Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens is often an under-appreciated artist, like many Victorian novelists, just ask my 19th century British Literature colleague. I must say, that I haven't found much about Victorian novels that speak to me. There are some must reads, sure, but most people don't want to touch the long, drawn out or complex plots of books like Middlemarch. Give me 18th century British poetry or drama, and I am a happy camper. There is, however, one Dickens classic that I love, and I think I have learned to love and appreciate it so much more in the last several years of my life because Leah Marie loves and appreciates it so much. A Christmas Carol can probably not be found at the top of any Dickens scholar's "best works of" lists and maybe not even the top five or ten. Perhaps it is too simplistic, too sentimental, whatever they want to say. I don't know; I tend to ignore criticism for the sake of criticism or attempts to discredit the worth of something based upon its popular sentiment or agenda. A Christmas Carol, among other things, is a social commentary, and a powerful one for me. It is as much propaganda as it is anything, but so was Uncle Tom's Cabin, another 19th century novel that gets slighted for similar reasons. But there is nothing wrong with a little literary propaganda, especially when it offers a message that is so important: “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” This statement carries a lot of weight, especially if you are a Christian. Let's not forget Christmas. Not necessarily because of the Savior, whose birth it celebrates, but because of what he taught us: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the afflicted, and house the poor.