It was 25 December, and little George Adamson ran to the window, hoping to find a white world on the other side. But once he drew the curtains, disappointment set in. It was another year without snow on Christmas Day.

Now, as a geography lecturer at King’s College London, he knows who to blame for his misplaced expectations: Charles Dickens, who populated his stories with snowy depictions of the holiday period.

That people like him imagine a snow-covered Christmas has always intrigued Adamson. In the UK, where he grew up, December is not a particularly snowy month – yet shops sell cards with white Christmas illustrations and restaurants decorate with fake snow. Where are people taking on these expectations if they haven’t lived them?

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Scholars believe that it comes from cultural messaging. And crucially, from the very frosty decade of 1810.

In turn, the prominence of Dickens’ writings permeated our imagination.