That night, as Scrooge sat in his lonely chambers, eating his gruel by the dying embers of a meager fire, a sound like the rattling of chains echoed through the house. The door flew open, and there, standing in the doorway, were the ghosts of his former partners, Jacob and Robert Marley. They were draped in heavy chains, forged from cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.
The door creaked open, and in bounced Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, a man whose smile could light up the gloomiest alley. "A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" "Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!" subtitle The Muppet Christmas Carol
Scrooge laughed, a sound like a rusty hinge finally being oiled. "I haven't missed it! The spirits have done it all in one night!" That night, as Scrooge sat in his lonely
And so it began. The Ghost of Christmas Past, a gentle, ethereal being, took Scrooge back to his youth, to the schoolroom where he sat alone, to the apprenticeship where he first felt the sting of greed. He saw the woman he loved, Belle, leave him because his heart had become a vault for gold. The door creaked open, and in bounced Fred,
"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough."
Fred left, undeterred, and Scrooge returned to his accounts. But the night was young, and the spirits of the past were stirring.
In the drafty, cobblestoned heart of London, where the fog clung to the gaslights like a cold, wet wool coat, lived a man whose heart was a frozen pea. Ebenezer Scrooge was his name, and to say he was "mean" was like saying the sun was "a bit warm." He was a tight-fisted, squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner.