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I – A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, 1st published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 & illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley & the spirits of Christmas Past, Present & Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a period when the British were exploring & re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, & newer customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth & by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written 3 Christmas stories prior to the novella, & was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London’s street children. The treatment of the poor & the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character is the key themes of the story. There is a discussion among academics as to whether this was a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory.
A Christmas Carol captured the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. Dickens had acknowledged the influence of the modern Western observance of Christmas & later inspired several aspects of Christmas, including family gatherings, seasonal food & drink, dancing, games & a festive generosity of spirit.
– Wikipedia
II – 4 And they shall rebuild the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former desolations and renew the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
(Isaiah 61:1-4 AMPC)
III – “I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable 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.” – Charles Dickens
IV – “Small shifts in your thinking, and small changes in your energy, can lead to massive alterations of your end result.” ― Kevin Michel
V – Dr. Wayne Dyer’s famous quote, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” is absolutely true…it’s been proven in the world of quantum physics & is explained as ‘The Observer Effect’…Jesus said, “Unless a person changes his/her mind (μετανοέω: metanoeó), he/she cannot enter the Kingdom of God”…and, ideally, the Christmas season is all about changing the way we look at things…You don’t have to jump off of a bridge, & have Clarence the angel jump into the icy water after you to save you, to show you that you’ve really had a wonderful life…you can realize it right now, & change your present by changing the way you look at your past…you don’t have to have 3 ghosts visit you in the middle of the night to scare the bejeezus out of you, & cause you to have a completely transformational paradigm shift about life, about money, about relationships, & about yourself…you can have that paradigm shift right now, right here, in the light of day, & enjoy the season for what it is…you don’t have to steal Christmas from the people of Whoville, only to realize that Christmas is something more, & then have your heart grow 3 sizes bigger…you can look at someone differently & experience rapid hear...