DOTD For Friday, December 19, 2025
A Drink To Rid You Of Your Bah Humbug Attitude...
Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is a Christmas Cocktail inspired by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol.
Charles Dickens first published A Christmas Carol on December 19, 1843 and the first edition was sold out before Christmas day.
Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol defined and popularized quintessential Christmas tropes while condemning Victorian England’s harsh social division between the rich and poor. The Poor Laws, referenced by Scrooge early in the story, were England’s response to pervasive poverty. The workhouses associated with these laws subjected the desperate and destitute to demeaning conditions, and people who could not pay debts were sent to debtors’ prison—a circumstance that Dickens deals with in detail in his later novel Little Dorrit. Dickens’s own family was sent to debtors’ prison when he was 12, and the experience shaped his entire social and political outlook.
A Christmas Carol has been adapted for film 135 times and has never been out of print. Everyone from Lionel Barrymore to Bill Murray, from Patrick Stewart, to Micheal Caine, to James Earl Jones has played Scrooge in one way other another. Even Disney’s Scrooge McDuck played Dickens’ legendary curmudgeon.
Because of Dickens’ clarity of storytelling, the term “Scrooge” has become synonymous with a parsimonious (miserly, cheapskate) and misanthropic (anti-social) individual. The exclamation “Bah! Humbug!” also remains a flippant commentary on any person who fails to embrace the “true spirit of Christmas.”
For those who’ve somehow missed the tale, the plot of the story begins on Christmas Eve, where Ebenezer Scrooge—a businessman of some sort at a London warehouse — stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the holiday. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, huddles in the outer office, trying to warm himself with only a candle. Scrooge won’t allow him to add coal to the fire. Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, drops by the office full of cheer and invites Scrooge to join him and his new wife for Christmas dinner. Scrooge rebuffs the invitation, but Fred refuses to be offended.
A pair of prosperous gentlemen call at the office soliciting donations for those who cannot afford food or warmth over the holiday, but Scrooge refuses to contribute, blaming the poor for their supposed laziness; if they have no money, he says, they should go to the workhouses or debtors’ prisons, and if they won’t do that, they should die and “reduce the surplus population” . At the end of the working day, he grumbles resentfully that his clerk will probably want Christmas off and tells him to be at the office all the earlier the day after.
Scrooge goes home, and as he sits up late by his fire, he hears the sound of rattling chains, as the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, appears. Marley is bound by “the chain[s] [he] forged in life” and warns Scrooge that his own chains are longer and heavier. Marley has arranged for Scrooge to have one last chance to escape his fate. Three spirits will come to Scrooge over the next three nights, and Scrooge must heed them all if he hopes to save his soul.
Scrooge goes to bed and wakes to the first specter, the Ghost of Christmas Past: a simultaneously young and old figure from whose head burns the flame of memory. The ghost transports Scrooge back to his childhood, showing him his younger self—lonely but with the potential for joy. They see Scrooge’s first apprenticeship under a good man who made his employees’ lives happy and comfortable. The spirit shows Scrooge the first indications of the greed that would drive away the love of his life, ultimately dooming him to loneliness. The scenes of his younger self awake in Scrooge feelings he has not experienced since greed for money took over his life - at which point, the Ghost of Christmas Past returns Scrooge to his bed.
Scrooge is next awakened by the Ghost of Christmas Present, who takes the form of Father Christmas mounted on a throne of abundance. The ghost shows Scrooge scenes of Christmas happiness and charity before bringing him to the Cratchit household. The youngest Cratchit child, Tiny Tim, is small and frail. He wears braces on his legs and walks with a crutch, and the ghost tells Scrooge that unless the future is changed, Tiny Tim will die within the year. He then shows Scrooge the dinner party at his nephew’s house. His nephew Fred is making merry with his friends. The guests make some jokes about Scrooge, and Fred’s wife is quite scathing about Scrooge, but Fred is more sympathetic. Afterward, the spirit carries Scrooge around the world, showing him how even the poorest people celebrate the holiday with joy. By the end of their journey, the ghost has aged; his lifespan is only one day. The second ghost disappears, before he can even get Scrooge back to his bed.
Suddenly, Scrooge sees the final ghost approaching in the shape of death. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows him a series of scenes in which he sees people talking about someone who has died. No one seems to regret the man’s passing. At the Cratchits’ little house, Tiny Tim has indeed died, but the Cratchits are resolved to hold his memory in their hearts and to follow the example he gave them. The specter finally takes Scrooge to a graveyard and shows Scrooge his own headstone. Scrooge realizes it is he who has died and that his death matters to no one. He begs the specter to tell him that he might change his fate, promising to put all the lessons from the past, the present, and the future into practice and to always “honor Christmas in [his] heart”.
Scrooge wakes and finds that his entire adventure took only one night and that he hasn’t missed Christmas Day. Scrooge sends an enormous turkey to the Cratchit family for their dinner. Encountering one of the benevolent gentlemen he rebuffed the previous day, he promises an enormous donation in aid of the poor. He attends his nephew’s dinner party and has a wonderful time. The next day, he gives Bob Cratchit a raise. He becomes a benefactor to the Cratchit family and a second father to Tiny Tim, allowing the boy to survive. For the rest of Scrooge’s life, he makes it his business to keep Christmas in his heart all year long.
On this last Friday before our two week Best Of + New Christmahanakwanzika content shows begin, we do hope you have great holiday season, whatever you celebrate.
Remember the core meanings of all of these holidays are simple: Be kind to one another. Life is too short - find joy where you can, help when you can, and ask for help when you need it.
Let’s all raise a glass to today’s Drink Of The Day, the Christmas Cocktail!
Ingredients
Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink:
