I’ll be back on January 5th. Later that night, Emily returned home, warmed her hands around a cup of tea, and set the original lantern on her windowsill—lit, as it had been meant to be. She unfolded the letter once more. Outside, snow drifted across the quiet street. Then she saw one lantern glow. Then another, and another, until the...

Emily returned to the attic the next evening. The attic felt different, not mysterious, purposeful. She unlocked the small door again and stood for a moment, looking at the shelves lined with lanterns. She counted at least twenty-four before she stopped. They had not been forgotten. They had been prepared. One by one, she carried the lanterns down carefully, setting...

In the winter of his century, Charles Dickens walked a London powered by industry but running short on warmth. People moved past one another as if connection were a luxury they could no longer afford. Wealth and want lived on opposite sides of the same street, and compassion, even at Christmas time, was showing signs of strain. Dickens wrote his...

Every December, I look forward to reading and watching Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. While there are countless versions of the classic, I always return to the film with Reginald Owen as Scrooge, not only because Owen embodies the part, but also because it features Gene Lockhart as Bob Cratchit. A brilliant character actor with a gift for sincerity, Lockhart brings...

“Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they the shadows of things that May be, only?,” Scrooge asked. Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends...

Hate is a sickness; a dark force that shuts out the light of humanity. It grows in darkness, feeds on suspicion, fear, and doubt. It debases others in a torrent of racialism. In times of distrust and disaffection, it grabs onto any rationalization for violence. On September 11, 2001, the country witnessed the power of hate in the murder of...

A Christmas Carol in Prose Being a Ghost Story of Christmas first appeared in 1843, and for 180 years its message of redemption is more important than ever. Ebenezer Scrooge, a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner,” is quick to criticize his nephew, his put-upon bookkeeper, and everyone about the utter wastefulness of a season that brings joy...