Merry Christmas - Unending Sappiness Post!

Guilty, guilty as charged - I'm a Christmas sap! It has to be the best time of the year (sap, level 1). Having completed our annual family Christmas Eve dinner, I'm filled with the joy that can only come from my family, including my niece and two nephews opening their presents on the night before Christmas. Is there anything better than a experiencing Christmas with children? I'd travel miles and miles to see their smiling faces (sap, level 2). My family shares my Christmas sap! Decorations abound, and so does the wine, food and cheer (sap, level 3)! After a good breakfast, we digest by watching movies , and this year it was the Muppet's Christmas Carol (sap, level 4). I love the modern classics like National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story, but Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, is hands down my favorite! And not just because of the sappiness factor. This year it was the Muppet's Christmas Carol.

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, during the peak of London's capitalistic industrial age on December 1843. It was initially seen as a critique of the work-at-all-costs capitalists. However, the novella was also a collection of Victorian-era stories. One cannot overlook Dickens' personal experience, in relation to A Christmas Carol... His father was imprisoned for a three-month term, which forced the young Dickens to sell his books and take a job as a factory worker where he was called - the young gentleman. It was a humiliating experience for Dickens, but during this time he experienced the compete spectrum of London's most impoverished citizens. There is no question, parts of the story center on the plight of the poor, and the serious struggles they faced by the hands of employers demonstrated by Scrooge (don't ignore the father-son connection here either). 

To me, as I reflect on this year, I can't help but think about A Christmas Carol and the greater story it represents. Have I given as much as I should in charity? Have I lived the best life I could have lived this year? Do I show as much gratitude for my friends and loved ones? One can't help but think back to wonder "what could have been" and if you know me well, you know what I'm referring too. But A Christmas Carol is more than a story about memories, it is about change and redemption. This to me is the power of A Christmas Carol. Deep within even the darkest of souls exists the ability to learn, adapt and change. The story is more about faith in the human spirit, which moves us all to great accomplishment, giving and love. Thank you Christmas for the memories and lessons (sap, level 5)