merry christmas

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my friend patricia’s dad has a yearly tradition where he emails certain excerpts from “a christmas carol” to our group of friends. and since it always makes me happy, i thought i’d share one of the excerpts with you below today.

“As is the tradition The End and then The Beginning.

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely
more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He
became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the
good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in
the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him,
but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough
to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which
some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and
knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite
as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the
malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was
quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total
Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards: and it was always said of him,
that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed
the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as
Tiny Time observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

And finally, The Beginning, as most but Patricia and Mark know it.

Stave I

Marley’s Ghost

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about
that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the
clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and
Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his
hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what
there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been
inclined myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of
ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the
simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s
done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that
Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be
otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don?t know how many
years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner.
And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but
that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the
funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.

a very merry christmas to you all … may your holidays be full of many good things.