White Christmas' roots traced back to Dickens' childhood nostalgia

Washington, December 24 (ANI): Charles Dickens has been credited for reviving the Christmas spirit that is celebrated today with idealised pictures depicting snowy and tranquil village scenes.

The 'Great Expectations' author, one of the most popular English novelists of the Victorian era, played a critical role in redefining the importance of Christmas and the major sentiments associated with the holiday.

Though the writer had penned 'A Christmas Carol', first published on December 19, 1843, under financial duress to pay off a debt, it went on to become the most popular and enduring Christmas stories of all time.

Dickens, who had seen six of his first nine Christmases as white owing to the extreme cold weather, continued to describe a Britain smothered in snow on Christmas Day, reports TimesOnline.

The story "is now credited with establishing the Victorian genre of the Christmas story, and spurring a revival of the celebration of Christmas in early Victorian England."

Dr. Philip Allingham, from Lakehead University in Ontario, a specialist in Dickens's Christmas books, said: "A Christmas Carol made Christmas respectable for the English bourgeoisie, who had come to regard it as somewhat antiquated." (ANI)