There’s a Scrooge Gene
The humbug Scrooge, I mean. The George Bailey chewing out Zuzu’s teacher. James Caan having security escort Buddy the Elf from the Empire State Building.
The irascible curmudgeon of every great Christmas story. That Scrooge. Fiction always finds Christmas curmudgeons realizing the error of their ways.
But my husband is a Christmas curmudgeon. And I’m here to tell you Christmas curmudgeons do not see the error of their ways. And now that our son is sixteen – well. He’s a Christmas curmudgeon, too.
As “A Christmas Carol” concludes, Scrooge declares he’ll “honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”Yes, we have to spell “honour” the way Dickens spells it. Don’t you be a curmudgeon, too. Please. I can only handle so many.
I, like the reformed Scrooge, have Christmas on my mind regardless of what the calendar says. It sits there, like a pot on simmer. Until Christmastime, when that simmer becomes a boil. The genetic Scrooges in my house do not appreciate that Christmastime boil.
On November first – the official start of Christmastime – I pulled “A Christmas Carol” from the shelf, curled up with a brownie, and tucked into the first stave. Stave. You have to love Dickens. Can’t just call it a chapter.
“No,” my son said. “No. It’s not Christmastime. Christmastime is December twenty-fourth and December twenty-fifth.” Can you imagine? November and December give us fifty-five days to celebrate Christmas. To bake cookies and hang lights. To watch Die Hard and any Hallmark Christmas movie set in Montana. To listen to Bing Crosby and Adam Sandler because how can you fully embrace the season if you’re not ecumenical? “It is Christmastime,” I retorted.
Besides, I had good reason for “A Christmas Carol.” The day after Halloween. In eighty-degree heat. The Rosenbach Museum – it’s in Philadelphia, a little gem you should really check out – is spending November and December discussing “A Christmas Carol” over weekly Zoom sessions. Can you think of a better way to get in the spirit? The Rosenbach even provides a cocktail recipe for each discussion. So, you know, spirits for our spirits – both holiday and ghostly.
My Christmas curmudgeons were not moved by my, um, spirited Zoom sessions. I tried persuading them, but I alone am Marley. The three ghosts. Clarence. Bob Newhart. Huh – you guys – you guys don’t think I need to be dead to convert my cur- mudgeons, do you?
Wait. Are the three Ghosts of Christmas dead? I mean, the Ghost of Christmas Present wanes with the night. And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come terrifies Scrooge.
Am I overthinking this? No, right? I’m thinking just the right amount. Anyway. I seek proof that November first is Christmas- time, like a scientist conducting research.
There’s the neighbor whose Christmas lights are twinkling from the gutters as I write this, a week after Halloween, when the thermometer is hovering at summer temperatures and my air conditioning is on. And there’s this Good Housekeeping article
