Merry Freaking Christmas Book 5

Every year when I lived in Iowa, KWWL would air A Christmas Carol at midnight on Christmas Eve. The good one. The one with Alastair Sim. Having long since moved I have the movie on DVD and make it a ritual of watching it as I drift off to sleep every December 24th. Except for this one. UGH!!! I drove to FL and FORGOT MY FAVORITE XMAS MOVIE. Well, one of my favorites. So there I was, Alastair Simless and the 24th was drawing nigh. What was I to do but reread the original. Which turned out to be a wonderful idea. It has been several years since I read this and I truly forgot what a masterful tales Dickens was able to create. Some of my favorite quotes from early on in the book:


Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. (Cracked me up)

The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. (The fact that words can be put together to come up with such vivid imagery amazes me, or maybe I am just remembering the movie, how tacky would that be? I like think it is the words)

“What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ‘im through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” Scrooge said indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly thorough his heart. He should!” (My feelings precisely)

There is no sense in a synopsis, we all know the story. But I will stop to say this, I have been for the past two years trying to cancel Christmas. It has yet to work. I can not stand the urging by the television to get out and SPEND YOUR MONEY NOW, the expectations by certain family members that I WILL be buying them a gift because they purchased one for me (um, it is better to give that to DEMAND to receive), and the basic well, gluttony, of it all. This book reminded me that Christmas is supposed to be about (minus the Bible stuff) being with your family and friends, being thankful for what you have and being kind to others. That is what I want for Christmas next year. A goose, some figgy pudding, some booze, and good friends and family. And with that, Merry late Christmas, and Happy Early New Year.

PS, Read some Dickens. Any Dickens. The words are wonderful. And the humor sneaks up on you.