Tag: A Christmas Carol

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A Dickens of a Tale

Standing in the dark on Friday night, I listened to the buzz of the audience.

A noisy crowd before the curtain is an actor’s favorite fuel, and this one kept building … and building … and building. The entire stage seemed to resonate, ready to light the cast up like a Christmas tree. One step, and the most unstoppable chain reaction since Trinity would be underway.

Not for a world premiere. Not for a screaming-hot “Hamilton” or a Disney-powered “Lion King.” But for the Longmont Theatre Company performing one of the most familiar stories in the Christmas canon.

Mr. Scrooge, you’ve still got it.

***

If there’s anyone who doesn’t know “A Christmas Carol” by now, welcome to Earth, and I hope the trip from Alpha Centauri was pleasant. For the rest of us, the basic plot has become part of our cultural DNA. Even on TV sitcoms, if a character makes the mistake of falling asleep on Christmas Eve after a grouchy day, we know to expect three spirits, a moral lesson, and maybe even a chorus of “God bless us, everyone!” as hearts warm and the audience applauds.

It’s a reflex. A tradition. And after 175 years, it still has power.

Why?

It’d be easy to say it’s just one more stock story. Easy to turn it into predictable melodrama. Easy to just say the familiar words and go through the motions.

But when it’s at its best, “A Christmas Carol” goes through the emotions instead.

This is somewhere we’ve all been.

Scrooge is faced with missed opportunities. With old wounds that become fresh again. With the fear of leaving the world unnoticed and unmourned, having spent a lifetime pursuing the wrong things, until the things are all that remain.

Those regrets still hit home today.

More than that, Charles Dickens gave us a tale of reaching out and truly seeing the people around you. Scrooge’s nephew Fred is joyous because he can see people opening their hearts to each other as the holiday approaches, and he can’t wait to share it himself. The Cratchits overflow with warmth and love because they constantly reach out to each other, turning even the most meager situation into a chance to be a family. Scrooge himself begins as a lonely youth who reaches out for love – and then loses sight of it, and himself, and the rest of the human race.

It’s not about a man who hates Christmas. It’s about a man who’s become closed off and needs to be reminded that other people matter, and that he can matter to them. That the rest of the world isn’t just “surplus population,” but neighbors with faces and names and needs that can be met.

And most of all, it’s about hope. That what you’ve been doesn’t have to be who you are. That while there’s life, there’s a chance to become something new.

Not without effort. Not without pain and reflection. But the best presents are the ones you work for. And this is one that all of us have needed, then and now.

It doesn’t take three ghosts and a visit from Jacob Marley (though a good night’s sleep never hurts). But it does take empathy. Self-awareness. Self-transformation. And it all leads to a perspective that opens doors and tears down walls … not least, the walls within ourselves.

So we revisit the story. We relight the hope.

And maybe, just maybe, we awaken a Christmas spirit that’s all our own.

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Opening the Present

You could call it a Hallmark card with bite.  In the midst of a silent night, wise men reached out with their gifts toward the Holy Babe … while from stage left, the walking dead were slowly closing the distance.

“Hey, it’s not my fault,” one of the Shoebox characters said, as he rearranged the crèche. “When stores start selling Christmas stuff in October, they gotta expect a few zombies in the manger.”

Um … amen?

It’s a chorus that’s become quite familiar, even without George Romero joining forces with Dr. Luke. Every year, from every quarter, I hear people lament how the ever-encroaching Retail Christmas Legions of Doom are laying waste to the calendar. Forget November – Thanksgiving surrendered its shelf space to the forces of Santa, Rudolph, and rooftop icicle lights a long time ago. Now, in parts of the holiday beachhead , it sometimes feels like the masks and jack o’lanterns are just barely holding the line.

Yes, Mr. Grinch, you can say it: “I must stop Christmas from coming! But how?”

But not too loudly, please.

You see, I’m not convinced we celebrate it early enough.

No, my brain has not been taken over by the forces of Neiman-Marcus. It’s true that in our home, our disabled ward Missy has been known to play Christmas carols in the middle of July, at a volume that leaves the halls well and truly decked. And yes, I’m currently in rehearsals for “A Christmas Carol” at the Longmont Theatre Company. (Set to open at the proper time, I might add, on the day after Thanksgiving).

So out-of-season holiday greetings aren’t exactly unfamiliar to me. But that’s not where I’m going. If the lights and merchandise stayed off the shelves until after Pilgrim season, I’d be as happy as anyone else.

It’s Christmas I want – not the retail.

Since I’m in the middle of Mr. Dickens, I’ll let him explain, in the words of Scrooge’s persistent nephew Fred:

“I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time when it has come round … 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!”

It’s not the stuff we’re lacking. It’s the attitude.

The real Christmas isn’t getting earlier. If anything, it’s been retreating. The spirit of “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men” has been getting outshouted by the opportunistic, the angry, and the suspicious. Hands that should be welcoming, giving, and healing are encouraged to double up in fists as neighbors are portrayed as strangers, if not outright enemies.

If this isn’t when we need kindness and generosity of spirit, when is it?

With or without carols, it’s always the right season for the hope that can find wonder in unexpected places.

Without a single pine needle, we can still be lights in the darkness, bringing joy to a cold night.

And without a single crèche in sight, we can still make the decision to open our hearts to others, instead of leaving no room at the inn.

Without that spirit, it doesn’t matter if we ultimately celebrate the holiday in December or June. No matter how bright the ribbons or how tall the trees, if the heart is missing, it’s just an empty shell.

A zombie, in other words.

Let’s leave that to the Shoebox cards, shall we?

 

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Ho-ho-humbug?

Every year, without fail, the holidays become a time of wonder.

“I wonder where we put the Christmas decorations?”

“I wonder why only half the tree is lighting up?”

“I wonder why Alvin wants a hula hoop anyway?”

You know – the important mysteries of life. The ones that go back to the first Christmas, when magi from the East came bearing gold, frankincense, and myrrh because they were the only boxes that could be found in the basement.

But in the cold and the dark, it’s tempting for another undercurrent to start bubbling to the surface.

“I wonder how this season got here so fast.”

“I wonder how we’re going to make it through the month.”

“I wonder why we’re bothering to celebrate this at all.”

It’s easy to go there. Understandable, even. Especially in times when so many people are filled with so much tension for so many reasons. When the dark and the cold start closing in, a string of Christmas lights can feel like a feeble barrier with which to hold them back. What the dickens can anyone do about it all?

What the Dickens indeed.

***

My association with Ebenezer Scrooge goes back to elementary school. In sixth-grade, I played the tight-hearted old skinflint in our school musical, stalking and dancing around a hastily-constructed stage in the gym that shook slightly with every jump and thump. (I’m pretty sure cafeteria tables were involved somewhere.) It was a gleefully wonderful way to celebrate the season, to share in an audience’s laughter and applause, and of course, to learn just how long it takes to wash white shoe polish out of your hair when the show is over.

I saw a lot of old Mr. Scrooge after that. Who didn’t? After all, he’s a Christmas villain without peer (sorry, Mr. Grinch) whose story has been told and retold and recycled and transformed. Some great actors have plunged their teeth into the role. Alastair Sims. Michael Caine. Albert Finney. Mr. Magoo.

Of all of them, though, my favorite remains George C. Scott. His Scrooge never ranted, rarely sneered, didn’t flourish or posture like a comic-book supervillain. He was quiet. Even understated. There was no doubt there was steel beneath the surface, and you could feel the chill, but he didn’t have to raise his voice to make it known.

With a few quiet words, we could all identify with him. With a man who had been hurt and then scabbed over the wound, who pulled back from a time of year that seemed to mostly bring pain and expense without any recompense for either.

“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?”

Many of us are there. Even if we’re not quite ready to see every wisher of “Merry Christmas” boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.

But the reason the story endures – maybe one of the reasons we endure – is that it doesn’t stop there. It gets Scrooge to look beyond himself. He’s shown the people that once meant something to him. He sees the people he can help now. He even gets a glimpse of how much that help, or its absence, could mean after he’s gone.

Yes, he goes out and buys a goose, and joins his nephew’s Christmas party, and gives Bob Cratchit a raise, and all that. But those are just outward symptoms. The real change is that he’s acknowledged he’s not alone, that other people matter. The bills are still there and always will be (even if he’s better able to meet them than most), but there are still other people he can reach out to, and give joy to, and draw joy from.

That’s the heart of the story. And the season. And a little something extra to draw on when the world seems dark.

We do not have to stand alone. We can share our fears. Share our joys. And be a little stronger for it.

And isn’t that a wonder?

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It Came Upon the Small Screen Clear

It’s the simple things that mark the arrival of the holidays at Chez Rochat.
Things like discovering which of our pre-lit tree’s lights have pre-burned out, so that we can have the stimulating mental exercise of finding and untangling our old string.
Or the eternal debate as to whether decorating is better done to the strains of John Denver and a chorus of Muppets, or Alvin and his band of helium-voiced chipmunks. (Making the tally “FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!!” versus one “HUUUU-LA HOOOOP!”)
But never is Christmas more surely on the way than when the subsonic tones of  Thurl Ravenscroft begins rumbling from our television speakers.
If you don’t recognize the name, I dare you to read the following words without hearing it in his distinctive voice:
“You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,
 You really are a heel …”
OK, how many sang along?
Thought so.
In a time when traditions seem to have the lifespan of a Raiders fan on Bronco Sunday, a family’s holiday movie choices are all but unshakeable. I have known people who could do without sleigh bells and snow, but would consider the season incomplete if it passed without just one more viewing of Die Hard. (“Yippie-ki-yay to all, and to all a good night.”)
It’s comforting. Reassuring. Familiar, to the point where if the TV burned out, everyone could quote their film of choice letter-perfect – in between jokes about which Clark W. Griswold light display burned things out this time.
For us, it’s a quartet: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Story (yes, the never-ending chronicle of the Red Ryder BB gun) and the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol. These old-school classics have dominated the networks, our shelf space, and significant portions of our family’s  gray matter, to the point where we can mentally count down the moments until Ralphie “didn’t say fudge” or the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come rolls through the graveyard on a hidden scooter board. (Hey, special effects are expensive.)
But these four have a lot more in common than their deathless production values. In each case, the story centers around what we think we want versus what we need.
Charlie Brown sets lights  and aluminum trees  against “what Christmas is all about.” Whoville celebrates not the stolen gifts, but the togetherness that lay at their foundation. Mr. Scrooge famously has his priorities shifted in one night, and even Ralphie’s story, the most materialistic of them all, is less about actually getting the coveted BB gun (which – spoiler alert – loses its charm after one accident, anyway) and more about getting a grown-up to actually listen to him for once and take him seriously.
In each case, it’s not about the stuff. It never really was.
OK, maybe it’s a little corny to say it out loud. But at a time when most of us are frantically trying to get through the holiday decathlon, maybe it’s not bad to claim a moment of quiet and think about why we’re doing all this, beyond muscle memory and social expectation.
Is it just about easily-torn paper and misplaced decorations? Does it really come down to whether we can make enough clicks on Amazon before time and money run out?
Or is there something else? Something not just limited to a few weeks in December?
That’s the real gift. And it’s one we’re all going to need going forward.
Though if you still want that hula hoop, I completely understand.