marley was dead: to begin with

This is pretty square honey, Matt said as the high school girl carolers dressed as girls from the Charles Dickens era sang Jingle Bells. Square was one word for it, awkward was another. It'd be one thing if the carolers were off to the side singing and we could just watch them in passing but they were at the front of the room and you just had to sit there and listen. They kept going too, song after song and I'd try to just enjoy it but I was too uncomfortable. By that time, the room had been filled up with kids, maybe some teens that were friends of the carolers, middle aged moms & dads, grandparents, and us.

Was it a mistake to have come, to have dragged poor Matt to the library to watch a reading of Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol?

Finally, the carolers were done. They bowed. Everyone clapped. Again. Like they had after every song. And now the reading...

Up to the podium came a man dressed in another era appropriate costume with a black top hat. He gave us a quick intro of these readings, how Charles Dickens himself would do them every Christmas around town and wouldn't that have been something, to see the man who created these characters provide the voices. The man got into character and began reading a classic and for the next hour, I sat there, happily, patiently. I've seen about four versions of The Christmas Carol told and I own three of them but hearing the words of Charles Dickens himself describe Jacob Marley's transparent body made it I dunno, magical. The man would do the voices for all the characters and had a fake British accent as the narrator the whole time. I can't say I've ever heard someone read such a lengthy story, it felt so old, harking back to a time when people would do this sort of thing all the time with a lack of computers and DVDs, they would read aloud to each other, experience a world in words together.

After the reading, we were given wassail & cookies and people chatted happily about the experience. And recalling the telling of tiny Tim when he makes mention of who made lame men walk I shed another little tear, words are powerful things and it was nice to be reminded of that.