I love Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”; Each year we watch it as a family. When my kids were young we watched it in the Muppet version and we are doing that again with the GKs. I love to see the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge from the miserly, mean spirited, ba-humbugging, man he was, into the man who gave unconditionally from the heart. CHRISTmas had come to live in his heart and that brought change. If we could each imagine our future in the way we live our lives today how would we change? I know I would make changes.
I want to share with you a few quotes from this wonderful book. If you haven’t read it or haven’t read it lately, maybe these quotes will inspire you to do so.

"External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty."
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

"Ghost of the Future," he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

"It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour."
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Of course this story is not the Christmas story, the Christmas story is about the wonderful birth of the Savior, the Redeemer and Restorer of mankind. You can find this true account in the books of Matthew and Luke in the Bible. I hope you will read this beautiful story, it is one of the greatest events in human history; the second is the Easter story found in the same Book.