Was Ebenezer So Wrong?

Rob Long connects with his inner Scrooge...

Whatever else Christmas is, it’s a lot about receiving. Don’t believe me? Let us return to our other major Christmas text for elaboration.

In the opening sequences of “A Christmas Carol,” hardworking and thrifty Scrooge is bent over his desk delivering value to his clients. In addition, by restricting the use of coal in his office fireplace, he’s also doing his part to clean up London’s then-notoriously poor air quality. 

His nephew enters, possibly drunk, to invite him to Christmas dinner, with a series of blatantly passive-aggressive statements that no sane person could misinterpret. Scrooge then accurately assesses the utility of the Christmas holiday thus:

“What’s Christmastime 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 ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” says Scrooge 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 through his heart. He should!” 

Strong words, yes. But that doesn’t make him wrong.

Read it all.