One of the most popular and heart-warming stories ever told is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This story describes the lonely and mis-lived life of Ebenezer Scrooge. (1)
The story opens on a bleak, cold Christmas Eve in London, seven years after the death of Scrooge‘s business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge, an ageing miser, dislikes Christmas and refuses a dinner invitation from his nephew Fred. He also turns away two men who seek a donation from him to provide food and heating for the poor . . . and only grudgingly allows his overworked, underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit, Christmas Day off with pay.
That night Scrooge is visited at home by Marley’s ghost, who wanders the Earth weighted down by heavy chains and money boxes forged during a lifetime of greed and selfishness. Marley tells…