Charles Dickens is one of the individuals who’s made the biggest impact on how we celebrate Christmas. Call the Christmas Stocking and wish someone Merry Christmas, talk about your favorite childhood Christmas memory or your favorite memory of your kids’ Christmas. Go to MyChristmasStocking.net and either click “Call Me” or dial 323-487-12-25.  At various times throughout the season, I’ll be on the other end answering live. Watch Twitter (@XmasStocking),  Google+ or Facebook.

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/www.archive.org/download/ChristmasStockingPodcast/98ADickensChristmas.mp3

Click here to download the show to your device.

Featured music:

“Ding Dong Merrily on High” and “Rocking” by the Choir of Somerville College, Oxford from the album “Advent Calendar”

Background music:

“The First Nowell” by The Manor House String Quartet from “I Saw Three Ships and Other Carols”

“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” by The Manor House String Quartet from “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear and Other Carols”

“We Three Kings” by Derek K. Miller (from Mevio.com)

More information:

Listen to the related episodes of the Christmas Stocking: 17 Victorian Christmas (from 2007!), 22 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (also from 2007!), 28 Christmas Cards (from 2008!). Finally, listen to a reading of Charles Dickens’s essay in 68 “A Christmas Dinner” by Charles Dickens (from 2011).

There is some disagreement as to whether Dickens did, in fact, invent (or reinvent) Christmas. The Victorian Web makes a case for, as does an article on Patheos.com. This article from the Dickens Project at UC Santa Cruz disagrees.

Ipsum Esse takes a deeper look at “The Carol Philosophy.”