In the Andy Williams song, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” there is a line that, to many, seems out of place. “There’ll be scary ghost stories, and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago …” To understand what the song is referencing, one must remember that many Christmas traditions grew out of practices associated with pre-Christian midwinter/solstice celebrations. One of these traditions was the telling of ghost stories in the longer, darker nights leading up to the winter solstice. The telling of ghost stories, or “winter’s tales” as many referred to them, were referenced as early as 1589 in Christopher Marlowe’s play “The Jew of Malta,” which muses “Now I remember those old women’s words, who in my wealth would tell me winter’s tales, and speak of spirits and ghosts by night.”
The custom was largely dying when Charles Dickens almost single-handedly revived it with the publication of “A Christmas Carol.” And while Dickens published several other “winter’s tales,” it is “A Christmas Carol,” the story of one man’s spiritual transformation—facilitated by ghostly visitors—that remains his most cherished.
I admit to loving “A Christmas Carol” with a love verging on the obsessive. Each year, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, I watch multiple film adaptations. Often, I also reread Dickens’ original story. I love the narrative arc, seeing Ebenezer Scrooge’s perverse personality develop through the lens of his hurts and disappointments, followed by his eventual complete capitulation to the capitalist credo of “more (for me) is better,” regardless of who is harmed or neglected. Of course, I love how the story unfolds in part because I already know how it ends—with Scrooge’s awakening to his place in the family of humankind and his desire to contribute to the common good. I already know that Scrooge learns to keep the spirit of Christmas alive in his heart, each and every day.
In recent years, I have begun to think of my December viewing of “A Christmas Carol” as my personal Advent observance. Traditionally, the weeks prior to Christmas, known as Advent in the Christian liturgical calendar, are a time of preparation during which we make our hearts and our lives ready for the coming of Christ. In these tense and difficult times, it feels especially important to ask myself whether I am living out the values I espouse—justice, compassion, mercy—or whether, like Scrooge, I have outsourced responsibility, asking: “Are there no prisons? And the union workhouses … are they still in operation? … I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.” It sends a shiver down my spine to realize how often I hear this line of reasoning today, almost 200 years after Dickens created Scrooge, and how often my own actions (or more often inaction) align with Ebenezer’s.
“Advent invites us to a commitment to vigilance, looking beyond ourselves, expanding our mind and heart in order to open ourselves up to the needs of people, of brothers and sisters, and to the desire for a new world” (Pope Francis, Angelus, 2018). Which is exactly what Scrooge does, and what I hope to do in my own life: open myself up more fully to the needs of the world and, in so doing, help to create a new and better world, to “keep Christmas well,” to borrow from Dickens. And because I don’t already know how my own story will turn out, I think I’ll keep my annual “A Christmas Carol” advent observance.
—Jenifer Hanson, Prairiewoods director