"Keep it all the Year"

Just Why Do We Love Scrooge and the Grinch So Much?

St. Benedict encouraged monks to observe a perpetual Lent. In our time, theologian Fleming Rutledge suggests that to be a follower of Christ means to observe a perpetual Advent. In case you are a bit overwhelmed at the idea of conducting every day of your life according to the austerity of Lent and the simplicity of Advent, we might thank Charles Dickens, who, in the voice of Ebenezer Scrooge begging the Ghost of Christmas Future for a second chance, makes this heartfelt promise:

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

So what would it mean, mystically speaking, to “keep Christmas all the year”? I think we can begin by assuming what it doesn’t mean. It’s not about never-ending consumerism — our poor ecosystem is stressed out enough as it is. Nor is it about continual gluttony: that would wreak on the body’s ecosystem. I think perhaps the best clue to what old man Scrooge was promising might be found in the good citizens of Dr. Seuss’s Whoville. They were the folks who were victimized by the Grinch, who made off with all of their Christmas gifts and trees and trappings. But when Christmas morning came, they sang their songs of joy anyway.

In many ways, the Grinch is just Scrooge reimagined for the postmodern world. While it took a terrifying encounter with a series of ghosts and spirits to get Scrooge to figure out the true meaning of Christmas, the Grinch made that same beautiful leap of insight just through hearing the singing of a lovely song. And suddenly, he was honoring Christmas — returning the gifts, embodying generosity and good cheer.

Perhaps we may hope that Grinchie followed Scrooge’s example, and tried to keep that spirit alive all through the year.

Today (December 30) is the sixth day of Christmas, so we are halfway through this shortest of liturgical seasons. Only Holy Week (technically still part of Lent) is shorter. But what Christmas may lack in quantity is more than made up for in quality. May we all find it in our hearts, no matter how much we might resemble Scrooge or the Grinch, to listen for the joyful songs, trust the wisdom of generosity, and relax into a life shaped by merriment and good cheer: now, and always.

Quotationk and illustration Source: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books (Oxford World’s Classics), p. 26. Image of “The Last of the Spirits” by John Leech.