Our modern Christmas celebration owes an enormous amount to Charles Dickens’ popularisation of a food-filled, feel-good, family-focused festival.
A Christmas Carol has been filmed many times but my favourite is the version with George C. Scott. The plot is focused on Scrooge, a cynical old man who treats Christmas and compassion with the dismissive sneer, ‘Bah Humbug!’
He is visited on Christmas Eve by the spirit of former business partner Jacob Marley, then by the spirits of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come, who reveal to him his self-centred nature and the bleakness of his fate unless he changes his ways.
Convicted by these visions, Scrooge resolves to alter his ways, waking up on Christmas morning changed for good. From now on he is a man overflowing with love, generosity and kindness.
One of the strengths of A Christmas Carol is the depiction of Scrooge as a man so consumed by his pursuit of wealth that he has nothing but scorn for friendship, kindness and generosity. He is a miser. It’s an interesting word because it was originally linked with ‘miserable’ and the belief that those who kept their money to themselves were miserable. Scrooge is certainly an unhappy character.
We see Scrooge portrayed as a man who seeks to gain the world but in the process has lost his soul. He is lonely, mean and heartless, but mercy breaks in. Warned by his supernatural visitors, he realises that he has lived entirely for himself, has become miserable and is despised by others. He decides that he needs to change and, with a humble and honest prayer, starts a new life. We see a new and transformed Scrooge who is a blessing to himself and to others.
A Christmas Carol asks, ‘Do we need to change?’ At this time of year it’s no bad thing to look at our lives and ask, ‘What have I become?’
If you do feel that you need to change, what better time than Christmas which commemorates Jesus Christ being born into the world so we can be born again.
