Christmas – Page 2

Charles Dickens and the Little Ice Age

Charles Dickens spent most of his life in the “Little Ice Age” where his earliest Christmases were snowy, which influenced later pop culture.

The Little Ice Age was a several hundred year period of unusually cold weather around parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Depending on how you want to define it, the period ran from either the 1300s or 1500s to around 1850. There are various suggested causes for this cold weather, but the result was cooler summers and especially cold winters.

In England the winters could get so cold that the River Thames would freeze. Over the centuries there were 24 times when the river was solid enough to host the River Thames frost fair, a winter celebration on the frozen river complete with vendors, dancing, sports, and more. The last such festival was in 1814 during which they walked an elephant across the frozen river.

Bob Cratchit carrying Tiny Tim in a snowy London from *A Christmas Carol*

Charles Dickens

Born in 1812 in the south of England, Dickens’s family moved to London in 1815. As part of the Little Ice Age, the first 8 Christmases of Dickens’s life were snowy white Christmases. At a developmental stage in his life these white Christmases had a significant influence on Dickens’s idea of what Christmas should be. Dickens included a white Christmas in several stories, the first of which was 1836’s The Pickwick Papers and later, and most famously, in 1843’s A Christmas Carol.

The enormous popularity of A Christmas Carol, and the popularity of Dickens in general, greatly influenced our western cultural idea of what Christmas should be. It helped revive the celebration of Christmas in Britain, which had been on the decline during the Industrial Revolution. Snowy white landscapes, crackling fires, hot meals, mulled wine, mistletoe, wrapped packages, carols & merriment, it all became part of the ideal Christmas.

The 1942 movie *Holiday Inn* gave us the hit song *White Christmas* sung by Bing Crosby. The 1954 movie *White Christmas* (seen above) also featured Bing Crosby singing *White Christmas.*

Our idea of a snowy white Christmas is directly linked to the staying power of Charles Dickens and that, for a young Dickens, Christmas was always white. After the Little Ice Age ended southern England has not see many white Christmases. Today there is around a 9% probability of a white Christmas in London, but the idea of a snowy Christmas persists. The 1942 movie Holiday Inn, which gave us the hit song White Christmas sung by Bing Crosby, only furthered the Dickens idea of a snowy Christmas.

Jingle Bells

The hell-raising sleigh song that became a Christmas standard.

Jingle Bells was published in 1857 under the title One Horse Open Sleigh. It wasn’t until it was reissued in 1859 that it got the title we know today. It was written by James Lord Pierpont, the uncle of Wall Street titan John Pierpont Morgan (aka. J.P. Morgan). By all accounts James Pierpont was a pretty awful person. He lived for adventure, traveled the world, abandoned his family, didn’t attend his first wife’s funeral nor did he care for their children after she died, he fought for the south in the Civil War despite being from an abolitionist family in Massachusetts, etc. That said he did write one of the most famous Christmas songs of all time despite the fact that the song isn’t about Christmas.

Risqué High-Speed Sleigh Riding

Jingle Bells is one of several Christmas favorites that have nothing to do with Christmas. The lyrics & melody changed within Pierpont’s lifetime but in general the song is about a sleigh ride. Looking to the lesser known additional lyrics the song is specifically about getting away from the watchful eyes of the people in town and a boy taking a girl out for a secluded sleigh ride. The song then has the protagonist relaying his story to other guys and telling them to pick up girls in their sleighs and have a good time while they’re young.

These lyrics were most likely influenced by where & when Pierpont wrote the song. At the time the town of Medford, Massachusetts (where he wrote the song) had a strong winter sleigh racing scene. It was also a rum producing city. People would race their sleighs at top speed (frequently while drunk) down Salem Street. It was like a drunker 19th century version of American Graffiti. Today the town of Medford has a plaque commemorating the song and says the song is about sleigh racing. None of this is very Christmasy.

“*The Sleigh Race*“, Currier & Ives, lithograph, 1859

Jingle Bells … In Space

While in space for the 1965 Gemini 6 project, astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra snuck sleigh bells and a harmonica aboard the capsule. Alluding to Santa Claus, on December 16th they reported seeing “… a satellite going from north to south, up in a polar orbit.” They then proceeded to play Jingle Bells to an initially very confused mission control. Their instruments were the first every played in outer space and are now in the Smithsonian.

During the mid 1960s the song began to take-on alternate lyrics, the most famous of which is the Batman themed parody. The Batman Smells version seems to have started around the time of the original Adam West television show. Australia has Aussie Jingle Bells to better align to the summer heat of Christmas down under.

Added info: the titular “jingle” doesn’t refer to a type of bell, but rather it is a verb telling you to jingle/shake bells. Sleighs can run fairly silent on snow and so jingling bells are a safety feature serving as an audible signal that you are approaching.

Christmas Trees: Real or Plastic?

Real pine trees are environmentally friendlier than artificial plastic trees unless you reuse an artificial tree for many years.

The case for real trees

Christmas trees are grown on farms like any other cash crop. These trees provide environmental benefits, from cleaning the air to the fact that their very presence prevents commercial development of the land. Even after a tree is cut down another will be planted in its place. Tree farms, unlike manufactured artificial trees, also provide local jobs helping the immediate community.

After the season is over pine trees can have a second life as a host of things. Some zoos give used Christmas trees to animals to play with, as well as to eat. Most municipalities have some sort of recycling program for trees. NYC has a mulchfest where they recycle old trees providing the city with valuable mulch. Even the Rockefeller tree gets recycled into lumber for Habitat for Humanity homes.

The case for artificial trees

As of 2017, 95 million US households displayed a Christmas tree, and of those 81% were artificial. Artificial trees are frequently made in China with PVC plastic and metal. So in addition to the petroleum they are made from, petroleum is burned to ship them to a store near you and you burn even more petroleum to drive to that store. Even worse, if you decide after a few years you don’t want it anymore the “tree” becomes that much more plastic in a landfill since most plastic is never recycled. None of this is environmentally friendly.

The primary benefit of an artificial tree is that its environmental cost goes down the more years you use it. Once you own it there isn’t any fossil fuel involved in getting it out of storage every year (unlike the annual drive to & from getting a real tree). How many years you need to use an artificial tree for its benefits to outweigh its detractions is debatable. The low-end estimate is 8 years but the high-end estimate is more than 20 years – so it takes 1-2 decades for an artificial tree to become more environmentally sustainable than a real pine tree.

The verdict

The best tree is the real tree you can buy close to your own home from a local tree farm. Only if you plan on using an artificial tree for many years will it become the more sustainable option.