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Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843) is a quintessential Christmas tale. It follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly man who learns the value of kindness after being visited by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. Over time, the story has been reimagined and adapted countless times, becoming a staple of the holiday season. Here are 10 captivating facts about the novella and its many renditions.
10. The True Meaning of Humbug
Although Charles Dickens didn’t coin the word ‘humbug’—it was first published in a 1751 edition of The Student, or the Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany—Scrooge's famous exclamation, “Bah! Humbug!” played a significant role in making the term synonymous with disdain. While today it’s often interpreted as an expression of dislike, Scrooge used it to convey his belief that Christmas was a deceptive farce. According to Merriam-Webster, a humbug is “something designed to deceive and mislead.”
When Scrooge's nephew, Fred, challenges him to explain his use of humbug, Scrooge retorts, “What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.” To Scrooge, Christmas seemed to be a trick that made people falsely happy, a ruse used to extract money from the rich.
9. Scrooge Doesn’t Actually Visit Bob Cratchit on Christmas Day
In many adaptations of A Christmas Carol, the story concludes with Scrooge, now reformed, celebrating Christmas with the Cratchit family. However, this heartwarming scene doesn’t appear in Dickens’s original work. In the novella, Scrooge buys the Cratchit family the largest turkey, but he doesn’t personally deliver it. Instead, he states, “I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s… He shan’t know who sends it.”
After attending church and joining Fred's celebration, Scrooge doesn’t encounter Bob until the next day. Bob arrives at work slightly late, and Scrooge, pretending to be upset, says, “I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer,” only to reveal, “Therefore I am about to raise your salary!”
8. Bill Murray Ad-Libbed Much of Scrooged (1988)
Bill Murray, known for his improvisational comedic talent, brought his skills to Scrooged, which led director Richard Donner to liken working with him to “standing on 42nd Street and Broadway, and the lights are out, and you’re the traffic cop.” Murray, however, had his own frustrations, telling Roger Ebert in a 1990 interview that he and Donner clashed constantly, explaining, “every single minute of the day,” and adding, “he kept telling me to do things louder, louder, louder. I think he was deaf.”
Despite the on-set tension, many of the unscripted moments became iconic. In Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue (1998), a book about one of the film’s writers, Dennis Perrin notes that Bill Murray improvised much of his emotional speech during the film’s climax. He also ad-libbed when the cast sang “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” at the movie's conclusion, quoting “Feed me, Seymour! Feed me!” from Little Shop of Horrors (1986), in which he had a cameo role. Another spontaneous moment was when Murray slipped and fell after splashing a waiter with water.
7. The Name Scrooge Quickly Came to Represent Miser
When A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843, the name ‘Scrooge’ rapidly became synonymous with miserliness and penny-pinching. Dickens likely drew inspiration for the character's surname from the word 'scrouge,' meaning ‘to squeeze, press, or crowd (someone).’ This meaning is reflected in how Scrooge is described as ‘a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!’
Scrooge's first name, Ebenezer, carries a deeper significance. Ebenezer is a Hebrew name that translates to ‘stone of help.’ This symbolism is emphasized when, after being described as a ‘squeezing sinner,’ Scrooge is further characterized as ‘hard and sharp as flint from which no steel had ever struck out a generous fire.’
6. A Christmas Carol Helped Popularize the Phrase 'Merry Christmas'
Many Christmas customs, including tree decorating, sending holiday cards, and spending time with loved ones, have their origins in the Victorian era. A Christmas Carol was written during the rise of these traditions, and its success helped to spread them even more widely. One particular tradition that Dickens popularized was the use of the phrase 'Merry Christmas' instead of 'Happy Christmas.'
The earliest known use of the phrase ‘Merry Christmas’ comes from a 1534 letter written by Bishop John Fisher to Thomas Cromwell: 'And thus our Lord send yow a mery Christenmas, and a comfortable, to yowr heart desyer.' Both 'merry' and 'happy' were used in Christmas greetings for centuries, but Dickens favored ‘merry,’ with 'Merry Christmas' appearing throughout A Christmas Carol, while 'Happy Christmas' is never mentioned.
5. Several Songs Were Cut from The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Fans of The Muppet Christmas Carol know that the song “When Love Is Gone,” a heartfelt ballad between Scrooge (Michael Caine) and his former fiancée Belle (Meredith Braun), was removed from the theatrical release. Brian Henson, the film's director and son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, shared with Entertainment Weekly that after test screenings, Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, commented on the reaction of the audience, saying, 'Do you see how antsy those kids are getting? It’s just a little too adult-emotional for little kids to stay connected.' Henson agreed to cut it, but confessed, 'I obviously preferred having the song in.'
Henson later made the decision to restore the song, but the original negative of the scene had been lost (although a lower-quality version was available). The missing footage was eventually found in 2020, and the extended cut was made available for streaming on Disney+ in 2022.
“When Love Is Gone” isn’t the only song that was cut from the theatrical release of The Muppet Christmas Carol. Bunsen and Beaker originally performed “Room in Your Heart” as they asked Scrooge for donations to help the poor, and Sam Eagle sang “Chairman of the Board” to a young Scrooge. Both songs were recorded but ultimately removed before filming began, although they are included on the soundtrack.
4. A Christmas Carol Has Some Strange Adaptations
A Christmas Carol holds the title of one of the most adapted works in literature, with its first three stage productions debuting on February 5, 1844, just weeks after the novella's release. The only one authorized by Dickens was Edward Stirling’s A Christmas Carol: or, Past, Present, and Future at the Adelphi Theatre. The other two were C.Z. Barnett’s A Christmas Carol: or, the Miser’s Warning at the Royal Surrey Theatre and Charles Webb’s Scrooge, A Miser’s Dream at Sadler’s Wells. Since then, hundreds of adaptations have been made, with a few particularly unusual ones.
A Klingon Christmas Carol premiered in Minneapolis in 2007 and has since been staged multiple times due to its popularity. In this version, Scrooge is renamed SQuja’, and instead of being miserly, he is portrayed as a coward who learns to become honorable. Other odd renditions include Marcel Marceau’s 1973 mimed version and various zombie-themed adaptations. Among these are Adam Roberts’s 2009 book I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas, Marvel’s Zombies Christmas Carol, and the 2015 short film A Christmas Carol + Zombies. In 2016, Heath Waterman released a mashup video on YouTube that compiles snippets from 400 different adaptations to tell the full story.
3. Tiny Tim’s Fate Was Unknown in the Original Manuscript
In the original draft, Dickens did not clarify whether Scrooge's transformation spared Tiny Tim's life. It initially read: 'Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more. He became as good a friend…' Realizing that readers would be concerned about Tim's fate, Dickens added: 'and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father.'
Initially, Tiny Tim was named Little Fred, but the name was later assigned to Scrooge's nephew. While Tim lived in the story, the real-life inspiration for him did not. Dickens likely modeled Tim after his own nephew, Harry Burnett, who sadly passed away at the age of nine due to illness.
2. A Christmas Carol Was Written as a Call for Social Change
At the age of 12, Dickens' family faced financial struggles, and he was forced to leave school to work in a shoe-blacking factory. Despite later achieving financial success, Dickens remained deeply passionate about improving the working conditions of the poor. In early 1843, he came across a government report titled 'Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission,' which highlighted the appalling working conditions endured by children.
Instead of merely writing a pamphlet to raise awareness, Dickens came up with a bolder idea. In a letter to Southwood Smith, one of the report's commissioners, he explained that 'you will certainly feel that a Sledge hammer has come down with twenty times the force—twenty thousand times the force—I could exert by following out my first idea.'
Dickens' new approach was to craft a fictional narrative that would appeal to people's emotions, resulting in A Christmas Carol, which was finished just in time for Christmas. The novella drew inspiration from a short story, 'The Story of the Goblins Who Stole A Sexton,' included in The Pickwick Papers (1836-37). In that story, a miser named Gabriel Grub is visited by goblins on Christmas Eve, who show him his past and future in an effort to reform him.
1. Dickens Also Created His Own Performance Adaptation
On December 27, 1853, Dickens performed a reading of A Christmas Carol at Birmingham Town Hall. True to the spirit of the story, the earnings from the event—lasting about three hours—were donated to charity. The Birmingham Journal reported that 'Mr. Dickens did not only read the story, he acted it too. Everybody was charmed by the way in which the story was told. How Mr. Dickens twirled his moustache, or played with his paper knife, or laid down his book, or lent forward confidentially…'
Dickens performed the story 127 times, making it a profitable side venture alongside his book publications. He created a special prompt book for the readings and condensed the story for quicker performances. Mark Twain attended one of Dickens’s readings in New York in January 1868 but found his rendition of David Copperfield (1849-50) underwhelming. Twain remarked, 'He is a bad reader in one sense,' due to his lack of clear and sharp enunciation. Notably, A Christmas Carol marked both Dickens’s first public reading and his final one, which took place at St. James’ Hall in Piccadilly just months before his death in 1870.
