A Christmas Carol Notes ~ Staves 1 and 2 PDF Free Download
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A Christmas Carol Notes –
Staves 1 and 2
The story of A Christmas Carol is woven
into our culture and memories. Yet, prior
to its publication in 1843, Christmas had
become a solemn holiday, closer to Good Friday than to the Christmas we now celebrate
today. Scrooge embodies what would have been the popular/normal attitude toward the
day. A Christmas Carol helped to revive the joyful yuletide celebration.
Dicken’s describes Scrooge as, “He was a tight-fisted hand to the grindstone, Scrooge! A
squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp
as flint, from which not steel had very struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained,
and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed
nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and
spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his
eyebrows, and wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he
iced his office in the dog-days, and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.
What images speak to you in this description? Why?
Dickens speaks in the opening Stave (which means ‘Stanza,’ this is used rather than
“Chapter”) about, “the fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense
without, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere
phantoms.”
Where is your vision cloudy by fog this year? Where do you pray you might clear
away the clutter?
Scrooges’ nephew visits him and says, “Christmastime, when it has come round – apart
from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be
apart from that – as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only
time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one
consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they
really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on
other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in
my pocket, I believe that it has done me good and will do me good, and I say, “God bless
it!” How do those words speak to you this year?
Scrooge is visited by his old business partner, Marley, who had died years ago. Scrooge
describes the moment he recognizes Marley, “The same face: the very same Marely in his
pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and
his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It
was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of
cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deed, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was
transparent: so that Scrooge observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the
two buttons on his coat behind.”
Stave 2
As the ghost of the Christmas Past enters, Dicken’s describes the phantom in this way, “It was a
strange figure – like a child; yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some
supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and
being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its
back, was white, as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom
was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were
of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed were, like those upper
members, bare….It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; an, in singular contradiction
of that wintery emblem, had its dresses trimmed with summer flowers.”
How does this description describe the way we often see the past (as young, but
old…as with age yet not a wrinkle on it)?
“The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous,
appeared still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours
floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares
long, long forgotten!”
Scrooge visits important moments in his childhood and young adult life. What
moments from your past visit you this time of year? What might those memories
be trying to tell you at this time?
At the end of the Stave, Scrooge wrestles/struggles with the Spirit; much like Jacob wrestled
with God on the night before he met up with his estranged brother, Esau.
What parts of the past are you wrestling with right now?
Prayer practice:
This week, light a candle of hope in your house and make a traditional Advent
paper chain. Cut 27 stripes of paper that can be made into a circle and linked
together with the other pieces of paper. On each link of the paper chain write a
memory from this past year or something you still carry with you (like Marley).
Maybe ask yourself: what has been good? Bad? Ugly? Write down one memory on
each piece of paper. As the chain is made, offer each moment to God and be open
to God’s movement, even in the difficult moments. You can hang the paper chain
on your tree and each day remove one link. You may need to bury or burn a link,
processing the pain so you do you pass it along into the new year.
A Christmas Carol Notes –
Staves 2 and 3
The story of A Christmas Carol is woven
into our culture and memories. Yet, prior
to its publication in 1843, Christmas had
become a solemn holiday, closer to Good Friday than to the Christmas we now celebrate
today. Scrooge embodies what would have been the popular/normal attitude toward the
day. A Christmas Carol helped to revive the joyful yuletide celebration.
After Marley’s visit, Dickens writes, “Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and
thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he
thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more
he thought. Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within
himself, after mature enquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a
strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked
all through, “Was it a dream or not?”
Are there issues you are wrestling with right now in the midnight of your
soul that don’t seem to find easy resolutions?
Scrooge sees several scenes from his past: alone as a school boy with books his only
friends; the day his sister comes to fetch him from school saying she has come to bring
him “Home for good and all. Home for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he
used to be, that home’s like heaven!” He sees a party thrown by his first boss, Fezziwig
that is filled with joy. Scrooge comes to see how his treatment of his employee, Bob,
does not measure up when talking about Fezziwig as, “He has the power to render us
happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that
his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible
to add and count ‘em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost
a fortune.” It is then that a lightbulb goes on for Scrooge’s self-understanding. Finally,
Scrooge sees his former girlfriend at a moment when they break up. She says, “You fear
the world too much. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the
chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one,
until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you.”
Last week, I invited you to light a candle of “Hope” and reflect on the
past year: the good, the bad and the ugly. As Scrooge does this, he sees
himself in a new light. Did you have insights from such a prayer
practice?
The third chapter opens with a light coming from the clock on the wall. Dickens writes,
“For it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been
done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too – at last, I say, he began to think
that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from
whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine.” Upon entering the adjoining room, he
encounters a magnificent feast and the Ghost of Christmas present larger than life. How
does the present moment shine a light, a feast, and is always larger than life?
Out in the city streets, Scrooge sees, “There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or
the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and
brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.” Do you sense that
tension between dreary/weary and cheerfulness in your life this Christmas season?
Visiting the home of his clerk, Bob Cratchit, Bob speaks of his son, Tim, who lives with
a disability and their time in church saying Tim was, “As good as gold, and better.
Somehow, he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things
you ever heard. He told, me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in church,
because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas
Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.” Ponder this insight letting it
speak deeply to your heart.
Mrs. Cratchit, like many of us, worries about her Christmas pudding turning out okay.
Dickens’ writes, “Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break it
turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the backyard and stolen
it, while they [the Cratchit family] were merry with the goose – a supposition at which
the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.” How do the
endless questions about “What if” linger in our hearts?
The Ghost says about Tiny Tim, “I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner, and a
crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the
Future, the child will die.” What might this suggest about our human ability to work with
God in shaping/creating the Future?
Scrooge sees the chaos of the sea, where upon men on ships are still celebrating. How in
the midst of chaos do we hang onto God’s creative work (see Genesis 1:1-2)
Upon visiting his nephews’ home, “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.”
Prayer Practice ~
This week spend time with a candle of peace. Light the candle and say, “Here I am,”
considering where are you spiritually, emotionally, and physically? Then say, “Here You
are,” considering where you have sensed God’s presence. Finally say, “Here we are
together,” silently be open to the movement of God in your life.
A Christmas Carol Notes –
Staves 3, 4, and 5
The story of A Christmas Carol is woven
into our culture and memories. Yet, prior
to its publication in 1843, Christmas had
become a solemn holiday, closer to Good Friday than to the Christmas we now celebrate
today. Scrooge embodies what would have been the popular/normal attitude toward the
day. A Christmas Carol helped to revive the joyful yuletide celebration.
The Third chapter opens by describing the Ghost of Christmas present as “It was clothed
in one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so
loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or
concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment,
were also bare; and on its head it worn no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and
there with shining icicles. Its dark-brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face,
its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its
joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and
the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. How is the present moment larger than life
and bigger/generous/generative than we can fully take in?
The scene opens with Scrooge seeing abundance. First is a feast before the Ghost of
Christmas present consisting of holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch. Second is
out in the street where the sights, smells, and sounds of the season fill the gloomy, half
thawed, half frozen air with cheerfulness that the clearest summer air and brightest
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. Third is the feast at Bob
Cratchit’s house. Finally is the festivities of fun and food at his nephew’s home. Yet at
the end the Ghost brings for two children who are pinched and twisted. The Ghosts says,
“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.” How do we live in a time where
abundance and want mix and mingle together? How do you find ways to live
faithfully, creatively, hopefully, and peacefully into that truth?
At the end of the third stave, the final Ghost appears. Scrooge “beheld a solemn
Phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground toward him.” This
ghost does not speak but simply transports Scrooge to various places. Scrooge says,
“Ghost of the Future! 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 your company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to
me.” What do you make of the Ghost not talking, but point? Is Dickens’ perhaps
trying to suggest that the shadows of the future are still unfolding, not set in stone?
This is the question Scrooge himself asks, “Answer me one question. Are these the
shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be only”
Once Scrooge comes faces-to-face with his own mortality, he says, “Hear me! I am not
the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why
show me this, if I am past all hope?” Is Dickens’ perhaps suggesting that none of us
are ever past all hope?
Scrooge wakes up in his own room and declares, “I will live in the Past, the Present, and
the Future! The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.” The theologian Peter Rollins
speaks about Holy Ghosts in our lives, “What you repress by day will haunt you by night.
The issues (ghosts) in our lives that we often like to keep at bay. We pray and sing songs
of praise to silence the ghosts and pretend they are gone… but until we engage them
honestly they will continue to haunt!” How can we engage and encounter the Holy
Ghosts in our lives?
Dickens brings in much joy in the final chapter. As Scrooge is getting ready, “Shaving
was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires
attention, even when you don’t dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his
nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied.”
He goes out in the world looking, “irresistibly pleasant”. Scrooge sees the world in a new
way. How does Christmas help you see the world in a new way? In what ways can
you let that new insight continue to guide your life in the coming days and year?
Finally, “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good
old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some
people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them;
for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at
which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such
as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up
their eyes in grins and have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed,
and that was quite enough for him.” What insight does this ending awaken in you?
How might this truth stir in your heart and speak to your faith?
Prayer Practice:
Take your favorite Christmas Carol and listen to it three times. First, enjoy the beauty of
the Carol and remember why you like it so much. Is there a memory from the past it
awakens? Second, listen carefully, prayerfully, and attentively to the words. Do you
hear something new in the present moment as you listen? As you listen a third time, let it
wash over you, holding onto nothing, but letting the music and words work on your soul
for the living out of these days.
