In Search of Christmas Spirit(s)

Yesterday was about as nice a day outside as we could expect here in Nebraska on Nov. 30th. It sure didn't feel like the Christmas season was up and running yet, in spite of having just celebrated Thanksgiving and  survived Black Friday. Something is missing. I feel like Charlie Brown searching for the true meaning of Christmas and bemoaning the over the  commercialization of the season. I just didn't have the Christmas spirit yet.

But there's hope. You see, for me, the Christmas spirit season begins in earnest when we go to see old cantankerous Ebenezer Scrooge go from grouchy to joyful in "The Christmas Carol" at the Omaha Community Playhouse.  It's just not Christmas if I don't get to get my dose of old Ebenezer Scrooge and witness him being visited by the 3 Christmas spirits. And while this will be the 10th year in a row Georgette and I have attended this production, a tradition we started when we moved here In 2003, my love of the Charles Dickens classic began many years prior.

As a young boy, I remember lying in the living room floor and looking up at the ceiling while Mom read the story to us it's original version, using  all of my imagination to conjure up an image of the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. 

And then there was the 9th grade musical at my junior high where I was cast as none other than Ebenezer himself, in a play called "Mr. Scrooge". 

I know what some of you are thinking- that I was typecast. Hold that thought.

One of the songs I sang was titled, "Christmas is a Nasty, Noisy Nightmare".  A quick Internet search today uncovered a partial copy of the play book where I found the lyrics to that song I sang back in 1967. It comes early in the play when nephew Fred comes calling on Scrooge in his counting house to wish him a merry Christmas.

"Christmas is a nasty, noisy nightmare,

With forth the carol singers leading the abuse!

And those ruddy Christmas bells,

That sound as though all hells breaking loose, 

Oh, Christmas is enough to cook your goose!"

"Oh, the gluttonous gorging of turkey,

And pudding and candy cane,

And you wonder why next morning, 

you wake up with excruciating pain, fools!"

"Christmas is a universal madness,

Every citizen of London goes insane,

Even starchy plutocrats, put on silly hats,

And the cockney finds a taste for champagne."

Fortunately or unfortunately, there aren't pictures or recordings of the production, but I do have the program shown here above. I found a photo of another production I was in where I was cast as a grouchy mean guy who terrorized women and taunted young children-from the musical "Oliver" where I played Bill Sykes in 1984.  

What was that about typecasting? Never mind.

Me, in the red coat, As Bill Sykes in "Oliver"

Going to see " the Christmas Carol" has become one of my holiday rituals along with playing the Living Strings album and watching the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. I will probably listen to an audio book rendition of the Dickens classic and maybe read the book in its entirety. 

There is a lot about this story that has made it one of my all-time favorites.  I love the idea of second chances-to rebuild your life or to begin anew. I've certainly been given a chance to live a second life, one with more clarity and purpose the one I was living 23 years ago.  Dickens touches on aspects of the human experience that are time worn regardless of one's religion or faith-greed, selfishness and contempt for those who have less than you. He  challenges the reader to extend mercy, kindness and charity to those who are less fortunate. And forgiveness-if the Christmas Carol is about anything, it's about forgiveness and making amends.

I've lived my own version of the ghost of Christmas past and present and, but by the grace of God, have managed to avoid a visit by the ghost of Christmas future. And while I didn't go to sleep a broken man one night and wake to become a new man the next morning, I have experienced a "spirit-tual" awakening that has enabled me to forge a new life, one that has been rich and bountiful.

I'm going to let you in a little secret.  There are times during the performance when I feel the emotion start to well up inside me. I guess I can relate to old Ebenezer.

So maybe being cast as Ebenezer Scrooge in a 9th grade musical was a foreshadowing of my life to come-a visit by the ghost of Christmas future, 1967 style.

 Coincidence. Maybe?

Typecasting? You be the judge.

Either way, I've seen the play and I like the ending.