It’s Christmas time, and that means it’s time for stories in books, on TV, in movies and sometimes flowing from the mouth of a grandmother with a lovable little one in her lap. The stories concerning this holiday of holidays about caring triumphing over greed, about love wondrously rising above the merely material, about goodness prompting goodness and much more.
Let’s start with “A Christmas Carol” written by the great Charles Dickens in the mid-19th century and introducing us to mean, old Ebenezer Scrooge wanting everything for himself and nothing for anyone else, least of all for Bob Cratchit, his underpaid employee. It’s Christmas Eve and, reluctantly, he is going to give Cratchit a paid day off on Christmas but refuses to donate to a charity. The unusual occurs when he gets home and meets the ghost of Jacob Marley, a deceased business partner now dragging heavy chains around the world.
Marley says three spirits are on their way and Scrooge better listen to them if he doesn’t want to drag chains, too. The first is the Ghost of Christmas Past, who takes him back to younger days when a boss does treat him well but his fiancee sees that she comes in second to his greed. We get to the Ghost of Christmas Present, a spirit who takes an invisible Scrooge to Cratchit’s house where he sees how poor the family is and how a terrific boy, Tiny Tim, is ill. He also sees his neglected nephew Fred getting ready with a buoyant family for a Christmas Eve dinner that Scrooge was invited to attend.
Then comes the Ghost of Christmas future in which Scrooge finds Tiny Tim dead and others suffering because of him. He sees people who came to his own funeral only because of a free lunch. He sees his own dirty, deserted grave, grows tearful, has an epiphany and the next day gives to charities, buys a turkey for the Cratchits’ Christmas Day dinner and shows up at his house all happy and full of good cheer. He soon starts paying Cratchit more and treats him better and sees Tiny Tim become healthy. He lives happily ever after.
“The Gift of the Magi” is a 1905 story by O. Henry who mastered in surprise endings. Here we have a young married couple with no money but each determined to give a great Christmas gift to the other. The husband sells his precious pocket watch to come up with money enough to buy combs for his wife’s unbelievably beautiful hair. She meanwhile cuts off that hair and sells it so she can buy a platinum chain for his watch. When each finds out what the other has done, the losses mean nothing. The two are simply overcome by how much each of them loves the other.
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is a Dr. Seuss tale in which this snarling, wicked creature at the top of a mountain can barely stand the Christmas joy in nearby Whoville. He decides to end it on Christmas Eve by going down chimneys and stealing presents, Christmas trees and firewood. The next day he is surprised to hear the Whoville residents out joyfully singing Christmas carols. They had been disappointed with what was taken but knew Christmas was about something more important. Mr. Grinch was amazed and undone. He took all the stolen goods back. His heart, which had been two sizes too small, became three times bigger and he was in love with the community from then on.
The final story I will share is the best of all. It is about a baby born in abject poverty some 2,000 years ago and placed in nothing more than a manger in a stable. What that baby would rise to would be teachings of forgiveness, repentance, insurmountable love, care of neighbors, kindness, appreciation of meekness, service to others, spiritual fulfillment and lives of purpose and joy. As faith says of the full story, here was divinity on earth. As history tells us, a whole civilization and billions of lives in it and beyond it would be significantly and blessedly shaped by this Jesus of Nazareth.
Merry Christmas.
Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers can email him at speaktojay@aol.com.