Last Wednesday I saw A Christmas Carol the broadway musical at The Wick in Boca Raton, Florida. I highly recommend it. On Saturday I went to a Christmas party/book exchange and walked away with the beautiful edition pictured above. My attitude this year has been rather “Bah Humbug,” which is not usually an issue for me, but two doses of Dickens has helped.

Part of the issue is a major construction project which has made our living space quite small. I wasn’t even going to do a Christmas tree because of the mess. But my sweet Nate insisted on buying me a little tree the first day he was home. And honestly I’ve probably never appreciated the smell so much. I can look at the lights on the tree in that little corner and pretend that there is no construction. Obviously any construction project is a first world problem. All five of us will be together starting on Sunday and I am immensely grateful for that.

Even so, the reminders from A Christmas Carol are helpful.

Dickens wrote that the misery experienced by the ghosts “was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.” And he was correct. We will all lose that power, and we should make today count for eternity.

Another passage that stuck out to me was this one:

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.”

This longing for family, daughters in particular who I am only gaining through marriage, is conveyed in such a sweet and unique way: “a spring-time in the haggard winter” of life. I love it!

And of course this passage is wonderful too:

“But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.”

I hope as we are getting so close to Christmas that you have many opportunities to be child-like and to reflect on the fact that the “mighty Founder ” of Christmas was a child himself.

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.

Isaiah 9:6-7a

Blessings,

Kristie