During a time when financial hardships were commonplace for many British households, 'A Christmas Carol' delivered just the right message to bring families back to a holiday that often becomes a celebration of wealth and consumerism. Charles Dickens reminded his readers that a joyful Christmas morning does not require Ebenezer Scrooge's gold, as much as it needs the heart of the poor Cratchit family.
Dickens likely saw himself in the character of family man Bob Crachit. Like Crachit, Dickens was a husband and father of a large family. His wife was pregnant with their fifth child while he penned the novel, and they were struggling to make ends meet. Dickens previous writings were not earning very much, and their living expenses were too high. He began writing 'A Christmas Carol' as a desperate attempt to earn more money and provide for his family.
While financial gain may have been Dickens' original motivation, he quickly found himself swept away by the story. When describing the writing process, he said he "wept and laughed, and wept again," and he "walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed." He believed in his work so passionately that, despite his financial situation, he paid for production of the book out of his own pocket after disagreements with his publishers. Hoping to make his work more affordable for everyone, he also lowered the purchase price.
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"I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
~ Charles Dickens
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- one, myself. 
it will give me a template to follow... if you don't mind, of course?