The Mom Weekly Volume 70: December 10, 2024
You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the website here.
I know how much we all enjoy The Muppet Christmas Carol (and I’m so looking forward to our annual watch of that soon!). But I kind of wish we had the tradition of every year reading the original.
Its official title is A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Here is the frontispiece from the first edition.
Anyway, during this “festive season of the year,” I’m going to share some of the best quotes. Who could forget the first line—“Marley was dead: to begin with.”
You’ll notice how faithful that The Muppet Christmas Carol is to the original!
Remember how much I love you,
Mom
“Bah! Humbug!” Or Great Quotes from A Christmas Carol, Part 1
“A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
“Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”
“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”
“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”
“Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew.
“What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time 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,” said 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!”
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
……..
“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”
“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?”
Scrooge trembled more and more.
“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”
………
“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Interesting/Notable: Be a Saint, Not a Scrooge
Peggy Noonan, WSJ Gift Article
This is from 11 years ago (maybe I should call it a Peggy Noonan “From the Vault”), but it’s still so timely! Just like “A Christmas Carol” is timely.
The pope’s message in part is: Don’t be Scrooge. He cared only for money, had no respect for the poor—he thought they should die and decrease the surplus population—wasn’t the least bit interested in treating his employees justly or with compassion, and missed out on all the real joy of life, until he wised up.
An Action Item: Consider Reading “A Christmas Carol”
A Christmas Carol has around 30,000 words, which is novella sized more than novel sized. It’s really manageable, and since you know the story and many of the best quotes, it should be an enjoyable time!
You can read it online at Project Gutenberg here.
If you want a Kindle version of it, here’s a very inexpensive one.
Alternatively, you can often find editions of A Christmas Carol at thrift stores, but here’s an inexpensive paperback version.
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