Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol - Episode 1 - The Architect Of The Victorian Christmas!

/Hi, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.

I’m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. If you are listening to this in real time, we are nearing the end of 2021, a year that has been lackluster by most measurements albeit an improvement to 2020. Most of us began 2021 tucked away in quarantine. I was teaching on Zoom; Christy was meeting with only half of her students half the time on a hybrid schedule. No year, in my lifetime, has began in such a strange way. In some ways, it felt that the Covid era would never end.

And yet, here we are, celebrating the end of 2021 with family and friends. We started this end of year holiday season cooking turkey and ham for Thanksgiving dinner in our home- American staples. We have attended friendsgivings, Christmas parties and on December 23rd we will participate in another Memphis tradition that was suspended for the 2020 year, attending with most of our children: Anna, Lizzy, Ben and Rachel- Theater Memphis’ annual performance of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. For those who don’t know our family dynamic, we are a growing blended family. Anna and Lizzy have lived in Knoxville, TN for most this year as students at the University of Tennessee in Knoxviille. Ben and Rachel live her in Memphis, and Emily and Joel live in Atlanta with their three children- Selma, Polly and Ezra.

I love Christmas. I love the food, decorating our home, visiting with friends, the special services at church- all of it.

Well, I do too, but I will say, since marrying into the Shriver family, I have learned to take it to the next level. Shriver’s are notable for their holiday passion- all holidays really but especially Christmas. I will also say, that before studying for this podcast, I had no idea so many of the Christmas traditions that we love so much we owe to Victorian England.

Oh for sure, in fact, Christmas was not even a federal holiday in this country until 1870. And even then it was an unpaid holiday. It didn’t become a paid holiday until 1938.

Well, that is very Scroog-ish. So, let’s talk about which Christmas traditions we inherited from Victorian England- many of which have found their way all around the globe. You know, growing up in Brazil, just by nature of the weather we had different holiday traditions- we were in the Southern hemisphere, so instead of wishing for a white Christmas- we were always looking forward to heading to the beach after Christmas, but even in a climate with more palm trees than pine trees although, my friends parents were putting up little Christmas trees and other decorations- I emphasize little not because they were belittling the traditions but there was much more limited economic access ( remember Brazil in those days was a military dictatorship with high government control) but even as such- It’s interesting to see some of these same Victorian traditions.

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