A Christmas Carol

Christmas for the secular can be complicated. Or, to quote Linus Van Pelt, "You're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem." But it is a problem for someone like me, who believes in the divinity of Christ as much as I believe in Santa Claus. To celebrate this holiday without acknowledging the religious baggage is tricky. So what does one do?

For starters, there's lots of stuff I don't do. I don't decorate, at least not anymore. One year I did the whole tree thing, and that was fine, but I have no further need to repeat the process. You won't find one red light bulb, nor garland of tinsel nor sprig of holly in my domicile. The only evidence that it is Christmas at all is the modest stack of Christmas cards I have received. I am perfectly at peace with this decision (I don't decorate for any other holidays either). Of course, I also don't go to church.

So what's a poor atheist to do? Well, American society has done its part to secularize the holiday, to the consternation of some. Christmas is now about shopping, mostly, and we have been wringing our hands about this. Even this morning while watching the news I heard a newscaster introduce a story by saying the phrase "The true meaning of Christmas," in reference to a spot about someone who gives away a lot of money. To get back to Linus, he was spot on about the true meaning of Christmas--it can be found in the Gospel of Matthew, and deals with a child in a manger. But in a diverse culture, where no one likes to shut out anyone, this aspect of the season is very often sidestepped.

Of course, the true origins of a celebration at this time of year go before the time of Christ. There was the pagan Scandinavian celebration of Yule, and the Roman Saturnalia, both around the winter solstice. The Christians were smart to associate all of the big days on the calendar, from Christmas to Easter to the Annunciation to the Assumption, on pagan holidays that were constructed around the calendar. Many of the Christmas trappings, like holly and Christmas trees, stem from these pre-Christian traditions. However, I'm not a Wiccan or a Roman, either, so I don't really feel the pull to get in touch with my inner pagan.

Instead I just cherry-pick the things I like about it. There are, of course, the TV specials A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, animation from the mid-sixties that shows a disdain for consumerism even forty years ago. But my favorite piece of Christmas-related entertainment is the film of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, specifically the 1951 version starring Alistair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge.

It would be hard to imagine who doesn't know this story, as it has provided sit-com writers an easy out for countless Christmas-themed episodes: a mean person is visited by ghosts on Christmas Eve and suddenly change their ways. But there's something about the Sim film that I think perfectly captures Dickens intention. Dickens' story is not secular--there are references to the Christ child, but his point is larger, and can be embraced by secularists who believe that the concept of God can be found within each person as their basic humanity. Scrooge has lost his humanity, but over the course of one evening it is returned to him by a close scrutiny of his own past and the lives of those who are around him, and he is redeemed.

I enjoy this film version the most for a couple of reasons. It is very faithful to Dickens, and even adds things entirely keeping with the situation, as Mrs. Dilber would say. There are things added to Scrooge's past, particularly a nasty little scene where it's shown how Scrooge and Marley take over their company. But mostly it is the performance of Alistair Sim that makes this film work. To start with, his personal appearance reminds me of sinister political reporter Robert Novak, who would scare anyone. Sim is also adept at handling some of the more vicious lines of dialogue that Dickens wrote, such as the passage that begins with, "Are there no prisons, are there no workhouses?" and ends, "If they would rather die, let them do it and decrease the surplus population."

But I never stop delighting in his transformation from covetous old sinner to giddy schoolboy on Christmas morning. In the George C. Scott television film, which is a handsome production and also very faithful to the source, I found Scott's transformation wanting, perhaps because it was more intellectual than emotional. Nothing can top Sim so ebullient that he has to stand on his head.

And emotional this film is. I have watched it every year for quite a while now, and there have been moments in my life when I have been particularly vulnerable and wept openly while viewing it. There are some moments that always get me, even though they are highly melodramatic, such as Scrooge revisiting the deathbed of his sister and calling after, "Forgive me, Fan!" or at the very end, when Scrooge calls on his nephew's home as the guests are singing "Barbara Allen." The director, Brian Desmond Hurst, adds a nice touch as Scrooge is about to go into the parlor but hesitates, but the maid urges him to go ahead. And then, who wouldn't be moved when Scrooge apologizes to his niece: "Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool who has no eyes to see or ears to hear with?" Then comes the scene in which Scrooge teases Bob Cratchit a bit before succumbing to his own joy and announcing that he now wishes to help him raise his family The look on the actor Mervyn Johns' face is priceless.

And so Scrooge became a man who kept Christmas well. Although I don't exactly keep Christmas in the traditional sense, I do enjoy it for its reminder about the possibility of redemption, and, as Scrooge and the Grinch learned, that it's more than about retail sales.