A Christmas Story

 

Though Christmas is over and one is surfeit with cakes and biriyani and of course wine, the season with its carol songs and Merry Christmas greetings still lingers in the air and rings in the ear. So I think it is quite alright to write a Christmas story for my blog. I haven’t written for a long time and I think it is good to write one before the aroma of biriyani wafts into the air and disappears!

Can you imagine a Christmas story that starts with ghosts? Yes, this one does. I am referring to the novel, “A Christmas Carol” written by Charles Dickens in the year 1843. Quite inappropriate that I read this story meant for children only now, after retirement! They say in old age one behaves like a young child. May be I am in that stage!

This is the story of a businessman by name Scrooge, who with his partner Marley, had been running his business of a counting-house, in today’s parlance, a sort of bank in England. After the death of his partner some seven years back, Scrooge is running the business on his own, without changing the name of the firm, “Scrooge and Marley.” Scrooge is a miser, tight-fisted and a covetous old man. He is also self-contained and solitary. He didn’t like anyone greeting him or sticking a conversation with him in his office or on the road. Nobody dared to do so too. In his office, even in winter, he wouldn’t spend money for warming himself and his clerk, who had to warm himself at the candle.

One Christmas season his nephew came wishing him Merry Christmas. Scrooge’s response was “Bah! Humbug!” His principle was a person as poor as his nephew had no business wishing anyone Merry Christmas. What is merry about Christmas for a poor man like him in any case? Then his nephew asks him, why is he not happy and celebrate Christmas cheerfully when he is rich! His uncle would have none of that. The nephew goes off saying Christmas is a kind, forgiving, charitable and pleasant time and his uncles is missing the whole Christmas spirit. But Scrooge refuses his nephew’s dinner invitation and dismisses him off grumpily.

Another two men come seeking some contribution from Scrooge for the poor and destitute during Christmas time. You think Scrooge would open up his purse or heart? No way! He tells them to advice the poor to go the workhouses and get benefits under the Poor Law. His policy again is not to make idle people happy. If the poor die, then in his opinion, it is good because it will reduce the surplus population. Well, what do you think? The two gentlemen quietly withdrew. He even refused paid-holiday to his clerk for Christmas. Next he chased off a boy singing Christmas Carol at his door. Now you know what sort of man Scrooge is. Well, someone ought to do something for him – may be smack him on his behind!  

As Scrooge returns home and warms up some food and starts to eat it, he discerns another figure in his bedroom, Marley, his dead partner’s ghost! It strikes a conversation with Scrooge. Trembling Scrooge asks why he is visiting him now. The ghost regrets that while he lived he was similar to Scrooge, unkind to the poor and the people and now he is in chains and roaming the world for the sins he had committed. He warns Scrooge not to continue these mistakes and become like him at his death. He can still correct himself. Marley’s ghost says three more ghosts will visit him, one after the other, sharp at twelve at night.

First ghost promptly appears at 12 midnight. It calls itself the “Ghost of Christmas Past.” It takes Scrooge for a ride outside to the place where Scrooge was born and brought up. Scrooge recognises the place and the school he studied. A boy was sitting alone in the school, Scrooge! Then they went in to a dilapidated, cold but big mansion. Scrooge was there as a small boy all alone shivering in the cold reading a book. Scrooge had tears in his eyes when he saw himself so lonely and neglected as a boy. Now he wishes he had not chased the boy who came singing Carol to his place. Then the ghost takes him to the shop keeper where Scrooge had worked as an apprentice. He saw how the master invited him and other boys and how they all had a wonderful and merry Christmas party in his home. Then he sees himself as a young man in love, but his ambition was to make money. The girl releases him from the commitment, because she realizes that he is after money and not love. Later she was married, though poor yet lived a happy life. On Christmas day her husband comes in bringing lot of small Christmas gifts to her and their children. This also the ghost shows him. Scrooge is heart-broken seeing all these, realizing how miserable he had been, thinks he has learnt a lesson. Has he, really?

Next night the next ghost appears, and introduces itself as the “Ghost of Christmas Present.” This ghost takes Scrooge to the streets where boys are running around delightfully and homes are celebrating Christmas with friends and families. Even in that winter cold people were happy and cheerful. They both went to the suburbs – to the house of Scrooge’s clerk. Even they had a good Christmas dinner and were rejoicing, in spite of having a boy who was crippled. They even drank to the health of Scrooge! Everywhere people were wishing each other Merry Christmas and the spirit of Christmas and cheer were overflowing. Then they visited the home of Scrooge’s nephew. They also were enjoying with one another Christmas dinner.

Next comes the third ghost, the “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.” It is about the future. It takes Scrooge to a group of businessmen, who were talking about the dead Scrooge, who had died alone in his bed! They spoke so ill of him! It would be a cheap funeral they said! No one said one good or kind word about him. Unloved, unsung, unattended he had died. On seeing this, the horror of it strikes Scrooge, who vows that he will become a changed man, so that he wouldn’t meet such a lonely and despicable end. Good for him!

At home he sobbed violently, then he got up, ran out and wished a boy on the street Merry Christmas. In one night Marley’s ghost and the three other ghosts had really done a great job and Scrooge was a changed man. He went to the church, smiled at people, visited his nephew, raised the salary of his clerk, and generally became a kind and helpful gentleman.

So ends the story. Charles Dickens beautifully shows the transformation of a miser into a liberal and kind man, who helped everyone. This is a simple story, emphasizing the importance of Christmas spirit of sharing, and loving, and wishing peace and happiness to all. Didn’t the angels sing,  “Glory to God in the highest heaven, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

Is any one of us like Scrooge? Better change for good, or else one might get a visitation from the Christmas ghosts!

Wishing you all Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. God bless you all.