Transcript
Keith Morrison (0:01)
When work gets crazy, I like to stop by the bar after have a few cold ones. I don't drink at all until 4:00.
Dad (0:09)
We limit ourselves to one bottle of wine a night.
Public Health Official (0:12)
Excessive drinking has a way of sneaking up on us. A few drinks, a few nights a week, it can add up and suddenly we're at greater risk for long term problems like heart disease, cancer and depression. Reason enough to rethink to drink more at rethink to drink. No ha. Initiative.
Narrator (0:31)
Twas the nights before Christmas. Despite last minute stress, few were delivering except Walmart.
Keith Morrison (0:36)
Express stockings were hung by the fire, knowing in about an hour suppers would soon be there.
Narrator (0:41)
On to the rogue Walmart. Express delivery went chock full of wondrous things in the Saint Nick of time sent.
Walmart Representative (0:47)
Let's go get express delivery in as fast as an hour, even on Christmas Eve. Orders must be placed by 4pm local time on 1224, subject to availability. Fees and restrictions apply.
Narrator (0:56)
Express delivery to y'all and to all a good night. Welcome to your Walmart.
Keith Morrison (1:05)
I'm Keith Morrison and this is episode three of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge is back in bed, weighed down by blankets and regrets. He's reeling from all the Ghost of Christmas Past has shown him. Memories of his boyhood and who he once was, visions of who he has become. Sour, greedy, unlovable. Alone, he falls into a troubled sleep. And yes, Charles Dickens writes, he's snoring, but for how long? And what terrifying specter waits to confront him now, awakening in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of one, he felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains his new specter would draw back, he put every one of them aside with his own hands, and lying down again, established a sharp lookout all around the bed. For he wished to challenge the spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous. Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing, and consequently, when the bell struck one and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, and yet nothing came. All this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and center of a blaze of ruddy light which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour, and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant or would be at, and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion without ever having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name and bade him enter. He obeyed. It was his own room, there was no doubt about that, but it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green that it looked a perfect grove, from every part of which bright, gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe and ivy reflected back the light as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there. And such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor to form a kind of throne were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, great joints of meat, suckling pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, red hot chestnuts, cherry cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, and seething bowls of punch that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon his couch there sat a jolly giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up high up to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round the door. Come in. Exclaimed the ghost. Come in and know me better, man. Scrooge entered timidly and hung his head before the spirit. And though the spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to beat them. I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, said the spirit. Look upon me. Scrooge reverently did so. The spirit was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle bordered with white fur. The garment hung so loosely on the figure that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet observable beneath the ample folds of the garment were also bare, and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free, free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanor, and its joyful hair. You have never seen the like of me before. Exclaimed the spirit. Never. Scrooge made answer to it. The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. Spirit, said Scrooge submissively, conduct me where you will touch my robe. Scrooge did as he was told and held it fast. Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night. And they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where, though the weather was severe, the people made a rough but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, and scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below and splitting into artificial little snowstorms. The house fronts looked black enough and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon upon the roofs and with the dirtier snow on the ground. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavored to diffuse in vain. For the people who were shoveling away on the housetops were jovial, full of glee, calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball, better natured missile far than many a wordy jest, laughing heartily if it went right by, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulter shops were still half open, and the fruiters were radiant in their glory. There were great round pot bellied baskets of chestnut shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors and tumbling out into the street. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids. There were bunches of grapes made in the shopkeeper's benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed the grocers. Oh, the grocers nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down or one. But through these gaps such glimpses. It was not just that everything was good to Eat and in its Christmas dress. But the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of like mistakes in the best humor possible. But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores of by streets and lanes and nameless turnings, innumerable people carrying their dinners. The sight of these poor revelers appeared to interest the spirit very much. For he stood with Scrooge and, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch. For once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humor was restored directly. For they said it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love it, so it was. Is there a particular flavor in what you sprinkle from your torch? Asked Scrooge. There is my own. Would it apply to any. Any kind of dinner on this day? Asked Scrooge. To any kindly given to a poor one most. Why to a poor person most? Asked Scrooge. Because that person needs it most. And they went on, invisible as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. And perhaps it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature and his sympathy with all poor men that led the spirit straight to Scrooge's clerk. There he went and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe. And that's where we'll leave Ebenezer Scrooge standing outside Bob Cratch's door. The lowly clerk whom he had berated just hours earlier for taking off Christmas Day. He has unexpectedly become Cratchit's invisible Christmas guest. It's a Christmas dinner he'll never forget.