By Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens Adapted by Tom Creamer Ebenezer Scrooge, an old, miserly, cold-hearted man, sits in his counting-house one Christmas Eve. The clerk at his accounting business, Bob Cratchit, shivers from the cold and sneaks behind Scrooge to add coal to the fire. Scrooge: Cratchit! Cratchit: Sir? The fire, sir. It’s rather chilly. Scrooge: I do not find it chilly. Cratchit: The fingers, sir.

Cratchit demonstrates how frozen they are. Scrooge glares at Cratchit and then waves his hand to give him permission to add coal to the fire.

Cratchit: Thank you sir! Scrooge: Cratchit, put your hand on that coal scuttle again today, and you and I will be parting company. Soon after, two businesspeople enter the counting-house asking for donations for the poor. Miss Crumb: As this is the festive season, it is more than usually desirable to make some slight provision for the poor and destitute and, to that end, Mr. Ortle and I are collecting donations from our fellow businessmen. Scrooge: You’re asking me to give you money? Miss Crumb: The suffering is so great at the present time. Scrooge: I see. Predictably, Scrooge is unsympathetic to their cause. He proposes to give them the money under the condition that they will pay it back with 18 percent interest per year. Realizing what a mean- spirited soul he is, the pair leaves Scrooge’s office. As they leave, Scrooge’s nephew Fred enters the counting-house. Fred: Merry Christmas, Uncle Scrooge! God save you! Scrooge: Bah. Humbug! Fred: Come then, what right have you to be so dismal? I have always thought of Christmas time as a pleasant, kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of each other as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave. Come! Dine with my wife and me tomorrow. Scrooge: Christmas dinner! I’ll see you in hell first. Fred leaves, wishing Scrooge a Merry Christmas despite his hateful words. Later that evening, Scrooge returns to his cold and gloomy apartment. As he enters he sees an apparition of his dead former business partner, Jacob Marley, in the face of his door knocker. Before falling asleep, he is jolted to the floor of his bedroom by Marley’s towering ghost. Marley: Ebenezer Scrooge! Scrooge: Who are you? Marley: In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge: Those chains you wear—what are they? Marley: I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, ledger by ledger, cashbox by cashbox. My spirit never looked beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole. Can you fathom the opportunities I missed, the good I might have done? Marley explains to Scrooge why he is here: to warn him against making the same mistakes he himself made during his lifetime. He tells Scrooge he will be visited by three more apparitions: the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future. Scrooge: What is it, Jacob? Who are they? Marley: Miserable spirits like myself. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us. Having fallen back asleep, Scrooge awakes and is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, a child-like spirit with a brightly glowing head. The spirit takes Scrooge back in time to visit memories of Christmases long ago. Their first stop is the school Scrooge attended as a boy. Invisible to everyone around him, Scrooge watches his younger self, lonely in the schoolyard as his classmates leave for the Christmas holiday. His younger self is surprised by his sister, Fan, who brings good news. She says their father is much kinder now than he used to be, that Ebenezer is allowed to come home once and for all, and that he’ll be starting as Mr. Fezziwig’s apprentice after Christmas holidays. As Young Scrooge and his sister turn to go home, Old Scrooge reveals to Christmas Past why he might be so bitter. Past: Always a delicate creature, Fan. But she had a large heart. When a young woman she had, I think, children. Scrooge: One child. Past: Your nephew, Fred. Scrooge: She died when he was born. Christmas Past then takes Scrooge to revisit his adolescent self during his apprenticeship with Mr. Fezziwig. Fezziwig’s jolly excitement while preparing for his Christmas Eve party has no effect on Young Scrooge. Little does he know that it is at this party that he will meet his fiancée- to-be, Belle. Soon after Scrooge sees his younger self smitten with Belle, Christmas Past whisks him away to revisit one final event. It is a Christmas Eve few years later, when Belle breaks their engagement because Scrooge has become too obsessed with his work. Belle: Perhaps you fear the world too much. All your hopes have been reduced to a passion for columns of accounts in a ledger book. Young Scrooge: I have grown older and wiser. That is all. I have not changed towards you. Belle: Haven’t you? When we danced together that Christmas Eve, you were another man. Young Scrooge: I was a boy. Belle: Ebenezer, please! I fell in love with that boy. Young Scrooge: I am no longer a child, Belle. Belle: Our contract to marry was made when we were both poor and content to be so. I have not changed. Ebenezer, when our hearts were one, our marriage promised us happiness. Now I fear it will only mean our misery. How often I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it and can release you. Scrooge watches devastated as his young self allows her to leave him.

Scrooge: You young fool.

END ACT I

Asleep in his bedroom, Scrooge is surrounded by piles of gifts. Awakened by warm laughter, he finds himself in the company of the Ghost of Christmas Present who bids him to continue his journey. Christmas Present drags Scrooge through the streets of London, brightening the spirits of the busy, frantic people along his way. The two arrive at the scrawny Cratchit house, where Mrs. Cratchit and her five children are preparing for Christmas dinner. Bob Cratchit returns from church with his crippled son - the youngest, Tiny Tim. As the family sits down to dinner, Scrooge criticizes their meal.

Scrooge: Not much of a goose for such a large family. Present: Any Cratchit would blush to hint at such a thing. It would be flat heresy to do so.

As the family begins to dine, Cratchit gives a speech to lift his family’s spirits.

Cratchit: Family, there is nothing of high mark about us. We are not handsome, or well- dressed, and our shoes are far from being water-proof. But I am grateful, and contented with the time, and pleased to be – my dear, where are the silver candlesticks? Mrs. Cratchit: Robert, we came up a bit short this month – Cratchit: Ah. I see. Peter, did you do the honors?

The older Cratchit boy nods.

Peter: Yes, sir. Cratchit: Never mind it, my boy. It’s no matter. The candlesticks deserve a holiday to if they want to spend it at the pawnbrokers, well all the best to them! And we’ll see them again in the new year, eh? A Merry Christmas to us all. God bless us! All: God bless us! Tim: God bless us, every one!

Cratchit then tries to thank Scrooge, whom he calls the founder of their feast, but Mrs. Cratchit stops him, enraged.

Mrs. Cratchet: It should be Christmas Day, I am sure, on which one drinks to the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge.

The family begrudgingly drinks to Scrooge, and Cratchit encourages his family by singing a song that they eventually join. His heart touched by the crippled child, Scrooge examines Tiny Tim and asks Christmas Present if he will live. But Christmas Present tells him that if circumstances do not change for the Cratchits, Tiny Tim will die. Scrooge and Christmas Present then journey to his nephew Fred’s house, where he and his friends are playing games and enjoying one another’s company. Scrooge discovers himself to be the subject of their conversation.

Fred: Humbug! He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live. Scrooge: My nephew! Miss Crumb: Humbug indeed! We met your uncle yesterday, Fred. Ortle: He refused to give us a donation. Fred: Now, now, he’s not so pleasant as he might be, but – Miss Crumb: I say more shame for him. Fred: His offenses carry their own punishment. I have nothing to say against him. Abby: I’m sure he is very rich, Fred. At least you always tell me so. Fred: What of that, my dear? His wealth is of no use to him. He doesn’t do any good with it. He doesn’t even make himself comfortable with it.

The company agrees to play a guessing game, and Fred leads his friends to believe that he is thinking of an animal that growls. Even in his invisible state, Scrooge joins in the fun by guessing, only to find out that the animal his nephew is describing is him. The guests all laugh and raise their glasses to Scrooge in jest, then vanish. As the aged and raggedy Ghost of Christmas Present leaves, he warns Scrooge to beware Man’s neglected children, particularly Ignorance, Want, and Doom, who then descend upon him, begging. As they disappear in a cloud of fog and haunting voices, Scrooge falls to his knees and looks up to find the Ghost of Christmas Future. The speechless ghost takes Scrooge to see a Christmas that has not yet passed where he sees many familiar townspeople grimly delight at the death of a wealthy member of the community.

Mr. Ortle: What has the old man done with his money? Miss Crumb: Hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know. Mr. Ortle: It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral. I don’t know of anybody to go to it. Scrooge: They feel only pleasure, or greed, or indifference at his death. Is that all, Spirit? Of what importance are these scenes? What’s this man’s death to me.

After watching some other townspeople jostle over the dead man’s extravagant possessions, Scrooge begs Christmas Future to show him something else. Believing that this dead man’s experience might be his own, he longs to be shown someone whose death is mourned in the hopes that his will be as well. Instead, the Ghost takes him back to the Cratchit house, where Cratchit returns from visiting Tiny Tim’s grave, for in this future, he has died. Scrooge then finds himself and Christmas Future in a graveyard. His confidence is shaken having seen so much sadness and death. He asks the Ghost if the fate he has seen is his own.

Scrooge: Spirit, are these the shadows of the things that Will be or are they the shadows of the things that May be, only? A man’s actions foreshadow certain ends, yes? But if his actions change, surely the ends must change, too. Say it is so with me! The speechless Ghost remains silent, and Scrooge frantically begs him to say the name of the dead man for whom nobody grieved. The Ghost leads Scrooge to a gravestone that reads “Ebenezer Scrooge,” and Scrooge cries out in repentance.

Scrooge: No, Spirit! No! Why show me this if I am past all hope? Tell me so that I may sponge away the writing on this stone! I am not the man I was! I will live in the past, the present, and the future. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach! I will honor Christmas in my heart, I will honor Christmas, I will honor Christmas.

Scrooge wakes in his bed, thrilled to discover that it is Christmas Day, shouting out the window happily to a young boy selling turkeys on the street. Because the Spirits have taken only one night to accompany him on his journey, he jumps at his opportunity to make amends. Praising the young lad, he asks him to bring the poulterer to his house with the largest turkey he has, and in exchange, he will give the lad half-a-crown. Once the poulterer arrives with the turkey, he tells him to deliver it to Bob Cratchit anonymously, and even pays for his cab to get there, wishing them a Merry Christmas. He then decides to visit his nephew for Christmas dinner, but on his way, runs into Mr. Ortle and Miss Crumb.

Scrooge: My dear sir! Madam! How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to both of you! Miss Crumb: Mr. Scrooge? Mr. Ortle: Mr. Scrooge! Scrooge: That is my name, though I fear it may not be pleasant to you.

Scrooge tells them he would like to offer them some money, and they are shocked.

Mr. Ortle: Lord bless me! My dear Scrooge, are you serious? Scrooge: Not a farthing less. A great many back payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favor?

Arriving at Fred’s house, he surprises his nephew and his guests by greeting him with a hearty hug. The guests welcome him into the party and they all warmly celebrate the evening together. The next day, Scrooge heads into the counting-house early to catch Cratchit coming into work late.

Scrooge: Cratchit! What do you mean by coming here at this time of day? Cratchit: (startled) I’m very sorry, sir. I am behind my time today. Scrooge: Now I tell you what, my friend. I am not going to stand for this sort of thing any longer. And therefore…and therefore…I am about to raise your salary, Bob. A Merry Christmas, Bob! And we’ll see if we can’t find a position for your oldest boy, yes? And how is Mrs. Cratchit? And Tim, how is young Tim?

Cratchit: God bless you, sir, Merry Christmas, Mr. Scrooge.

And Scrooge gave Bob Cratchit more compassion and attention than he had ever showed him in the time Cratchit had worked there. Heeding the lessons taught to him by the three Ghosts of Christmas, Scrooge became a better man to all. He became part of the Cratchit family, almost like a second father to Tiny Tim, who did not die. Though many people laughed at his transformation, Scrooge let them, content in the knowledge that he was happy and that giving so freely of himself made him happy. And in all of their newfound joy, Tiny Tim rejoiced

Tiny Tim: God bless us, every one!

End Act II