A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol opens on a bleak, cold Christmas Eve in London, seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley. The main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, is a selfish cheapskate. He, an aging miser, dislikes Christmas and refuses a dinner invitation from his nephew Fred - the son of Fan, Scrooge's dead sister. He also treats his clerk, BoB Cratchit baldy. Bob Cratchit is a poor diminutive man who one evening at the office suffered in the cold because Ebenezer Scrooge refused to pay for another lump of coal to warm the office. He also turns away two men who seek a donation from him to provide food and heating for the poor, and only grudgingly allows his overworked, underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit, Christmas Day off with pay to conform to the social custom.That night Scrooge is visited at home by Marley's ghost, who wanders the Earth entwined by heavy chains and money boxes forged during a lifetime of greed and selfishness. Marley tells Scrooge that he has a single chance to avoid the same fate: he will be visited by three spirits and must listen or be cursed to carry much heavier chains of his own.