I find that year in, year out I have a love/hate relationship with the now PC-dubbed “Holidays.” As a child of the eighties growing up in what can best be described as an agnostic household, we celebrated “Christmas” as it’s what everyone else did in the month of December, not because it was the birth of Jesus Christ. As a child, I relished sugar cookies and the giant feast that came on December 25th as my waistline shows to this day. Some thirty years into my life, that same family and house has become a very divided split along the lines of the agnostic holdovers with the converted Catholics (some practicing, some not) and Baptist (Don’t get me started). Because of my agnostic leaning toward atheist anti-material ways, I find most of what comes with this time of the year more and more revolting year in year out as the defacto “pinko” of the family.
But here is the thing, growing up I loved watching the Disney animated Mickey’s Christmas Carol. If any other versions were showing on TV, I would watch those as well. As I aged, I grew to love the 1988 classic Scrooged staring Bill Murrary. Later it would be the Beavis and Butt-Head version. To this day I own all three of those versions mentioned on DVD. Further, all are required viewing around this time of the year. It could be said that Dicken’s tale is the only constant I tie to this time of the year and doesn’t make me want to stab someone each time I’m told “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” Funny that I’m so much like the pre-changed Scrooge yet love his tale so dearly.
This is also why I’ve managed to catch the Kansas City Repertory Theater’s production of the tale for more years now than I can even recall at this point. The show took a year off two years ago for the world premiere staging of a more contemporary Christmas classic based on the 1983 film A Christmas Story. Carol would return for its 30th run at the theater in 2010 in what was a near top to bottom, left to right new staging of the production at the Spencer Theater.
