Christmassy Things: A Christmas Carol

This is a story, and it has become a tradition to play it out over the Christmas season. The original was written by English author Charles Dickens, and first published in 1843. It tells the tale of a miserly man called Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by three ghosts - past, present, future - which eventually teach him the morals of compassion, generosity and goodwill. These are Christian traditional values, especially at Christmas time - although Dickens added his own socio-political angles to this story, which have now partly become interwoven with our modern Christmas thinking. 

There are actually dark aspects to this story - but today A Christmas Carol is usually portrayed in a fun, family way - and despite the ghosts and messaging, is not spooky or upsetting. There are many different ways to enjoy the story today besides reading the book - adaptations for theatre, TV, animation - even The Muppets have done a version! 

Despite the title, I don't think there are any real Christmas carols in the original story. (A carol is a happy religious song traditionally sung over the season). I think Dickens referred to a 'carol' as meaning a sort of moral tale. A Christmas Carol is so well known that the word 'Scrooge' is now part of the English language, referring to a person who is mean with money. And his catchphrase 'Bah, humbug!' (meaning 'nonsense!') is also famous.

On another dark note, in the modern day, there have also been criticisms of anti-Semitism in this story, due to the first name of the main character, who was probably supposed to be Jewish (which of course means there would be no factual reason for him to celebrate a Christian Christmas either!) And although hopefully we're encouraged to sympathise a bit with Scrooge later in the story, Dickens was a complex man who reflected some - for the 21st century at least - uncomfortably xenophobic / colonialist thinkings in his writing, as well as some progressive ones. This only struck me when I started writing this post today and thinking about the characters' names, as an adult. Of course the story is 170 years old. But sometimes it is worth remembering the era and sources from when/where traditions originate. Few things are 'neutral' even though we often grow up accepting them as such; and luckily today our understanding is more global :)

Anyway, while keeping that background aspect in mind, there are still some positive messages in this old story. Here is the trailer for The Muppets' version (which is also quite  old now!) starring Michael Caine as Scrooge - and this does involve plenty of singing: -