer. Dickens did have faith in Christ; he just didn’t like the Church. He might be saddened by the place his story holds this time of year.

Victorian England, as with 1950s Hollywood, would hold no more weight than any other time except that A Christmas Carol leads the canon of Christmas-timed tales. The time and story are rightly part of our cultural heritage. Putting them on with family re-enactments and the like allow us to rejoice in love of one another, and reminds us to be charitable to the poor. It’s no substitute for prayer and contemplation. If used as such it could be called a humbug. All stories must serve the prime story of the birth of Christ to Mary, His Crucifixion, and Resurrection.

Receive Him

I challenge you, as I challenge myself, to examine your traditions this year. Many will hold; some may crumble. Some, perhaps, just need to be put in their proper place. I’m not about to dissect the canon of holiday songs and stories into the spiritually beneficial and spiritually detrimental. Discern for yourself.

Ask if you’re trying to repeat feelings, if you’re grasping at something from another time and place. Would it still feel like Christmas if you didn’t watch It’s a Wonderful Life, or A Christmas Story? If not, how can you incorporate the past into your present relationship with God, your family, and your community? Each Christmas should move you forward on your great journey to sainthood. God calls you to communion with Himself, not to an experience of familiar feelings. So bundle your traditions into your arms and make them new each year, as God is always doing a new thing.

Look for your spiritual humbugs, your hoaxes, the ironic ways you try to hide from Him. Better yet, ask Him to show them to you and destroy them. Then, wander with Him! Go with Him where He bids. Seek His will, rest in His Heart, and rejoice in His love for you. Receive Him.