☕️ Alice’s Mad Tea Party Presents:
🍵 Alice Spills the Tea: Ebenezer Scrooge & the Three Ghosts - An Alice Retelling
Ah, darlings. Today, I have decided to tell you a tale of greed, ghosts, and the absurdity of human behavior in winter.
Ebenezer Scrooge. A man so tight-fisted he makes a miser look like a philanthropist. A man whose heart was colder than the Bloodshade Valley in midwinter and whose love of coin outweighed any curiosity, affection, or decency.
I imagine him in his counting house, grumbling at the very air for daring to exist without paying him rent. He had one companion, of sorts: his ledger. His books. Perhaps the faint smell of pickled resentment. And, oh yes, his clerk, Bob Cratchit, whose patience was the stuff of legends - or perhaps sheer madness.
But Scrooge’s life was about to be… thoroughly inconvenient.
The Spirit of Christmas Past arrived first, all shimmering lights and flickering shadows, dressed in robes that seemed stitched from memory itself. Strange, yes, and unnervingly bright. It whispered truths about the man Scrooge once was - a youth not yet hardened, a boy capable of love and laughter, a young man whose ambition had been diverted into greed.
And ohhh, the nostalgia! The tiny regrets! The missed chances! The boy who had once held hope in his chest, now a man who would rather choke on a coin than a feeling.
Alice sipped her tea here and rolled her eyes so dramatically Pip nearly fell off his chair. “It’s… tedious,” she muttered, “but one must endure human folly to appreciate its chaos.”
The Spirit of Christmas Present arrived next - a jolly, enormous figure, almost larger than life, dripping with good cheer and… somewhat terrifying generosity. You see, this spirit made Scrooge confront the living: the Cratchit family, desperately clinging to warmth, love, and… well… gravy. Tiny Tim! Oh, my sweet, fragile, heart-strings-tugging Tim! The spirit revealed their struggles and joy alike, showing how Scrooge’s actions - or lack thereof - rippled through lives far smaller and more delicate than his own.
Alice clinked her teacup. “Do you see? Even Dickens knew the proper way to administer guilt. It’s poetic, really.”
Finally… the most dreadful of them all: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, shrouded in shadows, silent, pointing only with a skeletal finger. No sound. Just inevitability. It showed Scrooge what awaits the unrepentant: lonely deaths, forgotten names, unwept graves. Terrible, final, and utterly unforgiving. A lesson wrapped in dread and still somehow festive.
Scrooge - of course - freaked out. There was wailing, there was shrieking, there were very poor life choices narrowly avoided. He promised, begged, and swore to change. And what did he do? He became the opposite of himself: generous, loving, warm, chaotic in his benevolence, showering gifts, joy, and yes, even proper tea upon all within reach.
Alice leaned back, hair wild, teacup dangerously balanced. “That’s the story. Dickens may have been Victorian, moralizing, and extremely fond of coal fires, but the bones of it? Absolutely chaotic genius. A man confronted with his own shadow, given a chance to fix it. And like all good ghosts, he either listens or regrets forever.”
And now, some minor details:
- Yes, I may have added… flourishes to this story. Yes, the spirits are slightly more Alice than Dickens - glimmering, looming, sarcastic, terrifyingly polite, and occasionally snarky.
- Tiny Tim’s health may have been exaggerated for maximum sympathy effect.
- Scrooge’s redemption is… colorful. Very. He might have hugged the furniture, cried into his tea, or spiked the punch at his first charitable event. Don’t ask.
📝 Editorial Note from Pip (Assistant, Lifesaver, Lore Babysitter):
Alice’s retelling is, of course, wildly chaotic and not strictly faithful to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Key clarifications for the historically-minded:
- The story is originally from 1843 and features Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly Victorian man, visited by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come to teach him compassion. ✅
- Tiny Tim is a sickly, innocent child who represents the impact of Scrooge’s behavior on the less fortunate. ✅
- Dickens’ version is moral and festive, without the additional snark, commentary, or teacup acrobatics Alice has added. ⚠️
In short: Alice makes it deliciously chaotic, but the heart of the story remains intact. Readers, enjoy the exaggerations - Alice is not allowed near serious historical literature without supervision.
- Pip
