A Christmas Carol

Last week I wrote about how I was not completely in the Christmas Spirit and I might have exaggerated a little bit, I don’t know if you noticed that I mentioned the past, present and future but that was because I was mimicking A Christmas Carol.

I love A Christmas Carol. It is my favourite of all the Christmas Stories and I try to read it every year. This year I am listening to an audiobook version that is full cast and has sounds and music and I love it. There is nothing like walking around looking at Christmas lights while listening Scrooge being warned by Jacob Marley. My love of this story began with an adaptation and grew to include retellings. These are what I would like to tell you about today.

My first introduction to A Christmas Carol was through what I believe is the best adaptation of all time. When I was a kid my parents used to tape movies that were playing on TV and one of those movies was The Muppet Christmas Carol. I watched that tape so much that to this day I still remember that one spot in the opening song were the tape glitched and it cut out for a second. It wasn’t until I was older and had finally read the book for the first time that I realized that The Muppets had made such a faithful adaptation that I could hear the characters from the movie saying the lines as I read. 

I think that the reason that The Muppets Christmas Carol works so well is because they have Gonzo playing the role of Charles Dickens himself. This lends to having a proper narration and it helps to move the story forward. He also adds some comic relief thanks to his banter with Rizzo. Gonzo as Dickens is one of my favourite things ever because it makes my book loving heart so happy. Not because he is Dickens but because he makes so many little literary asides. They are all so good!

Everything about The Muppet Christmas Carol is so good. The costumes are accurate to the time period, I watched a video on youTube about this, the songs are so well written, and Micheal Caine plays Scrooge. You would think that actors might not take working with The Muppets seriously but that was not the case for Micheal Caine, he said that he treated it like he was working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I believe that is what makes his performance so great, he didn’t treat the roll like it was below him. 

Up next is a movie that is part retelling, part adaptation and part biopic. The Man Who Invented Christmas, a movie about how Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. It shows how Dickens gathered his inspiration and a bit of his writing process. Mostly it is a testament to the imagination. All through the movie Dickens sees the characters that he is writing about. You get to see how he might have pictured the story in his mind and he even has conversations with the characters. 

I think that it is fun to watch Dickens walking about London talking to Scrooge about what direction the story should go in and how by the end of the movie all the book characters are invested in the ending of the story. I found the bits about Dickens life to be interesting as well. He was only about 31 years old when he wrote A Christmas Carol, which is younger than I am now, and he seemed to have quite a bit of pressure to put out another hit. 

Mostly I think that anything that speaks about the writing process will interest me. I love to hear about inspirations behind stories and what may have been happening in someone life while writing a book. I love anything that has to do with books and The Man Who Invented Christmas ticked so many of those boxes for me.

Switching from visual media to written I have a book for you as well. The Afterlife of Holly Chase is a retelling that stars a girl named, you guessed it, Holly Chase. The premise of the book is that Holly is just one in the long line of Scrooges that are visited on Christmas Eve by three spirits. However, instead of being saved like the original Scrooge Holly ends up working for Project Scrooge the “company” that tries to save the souls of people who treat others like trash. 

This is such a brilliant retelling because while you get to see all the spirits and hit many of the same beats that are part of the original story it is fresh and you get a in-depth look at Holly previous life as well as Holly’s current “life”. During the course of the book Project Scrooge researches the person who is that years Scrooge and this in turn helps Holly to examine her thinking and beliefs, which is kind of how the book A Christmas Carol works for the reader.  

I wish that I could speak a little more in-depth about this book but it has been a couple of years since I have read it and I think that I have forgotten a few of the details. I am planning to start to read it again today though. I know that I will enjoy it and that it will be a great book to read right before Christmas.

As for now, you will be glad to know that I have made it home to my parents house for Christmas. Currently, as I write, I am sitting in my room with the sounds of my family and Christmas Carols floating in from the other room. Out my window snow is falling and has made a nice white coat in the garden. I think that it will be a good Christmas.

Just so that you know I am going to take the next two weeks off. I am going to rest up and enjoy spending some time with my family. I hope that you get the chance to do the same. Stay safe and stay cozy. Merry Christmas and see you all in the New Year.