Tank Slap - Motorcycle Forum

There was a good programme on the BBC last night about Dickens and the Victorians inventing Christmas as we know it. It also dispelled a lot of the myths that stuff like holly and mistletoe are pagan based, they're not. The Victorians simply tried everything and kept the stuff they liked. Before Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol it wasn't a big event. Shops would be open and most people would work after they had been to church.

The whole purpose of his book was to highlight poverty in England at the time

Well, originally "Christmas" was a holiday the Romans tagged onto the back end of the Saturnalia festival to give the Christians something to be happy about....which probably wasn't much, by all accounts.
Then when the Roman Empire started coming undone in the 5th century they pretty much just dropped their own polytheistic doctrines & let the mantle of Christianity lead the way. A more laid-back approach, I guess....until Crusade-Time.

Feckin' Eye-Ties.