Three Cheers for Ebenezer Scrooge

Ex-Usurer turns over new leaf as Do-Gooder Party Animal

Cockle-warming parody of a Christmas Carol

Oh, hello there!



Quiet, everyone! You'll never guess who just walked in the door. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim! Now the party can REALLY begin.



Bob, here let me take that coat of yours.



Oh, dear, how is THIS for a humble garment? It's straight out of "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol. No, this won't do at all. Fortunately, I have it on good authority that Father Christmas was shopping at Neiman Marcus this season, Bob -- in the coat aisle, no less!




Which reminds me, gang: I've got gifts for everyone after dinner -- ahem! or rather Santa Claus does!



That's right: I fancy he's even got something for Tiny Tim here, too. What up, Tiny Tim! Tiny's my main man! high-five there, Tiny Tim! Who da man? Tiny TIM da man! Whoo-hoo!




Listen, Tiny, are you still into the Harry Potter scene? I hope so, because Santa Claus tells me he's bought a complete set of those works for someone who is very special, indeed! (Now who could THAT be???)



But first -- Quiet, everyone, please! Quiet! That's it.



First, I'd like to welcome you all once again to my humble abode and to apologize once again for being such a tightwad during the last few decades of my life.

Various guests: No! Awww! Come, now! Don't be so hard on yourself!

No, it's true, I've been a real skinflint toward all of you, I'm afraid, but those three ghosts that I saw last night have really set me straight.

Various guests: Hear, hear! Yes! That's what I'm talkin' about now! Three cheers for good old Scrooge: Hip-hip: Hooray! Hip-hip: Hooray! Hip-hip: Hooray!

Quiet, please! Quiet!



And in order to make amends, I want you all to sit down with me now at this almost improbably long table here beside the correspondingly huge and blazing hearth and have Christmas Dinner with yours truly, your old nemesis, Ebenezer!

Guests, chanting: Ebenezer! Ebenezer! Ebenezer! Ebenezer!

Oh, now you guys really are embarrassing me!



That's it, take a seat. I've hired the best catering staff in London to wait on us hand and foot while we dine, so don't be shy about asking for second helpings of turkey and refills on your beverages of choice, yes? (That's chocolate moo cow, for you, Tiny Tim! Aye, ya rogue: I saw you wistfully eying that bowl of almost irresponsibly spiked punch. Do you have the least conception of how much raspberry vodka is in that concoction? Why, it would knock you right off of your crutches!) And please don't stint on the olives and sweet pickles: There are plenty more where those came from, I assure you.



Yo, Bob, Tiny: You sit with me at the head of the table, on account of I've probably been the meanest of all to you two poor saps in the recent past, so by rights you should receive the lion's share of my penitential bounty. (Ha ha! Look at Tiny Tim screwing his eyebrows up like that: He's like "What in the world is a 'penitential bounty'? Never mind, Tim: It just means that you and Bob are my guests of honor today, that's all.)



I'm like, Yo, Tim: Which part of 'penitential bounty' do you not understand!? And Tim's like: BOTH PARTS, dude!



Incidentally, if you're wondering what those envelopes are on your dinner plates, they contain official notification of the forgiveness and cancellation of all your debts with the personal loan division of Scrooge Incorporated.

Guests gasp.

Now, it was the least I could do. I've been driving you guys into the ground with my high interest rates for years now and I've finally decided to "make it right." Now, now, I insist!



Of course, if you guys know anything about the worlds of business and financing, you'll probably think that I'm crazy to do this, or that I should have at least contented myself with merely slashing your interest rates, rather than writing off what must be thousands of dollars in my principal portfolio. But then YOU weren't visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come last night like I was! I tell you, when that bony bugaboo jabbed his crooked finger at that grave with my name on it, I thought I was going to die! (indeed, I thought I was already dead!)



Now then, is everybody at their place?



Just look for your name tag beside your own place setting. If you need help reading it, just ask a literate neighbor. Nobody will make fun of you. Who could afford school these days with the interest rates that I've been charging you. Hey, ecce homo, gang, yes? For, as Oliver says in "As You Like It": "I do not shame To tell you what I was, since my conversion So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am."



Hey, Tiny, what are you doing?



Would you look at that, everybody: Tiny Tim is already going to work on a turkey leg -- and one that's twice the size of his head, too, by the looks of it.



Aw, never mind, Bob, old fellow: Go easy on the boy: It's Christmas after all!



In fact, we adults can all follow Tim's voracious lead in a moment, right after we all stand for my traditional Christmas toast. (That's it, gang, stand: I'm not rapping my knife against my glass like this merely for my health, you know!)



Not that the proposal of a Christmas toast has ever been a traditional activity for the erstwhile stingy likes of ME, of course (no, not even in a whole month of Sundays!) -- but certainly a "toast cum toast" is traditional at the commencement of such a festive repast.



But I'm afraid I've lost you (as Little Bo Peep muttered to herself after presiding over the most disappointing roll call of her entire shepherding career).



Look, I'm not exactly a public speaker.

Guests: Oh, you're too modest! Come, now!

I just wanted to observe that... ...

Guests: Ebenezer! Ebenezer! Ebenezer! Ebenezer!

No, quiet, please, thank you. I'm... I'm overcome with emotion as I stand here and look out on all your sooty faces... It's so inspiring to see you all smiling back at me like this, notwithstanding your lives of... well, I suppose you'd have to call it "abject poverty." . And then to look down here to my right and to see dear Tiny Tim making such "quick work" of his turkey leg, it's just... it's all too much!

Guests: Ebenezer! Ebenezer! Ebenezer! Ebenezer! (And then) Shh! Shh! He's about to speak again! Shhhhh!

You know, my ex-partner, Jacob Marley, used to have a phrase that he'd always employ whenever he heard someone talk like I'm talking now. I've used it a lot myself. It's...

Guests: BAH, HUMBUG! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Touche, gang. Touche. You know me like the back of my account ledger. But then look where such a life got Jacob. Do you know that he's now condemned to walk the earth for eternity inside, as it were, the metaphysical prison of his own greed?! How awful is THAT?!

Guests gasp

So I for one have decided to straighten up and fly right for the rest of my so-far wasted life. So there! So definitively THERE!

Guests applaud, ladies openly weeping, men surreptitiously sniffling

And so thank you all for coming out and, again, my apologies for having driven you, no doubt, to the brink of exasperation (if not the brink of suicide and other tragic crimes: my goodness!) with my outrageous interest charges of days gone by. Honestly, I don't know what I could have been thinking back then. Just remember: All of your debts with me are now cancelled, and, in fact, I won't even hear of you trying to give me a token payment for them, no, not so much as 10 cents on the dollar. Your money's no longer good here: end of story. (Honestly, haven't I made your lives hard enough already?! HA HA! Ahem!)

Guests: Scrooge! Scrooge! Scrooge! Scrooge!

That's my name: Don't wear it out.



No, seriously: I see we're all getting tired of standing, so Reverend Scribbins, if you would ask the blessing, please, sir.



Scribbins: O God, thank you for sending those ghosts to our new friend Scrooge here so that he would see the error of his ways. And help us all to emulate his --







Scribbins: (But, dearest, I worked on this blessing all last night! Oh, very well then...) Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the Grub! Amen!

Guests laugh

Ooh, and wait! Wait! Before we all sit down and start eating, I think that Tiny Tim has some spontaneous exclamation that he'd like to pronounce. Call it a hunch. Tim?



(That's it, child: put the turkey leg down on your plate and stand up -- don't be shy. Now face your friends up and down the table here and tell them what you probably wanted to say.)



Tim: Oh, yeah. Ahem. God bless Mama, and God bless Papa, and God bless Aunt Aggie, and God bless Cousin Stacy --



Uh, that's nice, Tiny, but you know what, the dinner's getting cold now. Maybe you could speed things up a bit?



Tim: Oh, very well: GOD BLESS US, EVERY ONE!

GUESTS CHEERING

That's what I'm talkin' about now! Tiny Tim, ladies and gentlemen!



I can't wait to see him check his stocking after dinner!



Who knows, Tim? Maybe Santa put enough cash in there to pay for an operation that will get you off of those wretched crutches at long last! Would you like that? (Look at him: he's so busy with that comparatively enormous turkey leg that he doesn't even hear me, do ya lad?! Ha ha!)



Now dig in, everybody! Whoo-hoo! Remember, dishes move around the table in a clockwise direction.



Speaking of which, could you pass me the potatoes, Bob? (Now, if I could only find the olives and pickles...) Merry Christmas, everyone! Merry Christmas, indeed! (Oh, I am famished!)

Stop!
Before you go: Have you...



1. Seen my Site Glossary
2. Seen my goofy picture page?
3. Seen my Pop-Ed Pieces?
4. Read my Big Ideas?
5. Read my Pet Peeves?
6. Listened to my Music?
7. Seen my brand-new words?
8. Bought my specially selected Amazon gifts?
9. Bought my personally designed gifts?
10. Bought my Carbon Cap?
11. Read my Outrageous Times newspaper?
12. Read my latest article entitled The Tragedy of King Queere?

Check out what the author is up to on the Social Web:
aNobii (his book reviews)
AimeStreet (his music)