Before Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, he dealt with the holiday in The Pickwick Papers, a first published in serial form in 1836-37 with the December 1836 issue containing a description of a Christmas spent by Samuel Pickwick and his friends at the home of Mr. Wardle at Dingley Dell. The description of the dance, the parlor games and the story-telling are reminiscent of a traditional rural holiday and lack the notion of Christmas as a time for charity that dominates Dickens’ 1843 A Christmas Carol.
Now, the screaming had subsided, and faces were in a glow, and curls in a tangle, and Mr Pickwick, after kissing the old lady as before mentioned, was standing under the mistletoe, looking with a very pleased countenance on all that was passing around when the young lady with the black eyes, after a little whisper with the other young ladies, made a sudden dart forward, and putting her arm round Mr Pickwick’s neck, saluted him affectionately on the left cheek; and before Mr Pickwick distinctly knew what was the matter, he was surrounded by the whole body, and kissed by every one of them.
It was a pleasant thing to see Mr Pickwick in the centre of group, now pulled this way, and then that, and first kissed on the chin, and then on the nose, and then on the spectacles: and to hear the peals of laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more pleasant thing to see Mr Pickwick, blinded shortly afterwards with a silk handkerchief; falling up against the wall, and scrambling into corners, and going through all the mysteries of blind-man’s buff, with the utmost relish for the game, until at last he caught one of the poor relations, and then had to evade if blind-man himself; which he did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and applause of all beholders. The poor relations caught the people who they thought would like it, and when the game flagged, got caught themselves. When they were all tired of blind-man’s buff, there was a great game at snapdragon, and when fingers enough were burned with that, and all the raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look, and a jolly sound, that were perfectly irresistible.
‘This,’ said Mr Pickwick, looking round him, ‘this is, indeed, comfort.’
‘Our invariable custom,’ replied Mr Wardle. ‘Everybody sits down with us on Christmas eve, as you see them now — servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, rake up the fire.’