With six days until Christmas, I'm definitely feeling in the spirit, besides the fact that my shopping isn't done, and my house is a mess, and I've been sick all morning (ugh). I decided to read one of my holiday favorites this past weekend. Number 98 for the year is A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.
Ebenezer Scrooge is an old man who has lead an unhappy life, seeing everything in terms of black and white, and shunning his fellow man for the comforts loneliness and solitude afford him. His contempt for poverty and compassion even cause him to neglect his poor clerk, struggling family man Robert "Bob" Cratchit. But one Christmas Eve, Scrooge is haunted by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who informs him that unless he changes his miserly, contemptible ways, he is doomed to a miserable eternity. His one salvation lies in the mercy of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, who arrive to show Scrooge what he has missed, what he continues to ignore, and what his future will become if he goes unredeemed.
This is one of my favorite Christmas stories, if not my absolute favorite. A lot of people on Goodreads complain about Dickens' heavy-handed prose, and I will admit, the beginning of Stave (rather than "Chapter") One can really be off-putting. But it is also very beautiful, and no Christmas for me is complete without reading the book and seeing the 1984 made-for-TV version starring George C. Scott. I love them both.
Rating: *****
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