Hi Everyone,
Please remember, December is our book gift exchange month. Wrap up a book you have on your shelf and bring it in as a gift. You will get one in return 🙂
Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly, cold-hearted creditor, continues his stingy, greedy ways on Christmas Eve. He rejects a Christmas dinner invitation, and all the good tidings of the holiday, from his jolly nephew, Fred; he yells at charity workers; and he overworks his employee, Bob Cratchit. At night, Scrooge’s former partner Jacob Marley, dead for seven years, visits him in the form of a ghost. Marley’s spirit has been wandering since he died as punishment for being consumed with business and not with people while alive. He has come to warn Scrooge and perhaps save him from the same fate. He tells him Three Spirits will come to him over the next three nights.
Scrooge falls asleep and wakes up to find the Ghost of Christmas Past, a small, elderly figure. The Ghost shows Scrooge scenes from the past that trace Scrooge’s development from a young boy, lonely but with the potential for happiness, to a young man with the first traces of greed that would deny love in his life. Scrooge shows newfound emotion when revisiting these scenes, often crying from identification with his former neglected self.
Scrooge goes to sleep and is awakened by the Ghost of Christmas Present, a giant with a life span of one day. He shows Scrooge several current scenes of Christmas joy and charity, then shows him the Cratchit household. The Ghost informs Scrooge that unless the future is changed, the Cratchit’s crippled and good-hearted young son, Tiny Tim, will die. He also shows Scrooge the party at Fred’s house. Finally, a ragged boy and girl crawl out from the Ghost’s robes. The Ghost calls them Ignorance and Want and warns Scrooge to beware of Ignorance.
Decided ad hoc at September meeting – seemed a fitting choice!