A Simple Christmas Story, Live it and Write it.

A Simple Christmas Story

During this time of the year, you undoubtedly will gather around the television to watch some rendition of “The Christmas Carol.” I was going to check out how many different movie/video/television adaptations came from the book, but when I hit ten-plus titles, I decided to stop. Ebeneezer Scrooge’s transformation from a miserly, pain-filled man to one of compassion after his adventures with the three spirits is an overwhelming gift placed within a simple Christmas story. Did you know a very early edition of this novella was only 76 pages?

This is our copy of “A Christmas Carol.”

Charles Dickens takes you to a deeper story.

I would suggest taking one or two Sunday afternoons or evenings with popcorn and cocoa, and reading this gem. The originally written story takes one deeper, with nothing added. You are able to use your own imagination while discovering the true story behind Mr. Dickens’ words. 

Our family is reading aloud of Mr. Scrooge’s travels through Christmas past, present and future. As we came through the story with the Cratchit family, Mr. Dickens took this time to write two entwined facts to draw his reader in. The description of the Cratchits first clearly creates a home where only the barest of needs are met. Mr. Dickens was stating the reality of conditions few wanted to be aware of. As the simple Christmas story of the Cratchits develops, though, the author desires no pity. In showing the wealth of their love for each other, instead, readers might indeed become envious.

This is a Simple Christmas Story. 

“They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty, and Peter might have known and very likely did the inside of a pawnbroker’s. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another and contented with the time;”
(Charles Dickens XVI Christmas Books, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, P.F. Collier and Son, NY, 1911, p.47)

As creatives, we have the opportunity to experience a bottomless wealth of  life and share it with others. Mr. Dickens wrote how the Cractchit family was totally engrossed in love. They sang around a small fire in the hearth. Their gift exchange consisted of fruit and roasted nuts. The simple Christmas story was a feast enjoyed on that day because of love felt for each other. 

Cratchit Simple Christmas Story with Love

A Different Simple Christmas Story.  

Creatives, Artists and Friends, the original simple Christmas story was totally different than anyone expected. Jesus, the Savior and King, came as a baby, which began a transformation for all humanity. From that moment on, a restoration to become reconnected with God had begun. 

This year, the pandemic has brought a different view of Christmas. Where large family gatherings and big feasts with large stacks of presents were once the norm, now the result is a different lens for many.    

The tree may be small and the gifts are few. I am sad my daughter, Anna, is not with us this year, but will I respond as a SCROOGE and say “BAH-HUMBUG”?

🙂 NO!

Both the story of “The Christmas Carol” and the first Christmas story show simplicity, but they are stories which were lived out in love. Feel the simple story in your own heart. Live it and share it in the same spirit. I ask you, my friends, how can you take the simple gifts which already surround you and engage in your own simple Christmas story? Take God’s hand and you will:

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Three years ago I wrote a simple Christmas story about the contrast between the wonder of the Magi’s gifts and the wonder of a simple drummer’s gift. https://sandiaackerman.com/this-little-gift/