Give Scrooge a chance

FLORENCE, Italy - People can be too hard on Ebenezer Scrooge.

Yes, Scrooge did hate Christmas, children, smiles, laughter and anything else associated with happiness, but that does not give people the right to deem him a bad person. Scrooge deserves a second chance.

Before tying me up with fresh, prickly wreaths of garland and beating me with sticky peppermint candy canes for the previous statement, please let me explain.

I, too. have been labeled a “Scrooge.” But this is not because I hate Christmas. It is more that I cannot stand hearing Christmas music from Thanksgiving until Christmas day and I become anxious-ridden trying to find the perfect gifts for family members and friends. Most notably I despise my neighbor’s front lawn that has overdosed on holiday light decorations and emits a fiery light that is, what I imagine to be, reminiscent of Hell.  

I do realize that Scrooge eventually does turn around because of some dramatic encounters with three ghosts. But I think those ghosts went through much more trouble than they needed. All Scrooge needed was to study abroad in Italy.

Scrooge would fit right in with the Italians. Although Italy is a Catholic country and is expected to celebrate the holiday, most Florentines give little effort to show their Christmas spirit.

Florence’s streets are free of white lights stretched upon the houses, decorated trees in the windows, candles, winter scenes of tiny towns and people in shop windows, sledding, ice skating, building snowmen, even those nightmarish three-foot tall animatronic Santa Clauses. And above all, there is not the slightest hope for snow.  

This extreme lack of decorations and overall shortage of a positive attitude around this time by Italians can do wonders for “Scrooges” like me.  

I have realized just how much I actually like Christmas and more specifically the commercialized Christmas. I miss hearing Chicago’s WLIT, The Lite, play holiday music 24 hours a day; I miss looking at store windows with winter holiday themes with signs in the window reminding me about a gift for Grandm;, and for some strange reason, I miss the Christmas inferno blazing on my neighbor’s lawn.  

I never thought I would miss any of these things because I usually resent them. And I realize this revelation is coming during the pre-Christmas season.

But the releases of Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” and other movies set against a holiday background like Miramax’s “Everybody’s Fine” and even “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel” – which makes me think of the Christmas songs I used to listen to as a kid – bring on the feeling of nostalgia for over-the-top Christmases.

After being denied the commercialized and steroid version of Christmas, it might be awhile until I use the phrase “Bah, humbug!”