In my latest CatholicMatch essay, I talk about love and A Christmas Carol:

Coming from the master of the caricature himself, Charles Dickens, the story takes one of Dickens’s typical villains—a loveless, greedy old man—and casts him as the protagonist, while Dickens’s typical heroes—the honest, cheerful young gentleman and the hardworking family man—are relegated to supporting roles. The story then proceeds to invite the audience to sympathize with Scrooge; to ask what made him what he is now and what fate he has to look forward to.

What emerges from the ministrations of the three ghosts, especially the Ghost of Christmas Past, is that what Scrooge truly despises is less Christmas itself than love. Crushed in early life by the double blow of a sister who died young and a romance that failed through his own over-caution, Scrooge has become convinced that love is a lie: whatever people say, sooner or later they will all abandon you in the end. Hence his response to anyone wishing him a Merry Christmas: ‘humbug,’ meaning a trick or pose.

Scrooge sees love in general, and Christmas in particular, as a cheat: an attempt to bilk him by people who, whatever they profess, are really just as selfish as he is. When his nephew informs him that he got married because he fell in love, Scrooge considers that to be the only thing in the world more ridiculous than a Merry Christmas.

Read the rest here