Interview with William Todd, Author of A Christmas Coda (2016)

It’s not often that a Christmas book crosses our desk as smart, as moving and as ornate as A Christmas Coda, by William Todd.  We were lucky enough to read and review his new book last week, and even luckier when Mr. Todd graciously consented to an interview.

A Christmas Coda is a sequel to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and is a worthy addition to the Scrooge mythos.  It has excited a great deal of interest among Dickens scholars and Carol enthusiasts alike, and is well on its way to becoming a holiday classic in its own right.

Here Todd responds to our questions….

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your career?

I was born in 1960 in Detroit, Michigan, and spent the first couple decades of my life doing non-writing stuff.  So let's start at age 23, when I moved to Los Angeles to begin my first job (of any type, ever) as an aerospace engineer.

Like a lot of new hires, my first couple weeks on the job were basically "free roam," where not much is really expected of you except learning how to use the copy machine.  That's how I found myself one day sitting in my office with a bunch of other new hires, shooting the breeze, until someone raised one of those "Book of 1000 Questions" type of questions, which was:

"If wages were no object, and you could do ANYTHING you wanted to do with the rest of your work life, what would it be?"

To my surprise, I started hearing such answers as "I'd play the saxophone" or "I'd race boats" (which I didn't even know was a career option!).  But an even bigger surprise was that not one of the new hires in my office, aerospace engineering majors all, said, "I'd build the best spaceship ever" or even "I'd become the head of NASA...”

...including me - which was by far the BIGGEST surprise of all.

You see, I'd grown up loving the world of entertainment - books, plays, and especially movies and TV.  But I'd also grown up in Michigan, about as far away from the centers for these activities as you could get, geographically and psychologically.  Entertainment as a career path was never even remotely on my realistic radar.  I was good at school.  I was good at math and science.  An engineering career was a guaranteed job back then.  Why aerospace?

I loved Star Trek.  That should have been a clue.

Instead, I did what I was expected to do.  I got my degree (or two), got my guaranteed job, moved out to the Promised Land...

...and for the first time, stared down the barrel of 50 years doing this.  And, as embarrassed as I am to admit it, waiting my turn to answer the "Book of 1000 Questions" question, not having ever REALLY considered what I'd REALLY like to do with those 50 coming years.

And as it turned out, somewhat to my surprise (and somewhat not), the answer wasn't "to become the best damn engineer I could."

So what DID I want?

And that's how, within a month of graduating from college with two aerospace engineering degrees, and within a week of moving my life out to Los Angeles...

...I started writing scripts.  After work.  Every night.

And didn't stop until I finally sold one, four years later.

Yep, my self-administered "university education" on How To Become A Writer was four straight years of just doing it.

Which, of course, turned out to be only the beginning...

What was it about A Christmas Carol that told you that it needed a sequel?

A Christmas Carol has always been my favorite Christmas story.  Especially Act Three, where the reborn Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning.  I love this part so much that I often watch just this sequence from several of its many movie adaptations, all in a row, for the simple shared joy of it.

But there have always been lingering questions.  And for years, like the spirits that haunted Scrooge, these would occasionally visit me:

- How did Scrooge help Tiny Tim to walk again?

- Could there be any chance for Scrooge to redeem lost love?

- How could Scrooge ever repay a debt of the magnitude he owed Jacob Marley?

Inevitably, these led to speculative musings (most often in the shower, a writer's greatest think tank!) and the eventual forming of answers, image by image and scene by scene.

It took years.  Literally.  But there finally came a time when the enterprise as a whole elbowed its way to the fore and said, "It's time."

And so I began what would be, for me, the most difficult thing I ever wrote in my entire life.

Are there any real-world events that make a sequel to A Christmas Carol particularly pressing at this time?

Yes.  And no.

And forgive me, because my intention is not to waffle, but to hope that A Christmas Coda, like A Christmas Carol before it, is more universal in nature, rather than tied to any specific place, time, or event.  Certainly, there are things in the real world today that beg a re-acquaintance with "goodwill toward men," just as there were very real issues in Victorian times that coincided with the motions of Dickens pen.  But these are universal, ongoing, human issues, not fixed in time, as the longevity of Dickens tale instructs.

The economic realities of Scrooge’s world are pretty bleak; have we come far enough?  Have we lived up to the ideals of The Carol?

We can never - and will never - "come far enough"...

...but that doesn't mean we should stop trying.  I'll broaden the point philosophically to say, there will always be evil in the world, just as our goal should always be to completely eliminate it - even though we know that to be impossible.

We'll never completely "live up to the ideals of The Carol" because that would involve an end point, a state of flawlessness in an inherently flawed universe.  But this is not a matter of despair, because fighting the good fight is what our lives are all about:  It gives us meaning.

[And before anybody beats me to it, yes, I'm the guy who wrote the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie!]

So much of A Christmas Carol and A Christmas Coda are about redemption, and then making good on that redemption.  Why does redemption resonate with you?

I think it relates to the above:  Trying your best to be as good as you can be, inevitably failing to achieve any ideal standard, but finding that it's never too late to do better.

I’m delighted that Jacob Marley is such a large presence in A Christmas Coda, even though he doesn’t appear onstage.  What is the heart of the Marley Paradox, for you?

I'm not sure what the "Marley Paradox" even is!  But I'll give it a shot:

The thing that always bugged me the most about A Christmas Carol was the idea that Jacob Marley, the guy who moved (presumably) heaven itself to save a friend, was himself never saved, but instead, forever condemned to chains, and in his own wailing words, "doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what [I] cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"

That's not fair!  That's not right!  Scrooge got a second chance...

...why not Marley???

And thus the seed of a sequel was sown...

What is it about A Christmas Carol that has made it such a classic?  Is it the story?  The character of Scrooge?  Or something else?

If only the S.A.T. had been this easy--

e.)  All of the above!

And, yes, more.

But mostly, I believe, is its message of Redemption:

It's never too late - for anyone - to change for the better.

Take THAT, Relentless Focus On The Negative In Modern Culture!

I can imagine that someone who wrote A Christmas Coda is a fan of the holiday.  What are your thoughts and feelings on Christmas?

I've always loved Christmas.  It's been my favorite holiday ever since childhood, when I actually experienced the magic of a Midwestern winter morning transformed by the kindness of parents into a warmly glowing treasure hunt initiated by siblings in knit pajamas well before the rise of the sun, tearing open package after package of colorfully wrapped gifts, piled 'neath a twinkling tree... made of aluminum.

I thought it the most beautiful thing in the world.  I used to lie under it at night reading Archie Christmas comic books, staring up at the ornaments, slowly changing hue from the rotating color wheel with its ratcheting metal plate and blindingly hot floodlight bulb that could only exist in a fairy-tale era before OSHA.

The gifts are the very least of it for me now.

I love it for the music, and the food, and, yes, the fact that people at least try to experience it as "a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time".

In other words, I love it for a lot of the same reasons Charles Dickens did.

How do you envision Scrooge?  Is there an actor or interpretation you had in mind while writing your novel?

I sometimes envision a specific person (such as an actor, but not always) as a physical model when writing a script, and it was (perhaps too) easy to let Alastair Sim slip into the role of Scrooge, given that the 1951 film version of A Christmas Carol has become all but canon amongst movie adaptations.

Certainly, in the opening sequence of A Christmas Coda, Mr. Sim was much in mind, right down to the whooping of his post-salvation laugh, since his interaction with Mrs. Dilber was purposely reminiscent of the scene in the 1951 movie (which does not exist in Dickens' novella) where she threatens to "scream for the beadle".

Soon thereafter, however, I abandoned all physical reference to Scrooge, even the original John Leech illustrations, in favor of the original character Dickens described, and thus available to be cast to the particular taste of any reader, in their own mind's eye.

Do you have a favorite adaptation of A Christmas Carol?

Actually, no.  Not even what seems to be the consensus pick for "Best Adaptation," which, as mentioned above, is the 1951 Renown Pictures version starring Alastair Sim.

As alluded to farther above, I tend to judge A Christmas Carol adaptations by their third acts, and each has its strengths and weaknesses.

A particular strength of the 1951 version is the scene in which Scrooge goes to his nephew Fred's house on Christmas Day to finally accept his annual dinner invitation.

[An aside:  In an example of just how much people love that 1951 movie version of A Christmas Carol, and for anyone who might particularly appreciate a story of heroic research, there is the tale of "Fred's Maid".  She appears in a scant 42-second scene in which she answers the door to Scrooge, and silently encourages him to enter the party.  This actress didn't have a single word of dialogue, and is nowhere credited in the film, but she became such a beloved character to many over the years that she eventually sparked an internet hunt for her identity.  Only recently has the mystery been solved!  If anyone cares to, you may read about it here:  http://dickensblog.typepad.com/dickensblog/2013/05/meet-the-maid-an-interview-with-theresa-derrington-cozens-hardy.html]

There, he encounters Fred and his wife, a woman he had heretofore refused to acknowledge (previously thinking it a bad match - financially) and, in one of the most emotional scenes in the entire movie, asks forgiveness.  And all to the strains of "Barbara Allen" - quite the concentration of weepy emotion in and of itself!

Similarly, the 1984 movie adaptation starring George C. Scott finds its deepest emotional resonance in that very same scene, Scrooge literally capping it with, "God forgive me the time I've wasted."

I love these scenes.  Perhaps best of all.  And the most fascinating thing about them is this:

These moments DO NOT EXIST in Dickens' original "A Christmas Carol".

Instead, he wraps up the entire Fred visit in barely half a page:

In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew’s house.  He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it:

“Is your master at home, my dear?” said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very.

“Yes, sir.”

“Where is he, my love?” said Scrooge.

“He’s in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I’ll show you up-stairs, if you please.”

“Thank’ee. He knows me,” said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. “I’ll go in here, my dear.”

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right.

“Fred!” said Scrooge.

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn’t have done it, on any account.

“Why bless my soul!” cried Fred, “who’s that?”

“It’s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let

me in, Fred?”

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn’t shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

And now, a Sacrilege:

I actually like the movie versions of the Fred scene better than Dickens' original.  To me, they resonate with far more emotion.

But before you gather pitchfork and torch and set GPS coordinates for my home address, pause a moment, as I once did, to consider that perhaps some good can come out of this realization...

...because for me, it was a sign that I, too, might dare extrapolate the work of The Inimitable.

Or that you, perhaps, could actually enjoy it.

My fond hope, of course, is that you will.

For my dearest hope is that A Christmas Coda, like The Carol before it, will become a small part of YOUR love of the Christmas season - blessed to Dickensian fullness--

With Tidings of Comfort and Joy,

William Todd

A Christmas Coda, by William Todd (2016)

Regular readers of The Jade Sphinx know of the central place Christmas holds in my life, and the paramount importance of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in my personal philosophy and worldview.  To Your Correspondent, Ebenezer Scrooge is not just a fictional character, but a friend, an example, and a terrible lesson all-in-one.  The book is my secular liturgy, my heart-laid-bare, the best reflection of my best self.  People who wish to reimagine or write a sequel do so at their peril.

There have been many continuations of A Christmas Carol since 1843, many of them created in Dickens’s own lifetime.  Most of them have been dire.  We have seen Scrooge and Sherlock Holmes, Scrooge and Cratchit taking on corrupt businessmen, a grown Tiny Tim involved in international conspiracies, Scrooge and zombies...  Sigh.  There have also been several serious literary visitations to Scrooge: for example, Robertson Davies (1913-1995), one of the great voices of 20^th Century letters (if not the great voice), wrote a continuation of A Christmas Carol which is utterly indigestible.  It is almost as if the Christmas Cosmos created by Dickens is too big, too intimidating, too … honest for other writers to approach on an equal level.

So, it was with some little trepidation that I approached A Christmas Coda, just e-published by author William Todd.  Trepidation entirely unjustified, as Todd has written a wise, moving and wonderful book, fully in keeping with both Dickens and the Carol, and a worthy literary achievement in its own right.

In Todd’s novel, it is exactly one year since the events of A Christmas Carol.  Scrooge is as good as his word, and has become as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as he possibly can.  But … the thing that most occupies him is repaying his debt to Jacob Marley.

Readers versed in the Carol will remember that the visitation of the mighty Christmas Ghosts and Scrooge’s redemption were all at Marley’s intervention.  While Scrooge has his reclamation, poor Marley is doomed to walk forever fettered in chains, witnessing what he cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness.  Scrooge is determined to alleviate the otherworldly suffering of his late friend.

To do this, he creates The Jacob Marley Foundation to help those who need it most.  He also practices personal philanthropies, such as sponsoring the surgeon who cures Tiny Tim, creating an annual Fezziwig Ball, and helping dozens of the needy on London streets.

The linchpin of the novel is Scrooge’s association with a young businessman, Midas Stump.  Stump – rapacious, consumed with gain, unthinking of the human toll his ambitions would take – is much like the younger Scrooge.  Scrooge hopes to reform him while helping the Jacob Marley Foundation; this task becomes more urgent when he learns that Stump is engaged to the daughter of the woman he loved in his youth, Belle.  To achieve his ends, Scrooge must assume the tasks of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come to save a young soul, and relieve another in torment, but without supernatural aid.

It is nearly impossible to say enough good things about this book.  Todd assumes a sustained Dickensian diction and prose line that is surprisingly successful.  The new characters – Stump and his assistant, Pockle, for instance – come wonderfully to life.  (Todd also has a knack for Dickensian names.)  But best of all, Todd understands Scrooge and the others from the original novel with a humane, novelist’s empathy.  Here is Scrooge talking to Tim, “You see, Tim, sometimes we get used to things that aren’t good for us.  It becomes hard to imagine living any other way.  But we can be shown, by those who care, how to walk a better path. To change.”

One of the most interesting things in Dickens’ original novel is the sense of … ritual.  Scrooge, before his reclamation, does many things by route and habit.  In Todd’s novel, that remains; he has, to some extent, fetishized his experience with the Ghosts into his own secular ritual.  He wants Tim to walk specifically on Christmas Eve, as explained here:  Scrooge made straightaway to Tim, still in his father’s arms.  “You see Tim,” he began, in earnest chord, “that’s why I arranged the doctor’s visit today.  Christmas Eve is very special to me.  I wanted it to be just as special for you.  For us all.  Every one.”

This is great stuff; true characterization without shtick or caricature and, mercifully and blessedly free of irony.  Better still is the climactic scene with Scrooge and Stump at the gravesite of Jacob Marley on Christmas Eve – Scrooge, avenging angel, merciful father and very human man all at the same time. 

Todd gets Scrooge – which is wonderful, as so many do not.  The popular reading of A Christmas Carol is that it’s a parable against greed – but that is a complete misreading of the text.  Scrooge is not damned because he’s a miser, or even because he is a business shark – he’s damned because he has cut himself off from his own humanity and the humanity of others.  His soul was barren – he filled it up with business and gain, but it could’ve been alcohol or sex or anything else, and the effect would have been just the same.  He lost the fact that all of our actions affect those around us, and to be uncaring of other people and their fates has profound consequences. 

That is the Scrooge that Todd gives us, not the bah, humbug cartoon so often served up. 

Readers who love Christmas tales – and you know who you are – will also find little Easter eggs strewn throughout the book.  Scrooge’s nephew Fred, who has no last name in Dickens, is christened Gailey by Todd – the name of the lawyer in Miracle on 34^th Street.  There are also a few lines that reference that other great holiday icon, the Grinch.  But these references never become jokey or dumb; they are merely there for the eagle-eyed to spot.

I cannot recommend this book enough.  It is only available – inexplicably – in e-copies.  (Why was this book not published by a mainstream house?)  You can find it on Amazon here:  https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Coda-Will-Todd-ebook/dp/B01LDWH7BS.

Buy this book.  Buy this book now.  Buy this book now and read it today – and God bless us, every one.

Miracle on 133rd Street, written by Sonia Manzano and illustrated by Marjorie Priceman

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present walk the streets of London on Christmas day.  In the midst of a central London marketplace, revelers shop for their holiday dinners.  As they make their way, Dickens writes:

The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love it, so it was.

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

“Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch.” asked Scrooge.

“There is. My own.”

“Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.” asked Scrooge.

“To any kindly given. To a poor one most.”

“Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.

“Because it needs it most.”

Your Correspondent was reminded of this wonderful moment while reading the new book by Sesame Street star Sonia Manzano, Miracle on 133^rd Street.  Energetically illustrated by Marjorie Priceman, Miracle tells the story of Jose and his family’s holiday dinner.  Jose and his Mami are preparing the Christmas roast, but their oven is too small for the meat.

In an inspired moment, Jose thinks that they can take the roast to the local pizza parlor, and cook it there.  As Jose and his Papi walk through their 133^rd Street apartment building, they pass children fighting, scared shut-ins, arguing neighbors, and other challenges to urban life.  Outside, they tramp through the snow, passing a desperate Christmas-tree salesman and finally comforting a grouching pizza-pusher.

However, hours later after the roast has been cooked, Jose and Papi finally become holiday pied pipers as the pizza man, tree salesman and all manner of troubled apartment dwellers follow them home, beguiled by the delicious aroma of Christmas dinner.

Suddenly, the apartment that Jose’s Mami thought was too small is now just right for a holiday gathering. 

Though simple in its plot and execution, Miracle on 133^rd Street is complex in its themes and approach.  This is not a tale to sugarcoat the many challenges immigrants (in Jose’s case, Puerto Ricans) have in assimilating in inner cities; nor does it paint a picture of blanket good will during the holidays as a given.  Instead, Manzano demonstrates how simple creature comforts, a warm and loving environment and reaching out to people are more than enough to generate Christmas spirit.

The illustrations by Marjorie Priceman have a madcap, energetic quality.  Like much modern art, perspective is flattened and bright (almost neon) colors pile one-atop another, as if Priceman was channeling Chagall for children.  They are a perfect accompaniment to the text, and the resulting paring is something like music.

Better still, Manzano and Priceman have created a picture book that will inspire children to cherish their homes, their friends and their communities.  It is a delightful tale reminding us that we are all going through life together, and there is no better time to share our common humanity than at Christmas.  Highly recommended.

Some Notes on the Christmas Spirit

A Christmas Illustration By William Joyce, Holiday Artist Deluxe

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy 2015 to all of our friends and readers.

We here at The Jade Sphinx are in the Christmas spirit – and have been for several weeks now, despite the fact that our neighborhood, our city and our country seem to be in a fairly dire place.  Our lives are very disrupted and in constant flux….

But we are still in the Christmas Spirit.  But, at this late date, just what does the Christmas Spirit mean? 

Well … I’m one of those people who is always predisposed to be happy.  I’m a happy man.  And, though I’m most happy at Christmas, I don’t think that’s quite the reason.

I think, for me, being in the Christmas Spirit is being aware of our time and the experience of being alive, and then enjoying it.  Being aware of passing time encourages you to be grateful for the many blessings that you have, for still being alive, for realizing that the world, no matter how terrible things sometimes are, is full of wonders and marvels.  It means reconnecting with the young person that you were, and seeing the world through the eyes of a child.  Of realizing possibilities, of feeling joy, of remembering that we are all human beings who are somehow inter-connected.  And of being happy – even when you don’t want to be.

In short, Christmas is a time for recognizing the miracle of our lives.

And, to be honest, I simply adore all the things that come with Christmas.  I love Christmas trees.  I love Christmas music – both traditional carols and popular Christmas songs.  I love the decorations and the garland and the mistletoe.  I love tinsel.  I love the traditions that are hundreds of years old that are briefly given life once again, only to immediately fade from our modern world.  I love the way people change and the kindnesses and recognition of the season.  I love the whole thing – it’s the centerpiece of my year.

Christmastime is an oasis.  An oasis not just in the course of the year, but in the course of our lives.  In the course of 2014 we did many things.  But Christmastime is a period that is completely removed from that bustle of activity.  It is a brief moment when people really do seem to be of good cheer, and to recognize one another and to live, too briefly, a little differently.  For me personally, it's a moment to reconnect with my sense of wonder, because wonder throbs through Christmastime like a powerful current hums through a high-power cable.  And, more importantly, it's a moment for me to realize that I'm alive, and that's a pretty terrific and wondrous thing.

We will resume blogging in the New Year!  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Batman says, "and I don't smell!"

My Friend, Ebenezer Scrooge

Few books are more consistently misread than A Christmas Carol (1843), by Charles Dickens (1812-1870).  Everyone has seen some adaption of the story – featuring anyone from Basil Rathbone to Michael Caine to Mr. Magoo – or, more ubiquitous still, some parody or sendup of the tale.

Ask anyone what A Christmas Carol is about, and almost certainly they will tell you it’s a parable about greed.  Ebenezer Scrooge, they will tell you, is a miser, hoarding his money at the expense of his employee, Bob Crachit, and refusing to use a portion of it for the common good.  His late partner, Jacob Marley, sends to him the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, they will go on to say, showing him the error of his ways, and he reforms by becoming more generous.

That, however, is not the story Dickens wrote, nor the lesson he wished to impart.

Scrooge as miser is a woeful misreading of Dickens’ story.  The great sin of which Scrooge was guilty was not a niggardly withholding of money, but of personal warmth, distancing himself from the rest of humanity, and refusing his place in the community. 

Again and again the mighty Ghosts of Christmas haunt our protagonist with his refusals of human interaction, not mere miserliness.  As a boy, Scrooge was left at school during the holidays, alone and unloved.  His mother is never mentioned, and his father only in passing (‘he is so much kinder now’), but not in any way that demonstrates he loves his son.  Worse yet, Scrooge’s beloved sister Fran dies early; and Scrooge is later apprenticed to a man who provides one of the few positive influences of his life, Mr. Fezziwig.  But the lessons of Fezziwig do not take, and Scrooge turns away his chance at lifelong love by allowing his fiancée, Belle, to leave him.  Scrooge devotes himself to business, not simply to grow rich and comfortable, but to fill up his ever emptying life.  He keeps fellow human beings at a distance… alienating his one relative, his nephew Fred (presumably Fran’s child), and closing himself off from his colleagues or employees.

The great tragedy of Scrooge is that we see him as an imaginative boy, delighting in childhood tales of Ali Baba and Robinson Crusoe … and we watch that boy almost obliterated by the unimaginative and unforgiving man he becomes.  What the Ghosts do, in essence, is connect Scrooge with his inner child.

Few authors wrote of children with the insight and intelligence of Dickens; perhaps that is because he was one of those few adults gifted with a childlike sense of wonder.  Mind – not a childish sense of wonder, for that rare commodity is no such thing.  Dickens, as Scrooge would, too, after his visitations, was able to see the world with the clear-eyed view of a child, and reprioritize what’s important.  As Dickens himself writes in the book, for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.

Though not a children’s novel by any stretch of the imagination, A Christmas Carol has been read and enjoyed by children for more than a century.  This is fascinating, because a great deal of children’s literature (most notably Peter Pan) is about putting away childhood things and parting ways with wonder and childhood passions.  That is the way, these books argue, to health.

Dickens, on the other hand, believes in an integration of wonder into the adult for successful and happy maturity.  Scrooge becomes whole by adopting the wonders of his vision of the Christmas Ghosts.  They are not, like a visit to Neverland, temporary, but permanent.  This is much to our taste.  We here at The Jade Sphinx like our heroes (and worldview) to incorporate wonder!  Bravo Dickens.  At ‘em Scrooge!

If you are visited by Christmas Ghosts tonight, we sincerely hope that the experience is as terrible, as wondrous, and as life-affirming as that of Ebenezer Scrooge.  We could wish you no greater gift.

A special Christmas message tomorrow!