"Marley was dead, to begin with. . . . as dead as a doornail." Beginning with a pun on doornails and coffin nails, Dickens perfectly mixes the spiritual with the macabre. I read this every year to begin my holidays, and it never fails to bring a tear to my eye and make me resolve to be a little better. I truly believe Dickens was inspired when he wrote it.
The copy of A Christmas Carol I read this year had a fascinating introduction by a guy named Elliot Engel. Do you have just a second? You might find this interesting--we owe so much to Dickens' representation of Christmas:
" . . . Dickens links snow and Christmas together for the first time in popular literature . . . before Dickens's story, the snow was merely mentioned by an author, never utilized to create that uniquely warm atmosphere which has become practically synonymous with our Christmas celebration today . . ."
What makes his description of a crisp, bright, snowy Christmas morning more surprising is that according to meteorologic records for England in the 1800's, "it snowed on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day in England on the average of only one time every thirty-two years." However, Dickens' own childhood was unusual in that it was peppered with snowy white Christmases, due to a volcanic eruption in Indonesia (reminiscent of the Icelandic volcano eruption this year!) that changed weather patterns for a few years; he actually enjoyed a white Christmas at the impressionable ages of four, six, seven, and nine.
I'm reading it to my little kids this year, and since they've watched the Muppet Christmas Carol and Mickey's Christmas Carol about fifty times already, they're quite interested (as long as I only read the "fun parts" and sing "There Goes Mr. Humbug" with them . . .). It has given birth to some good discussions.
So to quote Scrooge's nephew, Fred:
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say . . . 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!"
Awesome. I need to re-read it also. How interesting about the snow/Christmas connection!
ReplyDeleteYou and President Monson probably have a lot of other things in common too. For example, you both have been bishops of wards with 82 widows.