Don't call genuine haters of the festive season 'Scrooges' unless you want a mince pie in the eye - to us, he is the greatest traitor of them all, writes Michael Parsons
What the dickens is going on? The name Scrooge, one of the most enduring characters in fiction, continues to be inappropriately invoked to harass people who don't enjoy the insane excesses of the "festive season". A Cork Socialist Party councillor recently accused some local businesses of a "Scrooge-like" mentality for not coughing up enough for the city's annual Christmas lights.
You'd have thought the grim apparatchiks of the comradeship would be totally opposed to such glittering symbols of capitalism. But there's no escape from the Stalinesque tyranny of "the Christmas".
And the S-word will be invoked frequently and erroneously in coming days and weeks to intimidate citizens who deplore the horror of "decorations" appearing in the shops in September, trips to Lapland being advertised in October, and lights going on all over the country by early November. Complain about Jingle Bells or - horror of horrors - Ding Dong Merrily on High being played over and over on the public address system of the supermarket (an offence that ought to warrant a mandatory 10-year jail sentence for the shopkeeper) and you get dirty looks and are told "don't be such an oul' Scrooge". Express disapproval that the office Christmas party (complete with "a fun 1970s night" theme) is being arranged for the first weekend of December "because everything is booked out" on later dates and, yep, you're "a Scrooge". Refuse to wear a silly paper hat or a tie that lights up and plays Silent Night, or fail to laugh convulsively on the night itself when Jenny from the IT department breaks the glass on the new Xerox while trying to photocopy her bum, and you're labelled, what else, "a Scrooge".
Do you retch at the prospect of another nauseating mince pie at elevenses? Dread the invite to the neighbour's glühwein evening? Are you sick to the teeth of having to ask obese nippers "what's Santy bringing you"? (A treadmill would be useful.) Do you yawn while smug people tell you about their plans to give beehives and goats to Aids-stricken villagers in Tanzania? Express regret that "it seems to start earlier every year"? Refuse to agree to the request from next door to erect a "life-size" neon sleigh on your shared roof? If you do, behind your back people will whisper "Yer man is a terrible Scrooge".
But stop! Scrooge was a traitor. One of the greatest turncoats in cultural history. While he may have begun his fictitious life as the epitome of common sense and a champion for all those who loathe the grotesque, synthetic bonhomie of Yuletide - the old codger was later fatally infected by that poisonous virus, the "spirit of Christmas".
By the end of the novel A Christmas Carol he had become an amalgam of Bill Clinton, Princess Diana and Bertie Ahern - wanting to hug Tiny Tim, give Bob Cratchit a whopping big salary increase and provide a plump turkey for lunch. But, of course, not a lot of people know that. Oh no. Because who ploughs through Victorian novels in 2007? Not with bookshops full of "novels" by Kerry Katona and Jordan, and the wittering, ghost-written autobiographies of persons utterly lacking in distinction - also known as "celebrities".
Mention Little Nell these days and people think you're talking about a journalist from Derry; talk about Hard Times and they think you're referring to the 1980s.
At the beginning of Charles Dickens's hideously saccharine novel, Scrooge is a wonderfully admirable character and an absolute fountain of common sense. Apart from his delightful use of the expression "Bah! Humbug!", he describes Christmas thus in the opening chapter: "What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," says Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
Bravo! Or "wicked" to use the vernacular. Scrooge is the great ally of all who detest the horrors of Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland or Cliff Richard singing Mistletoe and Wine. But as every schoolchild once discovered, Scrooge changed utterly following his encounters with the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come.
And yes, you guessed it, it's all downhill from there. Because Dickens was basically a Hollywood scriptwriter ahead of his time - the book turns into what some deluded critics call "a novel of redemption".
No it's not. It is sickening and revolting. Is there an ending to a book in all of literature more ghastly than the final words uttered by that appalling little runt Tiny Tim, who squeaks "God bless us, every one!"? The last chapter sees a transformed Scrooge buying a "prize Turkey" [ which is what the novel has turned into by now] "twice the size of Tiny Tim" to feed Bob Cratchit's family.
"'A merry Christmas, Bob!' said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back.'" Yeuggghhhh. But despite that, Scrooge continues to be considered the personification of the anti-festive sentiment expressed by grumpy old men and cantankerous biddies. If you fall into either category then the next time someone calls you Scrooge, put them right by explaining that he let us down very badly.
The inconvenient truth is that if you want a real "anti-Christmas" hero then the figure to admire is Oliver Cromwell, who actually tried to actually abolish the festival, lock, stock and smoking cracker. Oops.
So perhaps the safest policy is to keep shtum, grin and bear it and join in the singalong to Wizard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day.
It pretty much is now anyway. Bah! Humbug!
