Whilst it is a book whose unhurried and detailed descriptions of Christmas are the epitome of the season (“ apoplectic opulence”), it is a book of great contrasts: humbug/festivities, hot/cold, company/solitude, poverty/wealth, worthy poor/wastrels, past/future etc.

If you're interested in a brief glossary of some of the Victorian terms that aren't familiar to us nowadays, I found a very useful set of annotations online at http://drbacchus.com/files/christmas_..., along with some brief commentary from someone who clearly loves this story. I found this when I went on a search to figure out what Treadmills had to do with England's treatment of the poor. It was very instructive!

CONTENTS

There are other links too: three people profiting from the spoils of the dead man (like the Roman soldiers at the cross, albeit they cast lots to decide who got what) and Peter Cratchit reading from the Bible in Christmas yet to come.

It has been a decade since I last read this classic, so I decided to look at it again, taking note of what I have forgotten or imperfectly remembered and also garnering any new insights my older (and I hope wiser) self could now find within it.Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge. "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer." You probably already know this, but A Christmas Carol tells the tale of an aging miser named Ebenezer Scrooge. He works in a counting-house with his poor, put-upon clerk Bob Cratchit. Once upon a time, Scrooge had a partner, Jacob Marley, but when the novella opens, Marley has been dead seven years, though Scrooge seems barely to notice. Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning a changed man. He makes a large donation to the charity he rejected the previous day, anonymously sends a large turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner and spends the afternoon at Fred's Christmas party. The following day he gives Cratchit an increase in pay, and begins to become a father figure to Tiny Tim. From then on Scrooge treats everyone with kindness, generosity and compassion, embodying the spirit of Christmas. Others who have examined the Christian theme include Geoffrey Rowell, [24] Claire Tomalin [52] and Martin Sable. [53] Stave four Scrooge and Bob Cratchit celebrate Christmas in an illustration from stave five of the original edition, 1843.