If I were to ask you to come up with two people from the 19th century who made a significant contribution to Western culture and literature, you may land on Charles Dickens and George Bernard Shaw. Shaw, the Irish playwright, brought us such epic theatrical productions as “Pygmalion” and “Man and Superman”. Dickens, the English author, wrote some beloved and enduring classics like “Great Expectations” and “A Tale of Two Cities”
Shaw and Dickens were contemporaries. Both men were highly regarded and respected for their crafts. Both men deepened and broadened the culture of their time, and both men are still honoured and celebrated as giants in their fields. It appears they had a lot in common. But don’t get them talking about Christmas. They couldn’t see if more differently if they tried.
Christmas according to Shaw: “I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of Christmas in these articles. It is an indecent subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a drunken, disorderly subject; a wasteful, disastrous subject; a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous, and demoralizing subject. Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press; in its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages.”
Christmas according to Dickens; “I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round…as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers in life, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore…though it never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pockets, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good, and I say, God bless it!”
What do you think of the season of Christmas? Are you in the Dicken’s camp, or do you think that Shaw has a point? Has commercialism soiled the spirit of it all or is there still a bit of magic to be captured and shared?
Christmas has changed for me over the past few years, as I know it has for others. With children who have (seemingly overnight!) become adults, Christmas has lost some of its wonders. I can’t help but be a little nostalgic for the way things were. So many of the traditions and activities that shaped Christmas for me for the past two decades have come to an end. I know in the years to come, new traditions will start to take shape, that reflect our changing family dynamics. But for now, Christmas feels like it’s in a holding pattern between what was, and what will be. So, I decided to do something new this season. I volunteered some of my time with Christmas Cheer. I was tasked with taking empty boxes to a variety of businesses and community centres in Barrie so that they could be filled with toys for those in our community in need. In a few days, I will pick them up again, hopefully filled to the brim with games, toys, stuffed animals and all the gadgets that put smiles on young faces. This simple act brought me a lot of joy and gave me a new focus for Christmas 2024.
Christmas, like everything else in life, is what we make it. We get to choose our perspective. Maybe it’s not what it was, and maybe we get a little put-off by the commercialism of it all, but in the end, it’s the simple message of light, and life and love can still reach us, even if it means changing it up a little.
With respect to George Bernard Shaw and his greasy sausages, I’m going with Dickens on this one. “I believe it has done me good, and will do me good, and I say, “God bless it”!”
