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Dickens’s first eight Christmases were snowy, thanks to a climatic event known as the “Little Ice Age”. In 1814, when little Charles was two years old, the River Thames froze over, and a frost fair was held. Tents and stalls were rolled out onto the ice, people danced and drank, and an elephant was even led across the river just below Blackfriars Bridge!

2. It was not such a wonderful Christmastime in 1823

Charles Dickens’s father, John, worked as a naval clerk, but the family struggled with money. Just before Christmas 1823, his father, mother and siblings were sent to Marshalsea debtor’s prison, and 11-year-old Charles went to work at a shoe polish factory, earning just six shillings a week.

3. Dickens’s first piece of Christmas writing was a festive flop

In December 1836, Dickens wrote an opera called The Village Coquettes. It opened at the St James Theatre, and closed after only 19 performances!

4. Charles Dickens was something of a party animal…

Also in 1836, Dickens wrote this about his Christmas in a letter to a friend: “I arrived home at one o’clock this morning dead drunk, and was put to bed by my loving missis [his wife, Catherine]. We are just going to Chapman’s sisters’ quadrille party, for which you may imagine I feel remarkably disposed."

Dickens’s eldest son, Charles junior, was born on Twelfth Night, and they always had a huge party to celebrate. They might have made an alcoholic punch called Negus for the occasion: a boozy, orange-flavoured beverage that the Victorians loved to serve to children!

Cornhill in the 18th century: Cornhill Street is the address of the Scrooge and Marley's counting house, where Bob Cratchit is employed, in Charles Dickens's 1843 novella, "A Christmas Carol".

6. For Dickens, Christmas really was the most wonderful time of the year

Over the course of their marriage, Charles and his wife Catherine had a grand total of ten children, and the family always got into the festive spirit. Dickens would take a week off work, learn dances, perform magical, musical and theatrical shows with his family, and take the children to a toyshop in Holborn on Christmas Eve.

7. In 1843, Dickens published a Christmas hit

A Christmas Carol – the story of how the miserly Scrooge gets ghosted in triplicate into changing his ways – was published on 19 December, 1843. It was a huge hit, and all 6,000 copies had sold by Christmas Eve. But Dickens didn’t make as much money as he wanted, because he spent so much of his own money on the illustrations, binding, and embossing. Instead of the £1000 he hoped to make, he only earned £230!

8. In 1844, he did it again!

In 1844, Dickens published another Christmas novella: The Chimes. It features Trotty Veck, an elderly porter who follows the sound of some church bells. He discovers the spirits of the bells and their goblin attendants, who reprimand him for losing his faith in man’s destiny to improve, and show him a vision of the awful life his daughter will lead. It’s basically A Christmas Carol, but this time with goblins!

9. Dickens kept churning out the Christmas No.1 hits

After A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, Dickens went on to publish The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, all at Christmastime. In 1847, when he didn’t write a Christmas book, Dickens wrote that he was “loth to lose the money. And still more so to leave any gap at Christmas firesides which I ought to fill.”

10. Dickens knew what it was like to have a Blue Christmas

In 1851, Dickens wrote a sad, festive article called “What Christmas is as we Grow Older”. He had recently lost his infant daughter, his father John, his beloved sister Fanny, and her disabled son Henry – possibly the inspiration for Tiny Tim. And in 1857, family Christmases got even worse: 45-year-old Charles met actress Ellen Ternan, who was 18 at the time, and ruthlessly separated from his wife Catherine. She wouldn’t see her children again until after Dickens’s death.

11. All I want for Christmas is… a chalet?

Any bachelors invited to the Dickens family Christmas stayed in a special “bachelor’s cottage” in the nearby village. In 1859, Charles enlisted these men to help him build a Swiss chalet that had been a gift from the actor Charles Fechter. The catch? It arrived in 94 pieces, and the instructions were in German!

12. WHERE IS THAT TURKEY?!

Dickens’s last Christmas was in 1869, and a letter that he sent to his manager, George Dolby, survives from that time. It read:

WHERE

IS

THAT

TURKEY?

IT

HAS

NOT

ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!

It really was all in caps, every word on a different line, and with eleven exclamation marks! Dolby had promised to send a huge Christmas turkey, but it had been destroyed, along with many people’s Christmas presents, by a fire on a train!