CHRISTMAS
CAROLING
The
next time you find yourself hemmed in by the press of a
Christmas crowd in a garishly-decorated shopping mall, in a
seething panic because “Bieber Fever: Volume V,” the one and
only gift your twelve-year-old will deem
acceptable, is sold out in three states and on
Amazon, appalling visions of holiday traffic dancing in your
head, the cloying taste of fruitcake lingering on your
tongue after your oh-so-festive office holiday party and
your ears fixing to bleed as the unwelcome strains of Paul
McCartney’s musical abomination “Wonderful Christmastime”
blast out of the facility’s loudspeaker, just close your
eyes, take a deep, cleansing breath, and know that a ghost
story is to blame for your predicament.Yes, a ghost story… one that incorporates time travel and psychological horror, to boot. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ timeless tale of a stingy old coot redeemed through the intercession of three ghosts (four, if you remember poor Marley, which almost no one does), is among the most influential genre works ever written. And although other events around the time of its publication in 1843 contributed to its impact, it’s also arguably the major contributor to our modern conception of Christmas as a time of family, fellowship, and joy.
In
England throughout the Middle Ages, Christmas was celebrated
widely and with gusto, with public festivals, feasts, music,
gifts, holly and ivy, and the whole nine yards. But after
the Protestant Reformation, the Powers That Be considered
Christmas a “Catholic” thing, associated with “popery” and
largely to be shunned. The remaining Catholics in Britain
basically responded by saying “Oh yeah, we guess this
actually is a religious holiday,” and toned down
their celebrations considerably. Christmas was, in fact,
outlawed under the Puritans in 1647, and although Charles II
reinstated it in 1660, it would be over 150 years before it
retained its previous status in the hearts and minds of
Britons.
When
Charles Dickens wrote his “ghostly little book” in 1843,
Christmas was experiencing the beginnings of a resurgence in
England. The Prince Consort, Queen Victoria’s husband
Albert, had introduced the custom of the Christmas tree from
his native Germany several years earlier to an enthusiastic
nation, and the first Christmas card was also produced
around that time. And Washington Irving, whom Dickens
admired, had written approvingly about various Christmas
traditions to some acclaim in both Britain and the United
States. Dickens himself had related a story similar to A
Christmas Carol in his first published novel, The
Pickwick Papers, wherein a character tells of an angry
and unhappy man changing his life after being shown the past
and the future by goblins on Christmas Eve. 
Dickens
wrote this groundbreaking work over a period of about six
weeks in the fall of 1843, after visiting a school for
destitute children earlier that year and being horrified by
the squalid conditions he found there. He hoped that his
book, in which miserly Scrooge rediscovers a spirit of
generosity and learns to use his wealth to help those less
fortunate than himself, would inspire better-heeled
Londoners to be similarly open-handed toward the poor.
Ironically, Dickens saw very little actual income from the
book (in the short term, anyway); he was on the outs with
his publisher, so he opted to self-publish the first
edition. Naturally, he wanted it to be classy, so he went
all out in terms of the binding, paper quality, and so
forth, and actually ended up sinking quite a lot of his own
money into printing costs. And although it was an immediate
hit with both the British and American publics, the text was
pirated more or less immediately, and when Dickens sued one
of the more egregious pirates, that publisher simply
shrugged and declared bankruptcy, leaving Dickens holding
the bag for the court costs, which were considerable.
Although
Dickens didn’t profit, you could say that the rest of the
world did. A Christmas Carol celebrated the
re-emergence of the ideal of Christmas as a time of good
cheer, fellowship, and charitable giving, and caught
immediately with a public that was ready to hear Dickens’
message. Critical response was rapid and ecstatic, and tales
abound of people all over the world being moved to perform
acts of generosity after reading the book. It was adapted
for the stage within a year, and Dickens regularly gave
public readings of the text throughout his life. In fact, he
read from A Christmas Carol at his farewell
performance, immediately before his death in 1870.And that was only the beginning.
Throughout
the nineteenth century, the tale was re-interpreted and
re-imagined by a number of authors, including Horatio Alger
and Louisa May Alcott. It was a staple of the stage -- and,
eventually, the screen. The first filmed adaptation, a
British short called Scrooge, or Marley’s Ghost,
was filmed in 1901. There followed scores of other
adaptations. Probably the definitive filmed version is the
1951 movie starring Alastair Sim, but other Scrooges of note
have included Albert Finney, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone,
Henry Winkler, Jack Palance, Kelsey Grammer, Rich Little,
and Cicely Tyson (!). There have been animated Christmas
Carols and at least two Muppet Christmas Carols
and a Barbie Christmas Carol. Episodic television
shows that have borrowed the Christmas Carol
template are too
numerous
to count, but include The Jetsons, The Simpsons, Xena:
Warrior Princess, Northern Exposure (featuring the
Ghosts of Yom Kippur Past, Present, and Future), The Six
Million Dollar Man, Roseanne (with a Halloween theme),
Quantum Leap, and -- ahem -- The Suite Life on
Deck. Dozens if not hundreds of stage plays and
musicals. Radio shows. Audio books. Sequels, many of them
centered around the later life of Tiny Tim (including one
where
he lives in a brothel…?)
Even two operas.Describing all of this would take way too much time -- seriously, we could make this an annual feature for at least a decade and still have plenty left over -- but here, in chronological order, are some essential interpretations, revisions, and adaptations of the classic tale. (Not included: Scrooged, which gets plenty of love elsewhere on the site this month.) If you only have time for thirteen Christmas Carols this year… let them be these.
1.
A Christmas Carol (1843)
by Charles Dickens
Everyone knows the story, but how many people have actually read the original? So we’ll start where it all began -- with the original classic.
Why it’s essential: Many have tried, but none have bested or even equaled Dickens’ original text. What’s that you say, you don’t do Victorian literature? This one isn’t so bad, as far as Victorian prose goes (we promise), and it’s short. Reading it will make you feel SMRT. What, again -- you don’t do Christmas? Not a problem here. Come for the creepy atmospherics surrounding Scrooge’s first encounter with Marley’s ghost, a passage that would do any high Gothic writer proud:
| As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. |
…and stay for the horrifying revelations that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come unfolds. For a charming little Christmas tale, A Christmas Carol is creepy as hell.
Quote:
| 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. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. |
Find it here: Although you can buy it in any reputable (or disreputable) bookstore, it’s available for download all over the place. Here’s one site that incorporates some interesting nineteenth-century illustrations.
2.
Men of Goodwill: Variations on A Christmas Carol
(1947)by Benjamin Britten
According to Wikipedia, which is never wrong about anything, this nine-minute symphonic piece was inspired by the book. (Independent verification? What is that? I never heard of such a thing.) Whether or not it’s actually true (and why shouldn’t it be), the main theme is “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” which is referenced in the book, and it evokes the mood of the book nicely.
Why it’s essential: If you’re not in the mood for ghosts and goblins and just want to chill out with some lovely music, this is for you.
Find it here:
3.
“Bah, Humbug”, WKRP in Cincinnati (1980)If you walk up to pretty much any American of voting age and say “WKRP holiday episode. Go!”, 99 percent of them will look you in the eye and somberly intone “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” That last 1 percent, though, will admit to fond memories of the Season 3 Christmas episode, which finds station owner Arthur Carlson (Lightfield Lewis) reluctant to hand out holiday bonuses to his hard-working staff. But after eating some “special” brownies from the kitchen of stoner disc jockey Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman), Carlson passes out at his desk and has some very strange dreams indeed.
Why it’s essential: If you want to be weirded out just a little bit, meditate on this: Carlson’s vision of the future, in which the station is fully automated, is pretty much exactly like a rapidly growing number of radio stations in the U.S. today -- 30 years after the episode first aired. Scriptwriter Lissa Levin was clearly psychic. Also, we discover the origin of Les Nessman’s (Richard Sanders) omnipresent bowtie, so what’s not to love?
Quote:
| MR. CARLSON: | This isn’t going to be one of those Charles Dickens Christmas Carol things, is it? |
Find it here: The full episode, sans commercials, can be found right here.
4.
Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983)A short, kid-friendly Christmas Carol, starring Scrooge McDuck as Scrooge, Mickey Mouse as Bob Cratchit, Goofy as Jacob Marley, and Jiminy Cricket as the Ghost of Christmas Past. And there’s music!
Why it’s essential: At around half an hour in length, this is one of the shorter versions out there, but it packs a ton of very clever dialogue into 26 short minutes.
Quote:
| MARLEY: | Ebenezer? Remember when I was alive I robbed from widows and swindled the poor? |
| SCROOGE: | Yes, and all in the same day. Oh, you had class, Jacob. |
| MARLEY: | Ha-yuk. Yup. Er, no, no! I was wrong. And so, as punishment, I'm forced to carry these heavy chains for eternity! Maybe even longer. |
Find it here: Available in its entirety at fanpop. Also available on DVD at Amazon here.
5.
“Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” (1988)by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton
Ebenezer Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) is the nicest, kindest, most generous man in all of England… until the Spirit of Christmas (Robbie Coltrane) shows him a vision of his ruthless ancestors. A curious Blackadder asks the Spirit what would happen if he -- Blackadder -- were to emulate those ancestors, and is shown a future in which his descendant, Grand Admiral Blackadder, is a galactic hero betrothed to a hot, ambitious queen. If he stays nice, however, that same descendant is the bored and half-naked slave of thimble-witted Admiral Baldrick (himself a descendant of Ebenezer’s equally thimble-witted assistant).
Blackadder immediately declares that “Bad guys have all the fun” and awakens a transformed man: rude, avaricious, cut-throat, and mean. Too bad his epiphany occurs right before Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort arrive to reward him with £50,000 and a peerage as a reward for his sterling reputation…
Why it’s essential: If you’ve had quite enough Christmas cheer and your heart is feeling a little bit too warm, this bracing, irreverent take on the classic tale will perk you right back up. It also features some of the funniest performers in England (if not the world): Atkinson, Coltrain, Hugh Laurie, and Stephen Fry, to name only a few.
Quote:
| BLACKADDER: | Mrs. Scratchit, Tiny Tom is fifteen stone and he’s built like a brick privy. If he eats any more heartily, he will turn into a pie shop. |
Find it here: This one’s not so easy to get your hands on. If your DVD player is Region 2 compatible, you could start here, or if you'd like to get it as part of the complete Blackadder collection, you could go here. Otherwise…how do you feel about VHS?
Ahead: Ebbie, I Am Scrooge, A Klingon Christmas Carol
and more...