Cornerstone Community Church, San Jose Ca

In the first stanza of Charles Dickens’ classic story, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge didn’t have much enthusiasm for Christmas. “If I could work my will,” said 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.” Scrooge was a bit of a grump, wouldn’t you agree? But after being visited by the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, and the three spirits of Christmas, Scrooge becomes a changed man. To the Ghost of Christmas Future, he promises, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” And he did. The final paragraphs of A Christmas Carol report that Scrooge “knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”