After the 2025 Dickens Universe, I shared a photo of my Dickens Universe “altar” with some friends. (I am a Disney historian, so it was not surprising that Pluto managed to appear in the scene.) Encouraged by their responses, I also sent a photo of one of my bookcases that is comprised of many copies of A Christmas Carol—varied texts of the Carol, books about it, and adaptations, prequels, and sequels. My connection to and love of this book is what I would like to share.
As you can see, A Dennis the Menace comic book graces the bookcase. That comic and the Charles Dickens cards from an Authors game (visible in the “altar” photo) are my earliest introductions to the book and the author.
Even before I read the prose text of A Christmas Carol in the 1957 comic book, thanks to the Authors game, I knew the titles of four books by Dickens: David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, and A Christmas Carol. But when I read the Carol in that comic book in my bedroom in San Bruno, California, little did I know that that story would become so important to me. I was only 8 years old at the time, but I am pretty sure I went to our library soon after and checked out a longer version of it to read. (Somewhere about this time, I also acquired a 3-disk View-Master version of the story, and that probably sealed the deal!) Ten years later, I started reading A Christmas Carol every holiday season, and I have read it ever since.
A Christmas Carol is my favorite Dickens book, and every year the redemptive story of Scrooge moves me and makes me hopeful that with each reading I am becoming more like Scrooge in Stave V than Scrooge in Stave 1. (My family would probably say that I still have a ways to go.) But I do become more like Stave V-Scrooge during the Christmas season. I usually buy most of the presents, put up or out most of the Christmas decorations, and revel in the hope of the season. After reading Tidings by William Wharton, I adopted a practice of the father in the story, and I began writing a letter to each of my daughters that Santa would put in their Christmas stockings. I have done so every year since 1995. They are now, of course, beyond believing, but it is my chance to review the year with them—happy some years, not so happy others—and to write a love letter to them. This little book by Charles Dickens has had a profound and lasting effect on my life, and I am so grateful that he wrote it.
