BAH HUMBUG: How Workaholic Scrooge Learned to Hug His Cactus
“Bah Humbug!”
That one line and the name Scrooge have become short-hand for everything wrong with materialism, being a workaholic, and hating childish things like Christmas. Yet, the original story itself actually teaches and ends with the opposite idea. We tend to make this mistake in our modern world. We fixate on people’s (especially famous people’s) worst moment and worst characteristics. Yet, Hugging Your Cactus is all about not letting the world define you by your biggest failures or by your worst character faults.
As Chris discussed in his Grinch post, many times the painful things in our lives are based on a “self-imposed crisis.” We are our own worst enemy. Dickens summarizes it this way with Marley’s ghosts responding to Scrooge:
“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
We build our own chains and prisons. We are captive to our own fears and vices.
Freedom—in it’s truest form—is not a freedom TO do whatever you want (i.e. “the American dream), but a freedom FROM the selfish compulsion to do whatever you want. Since Aristotle, freedom was always conceptualized as a freedom from vice and to practice virtue, to enjoy the truly good and flourishing life.
There’s a grim and grisly nature to the story of “A Christmas Carol,” especially as we follow the three ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. But, Scrooge embraces the ugly, he hugs his cactus, and learns to not only embrace the painful message the ghosts brought, but also pay it forward by sharing the lessons he’s learned along the way.
“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Yet, cactus hugging and “A Christmas Carol” are not all bad news, it’s not all sad. Not only does Scrooge become unrecognizably generous and kind—in fact most of his neighbors believe it must not be the same person—but, Tiny Tim’s family serve as a foil and contrast to Scrooge’s early miserly ways. Their sharing and joy and laughter serve as a reminder on why humor is such an important part of the cactus hugging journey [check Humor & Irony video coming soon to our YouTube page].
“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
So, if laughter and good humor can become contagious, I pray that the Christmas Spirit, the Spirit of joy and laughter, of surprise and undeserved gifts, of generosity and gratitude, of the infinite become an infant. Merry Christmas and “God bless us everyone!”
“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol