Reading: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol has to be one of Charles Dickens most famous works ever.  It is a staple at Christmastime to hear the story; whether it be from watching the many film adaptions, seeing it presented live on stage, hearing it read out loud in schools or in the household, or from reading the book itself, A Christmas Carol is all around us.  I grew up watching Mickey's Christmas Carol on ABC every December.  I remember all kinds of fun Disney specials playing on TV after Disney Michael Eisner introduced them with Mickey Mouse himself (or sometimes Goofy).  It was a Christmas tradition for us to watch these Disney specials.  To this day I still love Mickey's Christmas Carol and it never fails to bring tears to my eyes.  In seventh grade, my class read the play out loud which was not very fun.  It was then that I thought that A Christmas Carol was written as a play and not a book as I had always thought.  Luckily, I found the actual book a few months ago in a thrift store and bought it so that I could finally read it myself this Christmas. 

I loved this book.  Charles Dickens is truly a masterful writer and storyteller...not that I ever doubted he was.  The classic story tells the tale of Mr. Scrooge who hates merriment and Christmas.  He is snapped out of his funk when his old business partner Jacob Marley who has long since been dead for seven years returns as a ghost and tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits - the ghost of Christmas part, present, and future.  After Scrooge sees his life from these three spirits, he changes his ways and stops his obsession with money. I think my favorite line of the story was said by Tiny Tim and it is not "God Bless us everyone" though that is a close second.  The excerpt I love is this: “'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.'"
I won't be able to say this enough, I love this book.  It has been added to my favorites!  I will most definitely give it a 5 out of 5 stars!