Beyond Christmas
On Christmas Eve, we readied out spirits by binging on Christmas movies. Where my wife likes the Hallmark-types, and my kids go for animated or comedy, I like the slightly odd, e.g. Edward Scissorhands.
One we can all agree on is A Christmas Carol, the Charles Dickens classic that was originally a novella published in 1843, and has since been told, retold, imitated, and borrowed, having been imprinted in our collective minds as a holiday genre staple.
We watched the 2009 Disney computer-generated animation version with Jim Carrey voicing Ebenezer Scrooge.
This version stays true to the novella’s dark and fantastical themes by pushing beyond the cutesy fairy tale versions of this story we’ve been fed over the years.
One such scene is when Scrooge is about to part ways with the Ghost of Christmas present. This spirit introduces two scraggly looking children hiding in his robes. The boy he calls Ignorance, and the girl he calls Want.
Though the scene is brief, its impact is strong and as relevant today as it must likely have been when A Christmas Carol was published.
Ignorance and Want, the spirit says, are responsible for all the hardship in the world. The spirit warns Scrooge to beware of these evils, especially Ignorance.
While Dickens may have been making a political statement embedded in a fairy tale, readers (and viewers) to come, would certainly interpret this scene into their model of the world.
At bedtime that night, in anticipation of their beloved holiday, we talked with our children about understanding what they have and what others may not have.
We talked about fortune and misfortune, giving thanks for what you have and being aware that others are in need. We talked about giving, instead of receiving , and why we can never take for granted the life we have.
Who knows if the kids absorbed this rather heavy talk on an otherwise jolly night. All I can hope is that the power of story took hold, and that, beyond Christmas, we as parents can harken back to those powerful examples of the Christmas spirit, and not just the happy ones.
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Photo by Photoholgic on Unsplash
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