Scrooge

There are so many wonderful shows, books, ballets, musical masterpieces associated with Christmas that it would be impossible to pay them all their due and worthy respects.  One book that I read every Christmas is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  My little ones will usually pop in and out as I tend to read it outloud when there is anyone who would listen to our friend, Mr. Dickens.  This is also a unique work because it has been done and redone and redone so many times I couldn't begin to guess at how many films, stage productions, movies, and radio theaters have unertaken to tell the remarkable story.  

I recently saw a musical version at our local dinner theater.  It was delightful.  The music was good and the singers were really excellent.  The stagecraft was delightful and the makeup and costumes were enchanting.  It was a delight.  My two small disappointments were with the script, and they were a bit nit-picky and personal.  The first complaint was that the ghost of Christmas present was reduced to something of a fool with a message of little more than hedonism.  Having been stripped of all of the power of his message of love and enjoyment of the present he just gave a sad message that seemed to be a defence of Christmas Hedonism.  Which is boring.  But, again, not surprising as there is so much to cram into a stage production from a book that some things are bound to be missed.

The second was that my favorite quote from the book was missing.  When Scrooge's nephew, Fred, visits him in the counting house and gives this speech:

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” 

This wonderful speech rings in my ears all Christmas long, and I hope it rings in the hearts of everyone else as well.  OH, and "God bless us, every one!"