A Bitter Spirit

Day 21: Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

The final spirit to visit Scrooge is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.  Hooded and mute, the ghost arrives in a phantasmal mist and shows Scrooge a number of individuals rejoicing and pilfering belongings from a recently deceased individual.  The revelation that the man who died and of whom the others spoke so unkindly was, in fact, Scrooge himself causes his change in character.

Day 20: Ghost of Christmas Present

The second of the Christmas spirits to visit Scrooge is the Ghost of Christmas Present.  Dickens describes him as "jolly giant" with dark brown curls.  Oddly enough, his TV depictions always reminded us of one of our uncles.  Anyhow...the burly ghost shows Scrooge around London taking him first to his nephew's Christmas celebration where those assembled are making merry.  He also shows Scrooge multiple scenes of those who are deprived during Christmas, using Scrooge's own words against him.

Day 19: Ghost of Christmas Past

For the next three days, we’re focusing on the three main spirits (no pun intended!) of A Christmas Carol, those being the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. We thought it would be fun to take one type of cocktail and make three versions of it, one from the past (or a classic form of it), one from the present (or how it has been morphed into a contemporary cocktail) and one as it might be envisioned in the future. The base cocktail we decided to go with is a martini. It’s classic and yet extremely versatile. The past decade has seen an explosion of variations on a martini with some incredibly imaginative and delicious cocktails have come out of it.

Day 18: Bob Cratchit

Bob Cratchit doesn’t have the easiest life. He’s poor, his kid is sick and his boss is a jerk. Like the jerkiest jerk in Jerktown. But somehow, he pushes through. And if anyone needs a drink after work, it’s him!

The Bishop .. She Smokes!

We had some of The Ebenezer Scrooge left, so yesterday we took a mug of it outside and tried to snap a picture while it was smoking. Yup, that's steam - not a lens flare or anything :) Also - festive!

Day 3: Ebenezer Scrooge

What character in literature personifies the lack of Christmas spirit more than Ebenezer Scrooge? Seriously, the spirit world ultimately had to send four (FOUR!) ghosts to get him to see the error of his ways and to turn him into a decent human being. Yet for most of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer looks down on the less fortunate, abuses his poor assistant, Bob Cratchett and mutters “Bah, humbug” whenever another character so much as cracks a smile. For that, Mr. Scrooge, you get a well deserved chair at the NAUGHTY table.