The first thing that leapt out at me was simply the seemingly endless, almost gratuitous descriptions of holiday food. Perhaps my favorite one (though not the most verbose description) was of Mrs. Cratchit cutting into the goose: "It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth..."
In addition to the food, the other thing that stuck out, as I suppose it's supposed to, is how Scrooge was both defended and jeered, but always defended and toasted in the end. I'm not sure that's so realistsic, but it is idealistic, it is, after all, the exemplification of human charity, right?
We also got to hear another famous line from the book, "God bless them, one and all!" Which was fun to read after hearing it so much.
One other thing that stuck out to me was just the deftness with which Dickens is able to transition from one scene to the other. All of a sudden he hears his nephew laugh and we're sort of faded into a new scene. That seems a difficult thing to do in text, and yet Dickens does it over and over again without much stress. It also stands in contrast to his sometimes heavy-handed flowery descriptions.
I like your point about how everyone knows this story, how ubiquitous it is. Did that change your experience of reading the book?
And at its core we get in this stave a nice message about Christmas meals meaning more to people who can't afford a feast, and the message that being wealthy isn't an end unto itself. Thus Scrooge might not be happy, even though he's rich.
I'm feeling all Christmasy now.
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