Scroogefest 2019: A Christmas that is Actionable

Photo by Jeswin Thomas from Pexels

I feel like I learn something new from Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol each year. No matter which version I watch (and there are plenty — check them out here:); it is the perfect story to get me into the Christmas season.  The story helps me to reflect on my own attitude towards Christmas and my actions as Scrooge is challenged to do. 

My wife doesn’t participate in my ‘Scroogefest’.   My boy usually loses interest after the first Spirit appears if he’s not terrified by it. But, my daughter hangs in for a few versions of the story.  

Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, gives a short monologue on importance of Christmas and charity at the beginning of the story. It stood out to me this year. 

The different movies leave a few important lines out. You can read the full text below.

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come around —apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that— as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creature bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” (Dickens, A Christmas Carol, pp. 3-4).  

I was impacted more by Fred’s speech than in years gone by. Maybe it is because of the poor in plain sight where we live currently. Or because of recent wrestling with James’ explicit instruction about what I call the ‘Actionable Faith — described by him as visiting widows and orphans among other things (James 1:27). 

This reminded me that poverty was the backdrop against which Christ was sent into this world. Afterall He was born in a manger (Luke 2); not to mention became a refugee shortly after.  

So what? 

Well, James reminds us that faith without works is dead (James 2).

So I’m thinking this December about what is Christmas without works? What is an “Actionable Christmas”; one that gives rise to actions expressing the love of Christ.  

While thinking this through, though it was written to protest war, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Happy Christmas (War is Over) came to mind: 

“So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun”  What have I done this year? What have we done this year? 

An actionable faith and actionable Christmas means we ask the questions: 

What can we do for the injustice we see, that we know about, that is within our reach; the inequity that we experience?  What can we do that will be fuelled by love and empowered by the Holy Spirit? 

We will have lived an actionable joy-filled Christmas when we have given more than we received. It is Christmas that is generosity that mirrors God’s giving of His Son to us.  

At the end of Disney’s A Christmas Carol Andrea Bocelli closes out the movie with “God Bless Us Everyone”. The genre is not my favourite, but the message is essential. 

He sings these words: 

Come to gather one and all in the giving Spirit

Later: 

To the voices, no one hears we have come to find you 

And then: 

One candles light dispels the night

Burning brighter than the sun.  

God Bless us, everyone.  

The actions each of us can take to help others at this time of the year are like the candle Bocelli sings about.  Regardless of whether we are giving time to help the impoverished, those we do life with, or others with whom we disagree.  Still, our helpful and kind actions are like the light of a single candle.   It has the power to dispel the night and the darkness, but that requires proximity. Closeness. Coming nearby. Sometimes proximity is built through mutual respect even when we disagree vehemently.  

In her 2018 Christmas address HM Queen Elizabeth II said: 

“Even with the most deeply held differences, treating the other person with respect and as a fellow human being is always a good first step towards greater understanding.”

 So cross the bridge of proximity to find mutual respect with those around you and as you begin to ponder how Christmas can be actionable this year, look for some ways large or small to help those in need.  Even if you share nothing in common, as Fred pointed it out, we are indeed all on the same journey together.