Dear Friend,

In my last reflection, I mentioned that I was confused by (or had forgotten about) the timeline that Marley gives to Scrooge, for the visits from each ghost. In Stave One, Marley tells Scrooge they’ll appear to him over the course of three nights. My memory of the story is that the ghosts all appeared in the same night, at each stroke of the clock after midnight. As it turns out, I think I might have been right!

In Staves Two and Three, we see that time does seem to be playing with Scrooge, or that the ghosts are perhaps returning time to the old miser. He wakes in the same moment after each new ghost’s visit. This might mean that the third and final ghost will return Scrooge to the same evening, so that he can awake on Christmas morning, rather than three days later. I feel relieved (and a little vindicated; the older I get, the harder it is to trust my memory.)

I’m also enjoying this read so much more than I remember. I’ve always loved this little book, of course, which is why I’ve revisited it many times and why I watch a few adaptations every year. Still, there’s something about this slower reading that makes me love the story even more. I find myself paying closer attention to all the little details, like the narrator’s asides, the detailed and often hilarious or beautiful descriptions, and of course the philosophical messages and how they’re being conveyed. I’ve been curious about the narrator since the beginning, because I’m not convinced that the first-person guide in this account is simply a traditional mode. And in Stave Two, perhaps we get a hint about who this is. The narrator interjects to dissuade disbelief about ghosts and magic by saying, “I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.” He’s not just talking directly to the reader, here, but perhaps revealing a bit of the supernatural in himself. What could be better for a ghost story than one told by a ghost?

One thing I hadn’t paid much attention to in previous reads is just how fortunate Scrooge had been, in being gifted the presence of people like Fezziwig, Fanny, Bob Cratchit, and Scrooge’s own nephew, Fred. It would be easier to forgive Scrooge his intolerance, anger, and misanthropy, had he never been exposed to good influences, but he was. He had, at one time, good friends, but it seems he either couldn’t maintain those relationships or, perhaps, couldn’t maintain his own goodness alone, having suffered their losses, especially Fanny’s. And it’s his loneliness, more than anything, that keeps him trapped in his own negativity. One thing the first ghost—the Ghost of Christmas Past—exposes to Scrooge and the reader is that what Scrooge has chosen to forget is the loneliness of his childhood, and how his sister so generously helped to end it. Perhaps if he had kept that kindness in mind, he wouldn’t have pushed others away all his adult life and led himself back into such terrible isolation.

The Ghost of Christmas Present, too, has lessons for Scrooge. He reveals to Scrooge that there are still kindnesses happening to him even by those he has slighted. Cratchit and Fred both go to special lengths to wish Scrooge a Merry Christmas and to pray for him, though he’s made their lives (especially Bob’s) quite miserable. There’s something for the reader in these lessons, too. How good kindness makes us feel, how included, and how easy it is to offer it.

“He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil,” so says Scrooge of Fezziwig, and so do we all have that power over all we know, all we meet, those we work with, live with, or encounter in our daily lives.

It is these kindnesses offered to Scrooge in private that touch him, more than those offered directly to his face. Why? Maybe he begins to realize that some are kind not for profit or with motive, but simply because it is in their nature to be so, and though he’s uncomfortable with the warmth and light this creates in him, being unused to it, it does start to resonate. When his evil words about the poor and destitute— “perhaps they’d better [die] and decrease the surplus population”—are returned to him by the second Spirit, in reference to Tiny Tim, Scrooge is suddenly “overcome with penitence and grief.” Is it only because this is someone he’s now seen, and known, personally, that makes the boy’s well-being matter to him? Or is it because Tiny Tim had said a prayer of kindness for him?

This year, I’ve already re-watched The Man Who Invented Christmas and plan to watch my favorite film adaptation, the 1938 version starring Reginald Owen. (By the way, according to IMDB, there are over two hundred versions of this story adapted to film. I wonder if I should make a personal challenge of this?) It’s safe to say that Dickens’ A Christmas Carol remains a magical little tale, capable of touching us deeply, and that no matter how many times I’ve read (or seen) it, I continue to learn from it.

I’ll be back on Christmas Day with my final thoughts on this favorite classic. In the meantime, remember that our January selection is The Book of Joy, and as always, join us in conversation on social media by using #theCRPblog to tag your posts.

Meditation: “But though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light.” -Charles Dickens

With love,

~Adam

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