An old-fashioned Christmas - a Dickens Christmas - how often, as the end of the year approaches, people speak of this: they like it, or hate it, or mean to have it, or fear they can't afford it. It means something to everyone.
Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" does not really need a special introduction. The best thing is to enjoy the story, and then take a little time afterwards to think about it. It tells us so much that it is worth examining much more carefully than most stories.
This 1951 film adaptation got me thinking as soon as the opening credits scrolled across the screen. "All characters depicted in this film are fictitious and any similarity to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental", it read, to which all I can say is, "Bah! Humbug!"
There was nothing fictitious about several people I met in real life who were just like Dickens' characters. And yet, in the end, even Ebenezer Scrooge knew how to keep Christmas well. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
