Before Bahambug, before Christmas movies, and
before gift -giving traditions, the holiday looked
completely different. But one short book changed
it all. Welcome back to the Learn English Podcast,
the podcast teaching English in context so you
can learn naturally. It is almost the end of
the year, and it is also almost Christmas time.
Christmas is a major holiday here in the United
States. But it hasn't always been like that.
Modern day Christmas is relatively new. How we
celebrate Christmas has only really been occurring
for a little over 100 years. And prior to that,
Christmas really wasn't such an important holiday.
So on today's episode, I want to discuss why
we celebrate Christmas the way that we do by
focusing on the story that is credited with creating
modern day Christmas. Do you know what story
I'm talking about? If you don't, don't worry.
We're going to discuss it today while, of course,
helping you with your listening comprehension
and building your English vocabulary. So if you
want to know more about why we celebrate Christmas
the way that we do, follow along because we're
about to begin. Before we get started, I want
to remind you to look at the description of this
podcast episode. There you will find the list
of the words and phrases that I used in the episode
so you can take them, study them, and build your
English vocabulary. Now let's talk about this
story. You might have already guessed it, but
the story that I'm talking about is A Christmas
Carol by Charles Dickens. I'm going to start
with talking a little bit about the history of
this story and who Charles Dickens was, and then
its impact on Christmas and the different adaptations
that you can watch to help you build your English
vocabulary and practice your listening comprehension.
A little bit about Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens
was born in 1812 in England, and he was the second
of eight children. And when he was just 12 years
old, his father was sent to a debtor's prison.
Now, these prisons don't exist nowadays. But
at the time, it was where you were sent if you
owed money and you could not repay it. Because
his father was sent to this prison, his father
was no longer able to work. And Charles Dickens
actually had to leave school and start working
so he could support his family. At the time,
there were no child labor laws. That meant that
he could work even though he was only 12 years
old and he no longer had to go to school. This
experience with child labor and poverty left
a lot of scars and influenced his writing. Charles
Dickens did become a famous writer and he has
a number of famous works. A lot of them focus
on these themes of poverty and social criticism
and difficult childhood experiences. You may
or may not have read his books. Dickens is known
for having a style of writing that can be a little
bit difficult to read, and a lot of his stories
are very long. But you might be familiar with
the ideas of the stories, or maybe you've seen
some of the adaptations. For example, Bleak House,
Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations all have
these ideas of social criticism, social class,
and poverty throughout the stories. By the early
1840s, Dickens had already become a very popular
writer, but his career was on the decline. That
means that he wasn't selling as well as he had
before, his books weren't really doing as well,
they weren't as well received, and he really
needed to have some really good book come out
to help boost his career. In October of 1843,
Charles Dickens gave a speech in Manchester.
calling for better conditions for the working
class and for better education. He had read reports
of children working in factories and in conditions
that were really horrible. He had had experience
as a child working in child labor, and he was
really horrified that it was still occurring
in his country, that children were still being
forced into these really bad working conditions.
He wanted to continue to raise awareness, and
his first thought was to write a political pamphlet.
But then he decided to instead write a story.
I don't know about you, but personally, I can
say I don't think I've ever read a political
pamphlet. It maybe is something that people would
read, but it also seems a little bit boring.
If you were given the option to read some political
writings or to read a story. I would say most
people would probably go for the story. You're
more likely to pick that option. So Dickens thought
maybe he could come up with a story that could
get people's attention and raise awareness on
the issue, but maybe not sounding so preachy.
To sound preachy means to sound like you're lecturing
someone, to tell them what to do, how to act
in a moral way. So he wanted to raise awareness,
but not sound so preachy while he was doing it.
And he also really wanted his story to be a ghost
story, one that had warmth and emotion while
highlighting the issues of poverty and greed.
He started working on A Christmas Carol, and
he would walk through the streets of London at
night, acting out the scenes with himself. He
ended up completing the story in just six weeks.
When he took it to his publisher, his publisher
actually did not think it would sell very well.
Like I said, Dickens was on a decline in his
career. He was not selling as many books as he
had previously, so his publisher did not have
a lot of confidence that this book would sell
well. Dickens, though, was undeterred. Undeterred
means that nothing was going to stop him. His
publisher telling him no was not going to stop
him from publishing. Instead, what he did was
he self - He actually paid for the publishing
himself. So his publisher didn't have to pay
it and didn't have to take the risk if the story
did not sell well. The story was published on
December 19th, 1843. There were 6 ,000 copies
that were published and all of them were sold
out by Christmas Eve. You might not know Christmas
Eve is December 24th, so within five days, all
6 ,000 copies were sold. And the story sold so
well because it was so popular. Critics and readers
fell in love with the story. The story focuses
on the character Ebenezer Scrooge. He's a businessman.
He is known for treating his workers with contempt,
which means he doesn't respect them. He doesn't
really like them. He doesn't really like anyone.
He's kind of a mean, grumpy old man. One of his
employees is the father of a sick child, and
this child needs money to help with his medical
condition. Scrooge really does not help this
employee or anyone really in the story. And that's
really the setup. What ends up happening is that
Scrooge is visited one night by three ghosts.
The ghosts go through different parts of his
life and this experience changes him. It changes
his outlook on life because he sees what his
life has become and what it will be like in the
future. Because of the story's emotional impact,
there were reports that readers actually cried
when they were reading the book. There's a story
that a business owner actually gave his employees
one extra day off as a result of reading A Christmas
Carol. And that really shows you the emotional
impact that the story had at the time. In the
mid -1800s, Christmas wasn't actually celebrated
in the way that it is now. It was considered
more of a religious holiday, and it was maybe
more of a minor holiday. If you don't know, Christmas
was actually banned during the 1600s in England.
Oliver Cromwell was in charge during this time,
and the Parliament was really dominated by Puritans.
I've done an episode where I've talked about
Puritans. They have a very big impact in the
history of the United States. And I mentioned
them when I talked about the Salem Witch Trials.
The Puritans were very religiously conservative.
They thought that Christmas was ungodly and too
tied to the Catholic faith. So they actually
banned the celebration of Christmas for a number
of years. The ban didn't last very long, but
this idea that Christmas should be a very strict
religious holiday still stuck around. People
really thought of Christmas as a religious observance,
but A Christmas Carol changed that. The story
really focused on celebrating family. being generous
with your neighbors and helping those who are
in need. Really having this whole idea of the
spirit of giving, something that we talk about
now when we talk about the Christmas season.
We say that it is the time to give back to people,
the time to give back to your local community.
And that idea really started with this book.
And that's why A Christmas Carol is credited
with creating modern day Christmas. It rebranded
Christmas. It took it from a minor religious
observance to a holiday where you celebrate your
family, where you help others, where you give
to other people. There's also a number of vocabulary
terms that became popular because of the story.
Here in the United States during the month of
December, you hear and see Merry Christmas. That
phrase, Merry Christmas, actually was not very
popular before A Christmas Carol came out. The
book helped popularize that saying. Calling someone
a Scrooge also came from the book because of
the main character, Ebenezer Scrooge. Like I
said, Scrooge is not a nice person at the beginning
of the story. He's very greedy. He doesn't want
to help anyone. And his name became synonymous
with calling someone maybe a grumpy, unhelpful
person. So if you call someone a Scrooge, you're
saying that they're greedy. that they don't like
to help people. Maybe they're a little bit mean
and people don't really want to be around them.
That's not a nice thing to be called a Scrooge.
Scrooge also says bah humbug. And that's something
that I opened this episode with. That saying
bah humbug is what he says when he doesn't want
to help someone when he really is pushing back
against this idea of a Christmas spirit or helping
people who are in need. That's something that
you might hear. People will say it, at least
I've heard it being said as a joke. When someone
says bah humbug, it's them kind of joking that
they don't want to be happy, that they don't
want to participate in Christmas. I've never
heard someone say it and actually mean it, but
maybe more as a joke saying bah humbug. If you
want to read A Christmas Carol to help you with
your English, that is definitely something you
can do. It is called a novella, which means it's
not that long of a story. Like I said, some of
Charles Dickens' stories are very long. They're
known for being very long. So this is something
that's more accessible. It's something that you
might be interested in reading if you want to
use it and use reading to improve your English.
But if you don't want to read it, that's okay
too, because there are a number of adaptations.
We're going to talk about the different adaptations.
I'm going to give you a brief summary, maybe
why you might want to watch that one versus another,
so you can see if there's a particular adaptation
that you would like to watch to help you with
your English. The first one is a TV movie from
1984. It is titled A Christmas Carol. It was
filmed in England and it is considered to be
the most faithful adaptation to Charles Dickens'
original story. It stars George C. Scott as Scrooge
and is considered to be a classic in England.
One of my favorite versions is actually from
1999. It is another TV movie that is titled A
Christmas Carol, but in this one it stars Patrick
Stewart as Scrooge. Stewart had actually starred
as Scrooge before on stage in a play. He was
in a one -man stage adaptation of A Christmas
Carol, so he had already played this character.
Therefore, in this adaptation, he has a very
intense Sharp adaptation of Scrooge. It is a
little bit darker than the 1984 adaptation. The
ghost scenes at the time were considered to be
a little bit more intense, but it is a very good
adaptation. I also think it is free on YouTube.
I have seen it in the past, in past years, free
on YouTube during the month of December. Search
for it. You might be able to find it for free.
If you have children who are trying to learn
English, if you're trying to help them learn
English at a young age, there definitely are
adaptations that are more marketed and geared
for children. One is from 1983. It is Mickey's
Christmas Carol. It is a Disney production. It
has Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, the
characters that you have seen in other Mickey
animations. Definitely good for children because
it is an animated movie marketed for younger
children. It's only 25 minutes long, so if you
do have a young child who maybe doesn't want
to watch a very long movie, this is a really
good adaptation. The one that I watched a lot
when I was a child was from 1992, and it is The
Muppet Christmas Carol. This one is very popular
because the Muppets are very popular. It is again
more geared for children but maybe a little bit
older children than ones that would like Mickey
Mouse. It actually stars Michael Caine as Scrooge.
Michael Caine I think is one of the better actors
who played Scrooge. And then you have Kermit
and Gonzo and a lot of the other Muppet characters
in the movie. Because it is a Muppet movie, because
it is maybe for children, it does have a lot
of humor thrown in, but it does stay pretty faithful
to the story and still tries to have that emotional
impact. And Kane's serious performance along
with the Muppets really helps balance the film.
There is a motion capture one as well from 2009.
It is called A Christmas Carol, and it stars
Jim Carrey as Scrooge and actually all three
ghosts as well. It uses motion capture technology,
which was new at the time. It was considered
to be, I guess, groundbreaking in a way because
it did use the motion capture technology when
it was still relatively new. I will say personally,
I don't like it that much. I find it to be a
little bit creepy and weird because the faces
just seem a little bit strange. This is probably
my least favorite adaptation, not because of
the performance or anything. But just because
I find the motion capture technology to be a
little bit weird. However, the technology did
allow for some of the more surreal scenes, some
of the more ghostly scenes to be portrayed in
the movie. There's also films that have been
inspired by A Christmas Carol, but try to do
a more modern take on it. For example, there
is Scrooge from 1988. This stars Bill Murray
as the main character. He actually does not play
Ebenezer Scrooge. He plays Frank Cross. Frank
Cross is not in England in the 1800s. Instead,
he is supposed to be in modern day, and he is
a TV show executive. He is considered to be very
cold -hearted. Just like Scrooge was, he's not
very friendly. He really only cares about money
and the network's performance and ratings. This
adaptation is definitely more comedic because
Bill Murray is a comedian. It also is definitely
influenced by the 1980s. There's a lot of 1980s
look and references in it. But it still is supposed
to follow the general storyline and still have
that emotional quality to it. And there's also
a more modern comedy from 2022. This is actually
on Apple TV +, and it is called Spirited. It
stars Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell, but it
flips the premise. Instead of the ghost helping
a person, a person is actually supposed to help
the ghost in this one. This is a musical comedy.
If you have seen anything that Will Ferrell or
Ryan Reynolds have been in, you know that they
like to do comedy. They like to have a lot of
humor in their work. So this definitely follows
those lines. It does have a lot of original songs.
So if you like musicals, this could be a good
option. And our last film on our list is actually
a film that tells the story of Charles Dickens
writing A Christmas Carol. This is from 2017,
and it is called The Man Who Invented Christmas.
This stars Dan Stevens as Dickens and Christopher
Plummer as Scrooge. Christopher Plummer, of course,
is great in a lot of things that he does. And
in the film, it shows the characters of the book
actually coming to life around him and how he
interacts with them. Like I said before, when
he wrote this book, he actually went around the
streets of London acting it out while he was
walking around in the streets. This film kind
of draws on that inspiration, showing it from
his perspective how these characters are coming
to life. Of course, it is slightly fictionalized,
but it does show the behind -the -scenes story
of how Dickens created his Christmas classic.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you learned
a little bit about Charles Dickens, why he wrote
A Christmas Carol, and about the cultural impact
that story has had on modern day Christmas. I
hope you also heard about these different adaptations
and maybe found one that you would like to use
to help you improve your English. If you want
more episodes like this in the future, please
let me know. We are already going to be going
into 2026, so I'm going to start planning our
episodes for the coming year. So if you want
more episodes like this, please leave a comment
and let me know. I just want to thank everyone
who has listened to this podcast over this past
year and really since I've started it. I cannot
believe that it has grown so much since I started
the podcast. It is just me here in my house recording
these episodes trying to help you with your English.
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