A Christmas Carol
 
 

Baby Amanda: It's time for our third and final story tonight.  And we've saved the best for last.
Baby Bill:  A Christmas Carol was written by Charles Dickens and has become synonymous with the spirit of Christmas.
Baby Amanda:  It has been made into a multitude of movies, stage plays, TV parodies and homages.  The CEO loves this story, too.  One of her favorite productions, and mine, is Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.  It has a touch of humor, good music, and contains the essence of the story in a very enjoyable form.
Baby Bill:  And we also love the 1951 British B&W film version with Alistair Sim.
Baby Amanda:  That one has yet to be topped.
 
 

Baby Amanda:  Ebenezer Scrooge is the central character and he is a penny-pinching miserly sort.
 

Baby Bill:  Don't tell the story in your own words -- read Dickens.
Baby Amanda:  I was just setting everything up, but time is passing and we still have much to do before morning.  So, here we go. . .
 

Baby Amanda:  "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."
 
 
 

Baby Bill:  Now you know that's not the beginning, Baby Amanda.  Those words open Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities.
Baby Amanda:  Just seeing if you were paying attention, Baby Bill.  I promise, I'll read it right now.
 

(Please click on the note to start the music)

Marley's Ghost

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
 
 

`Who are you?'

`Ask me who I was.'

`Who were you then?' said Scrooge, raising his voice. `You're particular, for a shade.' He was going to say `to a shade,' but substituted this, as more appropriate.

`In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.

`I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost.

`I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'

`You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, `by Three Spirits.'
 
 
 

The First of the Three Spirits

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve. It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve.
 
 

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the
unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

It was a strange figure--like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.
 
 

The Second of the Three Spirits

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention.
 
 

`I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit. `Look upon me.'

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.
 
 
 

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.
 

`And how did little Tim behave?' asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

`As good as gold,' said Bob, `and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.'

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
 

The Last of the Spirits

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.
 

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

`I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come,' said Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

`You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,' Scrooge pursued. `Is that so, Spirit?'

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.
 
 
 

The End of It

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
 

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!
 

"And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!"
 

Baby Amanda:  What a great piece of literature!  No wonder people read it every Christmas.
Baby Bill:  I feel sad and happy all at the same time.
Baby Amanda:  We'll don't get too emotional yet.  We have one more important task before us tonight.  We have to see what Santa left for us.

Please join us again shortly.

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