Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: I’ve read it countless times. A week or two after the calendar flips to the last page, I get the urge. This started when I moved to Gettysburg in 2005. I found it on display at the end of a library shelf—a staff recommendation. Such a tiny book, it seemed lonely, forlorn, lost with so much empty space beside it. That first year, it felt like a rescue. I brought the book home and gave it some well-deserved attention. The next year, too. It became a habit, a tradition—year after year. But no more, last December I got my own copy.

I put it on my Christmas list. “Before you buy it, check to see if it has a decent font.” This request surprised no one. Typical Jeff, something unique to obsess over. I hate reading books with nonstandard fonts. When browsing the library shelves for a book to read, the first thing I do is check the font. My wife bought two copies, the best interiors she could find, giving me the option to trade out if one of them bugged me.

Have you read it? I know you’ve seen the movie. There must be a dozen versions. In my memory, I like the musical version Scrooge the best. But to be honest, I doubt I’ve seen it since 1974, so maybe it’s terrible. The book, though, the book is always great.

While I love the whole book, the first and last staves—that’s the term used for the five chapters in the book—the first and last staves really shine. I had to look that up. The word ‘stave’ means a verse or stanza of a poem or song. While A Christmas Carol isn’t a song, its title calls it ‘a carol.’ Dickens stuck with the theme.

Those two staves, “Marley’s Ghost” and “The End of It” bookend a wonderful story. Reading the book reminds me of a fine summer day. A stunning sunrise, a jaw-dropping sunset with plenty of happy sunshine in between. If I have a complaint, it’s that the book hits its high note in the very first stave. When Ebenezer Scrooge compliments Jacob Marley’s ghost (his long-dead business partner) on his business acumen, the ghost rants:

“Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business!”

Every time I read this line, I set down the book and let out a happy sigh. But with these sentences, Dickens has already succinctly declared the whole point of the story.

Now that Christmas is right around the corner, I’ve cleared my plate. I just finished up a book of essays by David Sedaris, and I’m ready to settle down for my annual reading of A Christmas Carol. For the first time, it’s my own copy rather than a library copy, which means there is one more book available at the library for you to check out. If you’ve never read it, or if it’s been a few years, I encourage you to give it a go. It’s a short book, so it won’t take much of your time, and nothing does a better job of putting me in the Christmas spirit than this story.

For another Christmas treat compliments of the Adams County Library System, be sure to watch Martina Mathisen tell the origin stories of many of our Christmas traditions and icons in her presentation ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas: American Christmas Traditions.

Jeff Cann is Finance Director of the Adams County Library System.