Facing our own hour of darkness, Dickens’ “Ghost of an Idea” and his archetypal tale of a last-minute conversion to the greater good is more relevant than ever.
One of the reasons the Hebrew scriptures refer to wine more than beer is that ancient Palestine was a water-starved area where wine production made more sense.ĭickens knew, as scholars of the humanities know, that stories shape societies.
Brewing a pint of beer requires almost 150 litres of water, wine about two-thirds that amount.
At the climate talks in Glasgow, COP26 Scotch was hand-bottled “within a stone’s throw of the negotiations.” The Scotch Whisky Association used the limited edition to showcase its “sustainability commitments.”Īlcohol is water-thirsty distillers, brewers and winemakers are aware of its environmental impact. This year, apocalypse, booze, and Christmas come together yet again amid overlapping environmental and social crises. These ancient passages illustrate the long-held hope that cataclysmic futures might bring more equitable presents, which early Christians believed began with the first Christmas.Īn nativity illustration from an old German Bible. I’ve also written about pairing the qualities of a mimosa with the anticipatory fervour in early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic texts. I’ve asked before whether Dickens was perhaps inspired by one of Jesus’s parables. In this awaited post-apocalyptic world, the poor buy fine wine “without money,” and live forever in a realm of justice and peace where the social order is as reversed as a permanent Saturnalia. It drew on Hebrew traditions such as Isaiah 55’s vision of the end of time. ApocalypticismĪs a New Testament scholar and historian, I cannot help but think of another ancient narrative that used visions of impending calamity to improve present systems.Īpocalypticism was an ancient Jewish movement to which Jesus subscribed. In contemplating his death, Scrooge improves his life, and a celebratory toast is not far behind. Scrooge pours Cratchit a hot cup of an intoxicating drink called the “Smoking Bishop”. To show he will put people above profits, Scrooge hosts a Christmas feast for his abused employee, Bob Cratchit and family. Seuss’s Grinch through Elf’s Walter Hobbs to Candace Cameron Bure in Hallmark’s Let It Snow, the original Scrooge repents of his anti-humanity stance. Miserly Scrooge is frightened into facing how caring about others is the essence of the holiday. Dickens said A Christmas Carol was “raising the Ghost of an Idea” about social reform. Scorecards keep track of cliché moments to down a drink: when two love interests kiss, when it begins to snow and, notably, when some Scrooge has their “Christmas conversion.” All Scrooge-typesĭespite the commercialization of Christmas, the focus on inverting rich and poor hasn’t disappeared.
#Saturnalia holiday movie#
In 2016, a social media post went viral with a Hallmark Christmas movie drinking game. Thanks to pop culture, the festival remains linked with liquor. Nissenbaum maintains that adult merrymaking, over-drinking and the whiffs of scandal at Christmas parties and New Year’s celebrations echo Christmas’s bacchanalian past. In The Battle for Christmas, author Stephen Nissenbaum describes how Victorian entrepreneurs like Dickens and his 20th-century successors domesticated the season, building today’s emphases on children - and mass consumption. In his 1843 A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens and his famous character Scrooge were part of another re-invention of the holiday. Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past soar over the town. Seneca the Younger (died 65 CE) wrote: “It is now the month of December, when the greatest part of the city is in a bustle.” The festival also emphasized social reversals, for instance when the enslaved were served a meal as if they were temporarily the masters. Ancient descriptions of Saturnalia - a Roman holiday in honour of the god Saturn - sound surprisingly familiar: gift-giving, social gatherings and excessive drinking. 25.Īs it happened, a tipsy, somewhat scandalous celebration already ran from Dec. Assuming a nine-month pregnancy, Christians began to mark the birth on Dec. Although early Christian writings don’t indicate when Jesus was born, his conception became associated with the spring equinox. It’s a link that goes back to the beginnings of the holiday. Facing shortages of everything from turkeys to toys, prioritizing beer and bubbly shows the strong link between Christmas and alcohol. In the United Kingdom, seasonal “booze trains” are being pressed into service to prevent empty shelves. Climate disasters, like British Columbia’s floods, have further weakened already troubled supply chains. For consumers of festive beverages, the news is bad: this holiday season, Guinness may not be on tap and glass for bottling wine is scarce.
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