George, Ebeneezer and Me

An Unlikely Trio

This is my favorite time of year, Christmas. As far back as I can recall, I have loved it. Was it the lights? The snow? The music and all the trappings? Family get-togethers? It took a long time for me to realize and understand what I love about Christmas and the whole season, really.

Of course, the backstory.

Can it be the Christmas season without watching a favorite holiday movie? Two of my all-time, absolute favorite movies are “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Carol.”

I prefer the black and white version of the James Stewart and Donna Reed classic. The colorized version isn’t a bother, maybe I’m just a purist with this one. Ironically, I prefer the Jim Carrey Disney animated version of the Charles Dickens classic. Definitely, not a purist there.

The two movies seem to have a similar underlying theme, which is: one can change when one encounters a true spiritual experience.

Spoiler alerts are coming if you haven’t seen these ancient movies. There, you’ve been warned.

George Bailey, after a misplaced bundle of money goes missing, finds himself in the depths of despair. Standing on the bridge outside of Bedford Falls, he considers ending his life to cash in on his life insurance plan. Alas, an un-winged angel, Clarence Oddbody, steps in to give him a glimpse of the world without his ever existing. What a different world it was? Henry Potter was the most powerful man in Pottersville. All of George’s friends were worse off. There was no wife, no kids, his own mother didn’t know him in this new reality. The houses he helped to build for the poorer townspeople did not exist. Crime seemed to abound. The little quaint town had been left to Potter and it was no Bedford Falls at all.

This glimpse into a world with no George Bailey was eye-opening for our main character. He suddenly realized that he had indeed been living a wonderful life. Problems, sure. But by his existence and his willingness and openess to help his fellow man, he had indeed made the world a better place. In one of the last scenes of the film, George is standing on the very same bridge that he had once considered jumping from in order to end his life, he now begged, “I want to live, God, I want to live.” A beautiful moment.

It’s right here that I like to pause. Nothing in George’s exernal world had changed. He was still running from an arrest warrant, running from an investigation and possible imprisonment. He was still financially ruined. He had still scared his children and his wife. Nothing had changed externally. But on the inside, in his mind, in his heart, in his very soul, everything had changed. He had, through a true spiritual experience, been changed for the better. He had found the meaning and the purpose of his life.

We know how the movie ends after his awakening. He runs home to his children and his wife and finds the press, an arrest warrant and the bank examiner waiting on him. In his home! Without a care, he runs by them, hugs the kids, Mary walks in, he embraces her. She can hardly contain her excitement. Then the others show up. All the people he had impacted and helped, showed up for him. The missing money was more than recouped. The arrest warrant was ripped in half. The press caught a celebration not an arrest. The film ends with all singing “Auld Lang Syne” and George smiling from ear-to-ear, a changed man.

Ebeneezer Scrooge is and entirely different animal altogether. But the theme of change is still here. A miserly, old, hateful man with no friends finds himself taken on a journey he doesn’t want in an attempt to save him. Maybe the only friend he had late in life was his business partner, Jacob Marley, who returns in the form of a spirit to warn Ebeneezer about his heartless ways. As we know, he is visited by three spirits that take him to his past, his present and then his future. What a journey he took?

The past showed him the hurt he had endured. Some by the choices of others and some by his own doing. Heartbreak, nonetheless. He then passed along that pain to others, his fiance, his nephew, his very own clerk, Bob Cratchit, the poor and the destitute of his own hometown. Eventually ending with a glimpse of his own death and the lack of care by anyone, actual gladness by some. It is at this moment, that he encounters the reality that he can change, that he must change.

And what a change he makes! Generously donating money to others. Having dinner with his estranged nephew. Giving a generous raise to his clerk, Bob Cratchit, to assist with Tiny Tim’s medical needs. The story ends with Scrooge being called generous and caring, a finer man London had not seen. A far cry from the man we were introduced to in the beginning of the film.

Nothing in Ebeneezer Scrooge’s external world had changed. He was still known as mean, ruthless and cold. Everything internally had changed. His heart had opened, his mindset had shifted. Nothing would be the same for him ever again.

What do these films have to do with me or anything else for that matter? I had long admired the changes both George and Ebeneezer underwent. I wondered if I could ever change to be a better man. I longed to have a true spiritual encounter as real and enduring. Well, it found me. That’s the journey that I am on now. I met my version of Clarence Oddbody and the Spirits of Christmas. This very writing is a part of that continuing trek.

I was struck by a quote from Jacob Marley. When Scrooge was emploring Him that he had been a good man of business. Jacob retorted with; “Business! Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forebearance and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” As I read this, it is telling me to be far more concerned with humanity, compassion, kindness than anything else in life. This is my true work. That is what I endeavor to accomplish with my remaining days.

To answer my inital question above, “What is it that I love so much about Christmas?” To quote Scrooge’s nephew Fred, “I have always thought of Christmas time……. 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 think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on their journeys. …….. though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

To me, Christmas is a time for recentering, refocusing on the most important aspects of life, just as George and Ebeneezer discovered.

If you’ve read this far, please allow me to say thank you, Merry Christmas and I love you dearly. May your 2026 be full of blessings!!