How Dickens Changed Christmas

It may be hard to imagine, but Christmas – now the world's leading holiday – was far less culturally significant in the early 19th Century. Nor was it always a family-centred affair of gift-giving and wholesome sentiment. In fact, the cities of America's former British colonies would see gangs of young men invade the streets to engage in alcohol-fueled violence, pandemonium, and looting. And "similar scenes of riot and mayhem are recorded in Canada, Australia, Newfoundland, and Britain", according to Gerry Bowler's book Christmas in the Crosshairs, which adds that Christmas was "almost utterly ignored" in Scotland, and that the holiday in England was in a "long, slow decline, kept alive chiefly in the rural areas".