A Christmas Tradition

I love the work of Dickens to start with. Open any of his books and the moment you begin reading, you find yourself enthralled in wit, humor, and real-life insights penned so masterfully that it's addictively intruiging.

That said, I now admit to you my Christmas tradition: Every year, I read A Chistmas Carol. The story has become an immortal classic, and has probably been overly cinematized to the extreme (I mean, we've seen Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy as the Kratchits ...). But I submit that you've never really experienced this tale until you feast on the words as Dickens laid them down. Even the first page was enough to grab and rivet me.

The first year I began this tradition, I started reading in the late evening, and continued on into the early morning until I had finished the entire story. Most every year since, I've taken time to enjoy it a chapter at a time throughout the Christmas Season.

I love this tradition. You won't fully know why unless you've read this story. Dickens was able to create an example of hope -hope wrought by repentance. Repentance is brought about through the love of Christ, whose birth we honor at Christmas. I always feel inspired to be a better person after having read A Christmas Carol. I'm reminded that Christ came into the world to save all who would come unto Him. No one is so awful that they can't change -there is hope as long as we're still alive. It may take a very frightening wake-up call to prompt the change, but nobody is so far off-course that Christ is powerless to bring them right again.

So add to all the wonderful joys of Christmas a hope for mankind to change. I do it every year, thanks to Mr. Dickens.
~Steven