As a kid, Christmas is the best. You get a week off of school. You get to eat lots of cookies and candy canes. And you get presents. There’s nothing at all to worry about. As a parent, Christmas is still the best, but it’s different. There are worries for the parents. When are we…
One of my favorite holiday albums when I was a kid was Christmas In The Stars. As an adult, it is right at the top of my nostalgia list. Just hearing a few notes of it makes me super happy. And I’m confident that I’m doing a good job as a parent because my daughter…
One thing I love about this time of year is all the Christmas decorations. And one of the best things about having a kid is having a good excuse to go around looking at all the decorations. Ever since Thanksgiving, we take the long and winding way everywhere we go, just looking for more decorated…
I went to see The Man Who Invented Christmas. I liked it. It is a highly fictionalized account of how Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, which is one of my favorite books. The drama of the movie comes from the fact that Dickens only gave himself six weeks to complete the book so that…
I’m of the general opinion that song lyrics don’t matter. A song is good or bad because of the music. If I want poetry, I’ll get a book of poems. Songs are all about the melody, rhythm and harmony. That being said, it can be enjoyable to notice the lyrics. Good lyrics can elevate an…
Well, we’ve come to the end. This stave is really more of a coda than anything else. It is here to show us the results and nothing more. Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning a changed man. He is happy and friendly and truly sorry for the way he acted before. He reconciles with his nephew…
Of all the staves, this is probably the easiest one to get right on film. The spirit is nothing more than a black, hooded robe with a “spectral” hand outstretched. There are a few conversations about the death (Scrooge doesn’t realize it is his own death, but it’s obvious to the audience). Then a scene…
This marks the center of the story. It is probably the most famous part of the story as well. We have Scrooge travelling with the Ghost of Christmas Present. It contains the scene in the Cratchit household where we meet Bob’s family and Tiny Tim says, “God bless us, every one!” It also has the…
Well, my schedule was thrown off a bit, but I’m back with the second installment. The first of the three spirits is more commonly known as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Of the three spirits, Christmas Past is the one that never looks right on screen. Dickens says: It was a strange figure – like…
I have a Christmas tradition that I would like to share. Every year, for the past twenty or so years, I have read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I always read it over five nights, one stave per night, so I finish the book on Christmas Eve. I don’t know exactly why I started…
