有趣的聖誕故事

A Christmas Carol是查里士狄更斯的著作，中文叫做「聖誕鐘聲」。
小氣財神，或譯耶誕頌歌、聖誕頌歌.是查爾斯·狄更斯的聖誕系列小作品，1843年12月19日初版，由約翰·李奇（John Leech）負責插畫。狄更斯最初寫這本書的動機只不過是為了解決燃眉之急的債務，未料甫出版即造成轟動，於短短一周內狂售六千冊。[1]至今它已是史上最廣受喜愛的聖誕故事之一，在世界各地不斷地以各種語言再版，並多次被改編為電視劇、電影、及舞臺劇在聖誕季節播放演出，流行的程度歷久不衰。
該劇描寫一個吝嗇刻薄的守財奴史古基，如何在一夜間被源源不絕的靈異經歷所救贖的過程。全書分為五段：馬利的鬼魂、耶誕三精靈之一、耶誕三精靈之二、最後的精靈、終曲。
Plot summary
The story begins by establishing that Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner in "Scrooge & Marley," was dead—the narrative begins seven years after his death to the very day, Christmas Eve. Scrooge and his clerk Bob Cratchit are at work in the counting-house with Cratchit stationed in the poorly heated "tank," a victim of Scrooge's stinginess. Scrooge's nephew Fred comes in to wish his uncle a "Merry Christmas" and invite him to Christmas dinner the next day. He is dismissed by Scrooge. Two portly gentlemen collecting charitable donations for the poor, come in right after, but they are rebuffed by Scrooge. At the end of the workday Scrooge grudgingly allows Cratchit to take Christmas Day off, but to be all the earlier to work on the day after.

Scrooge leaves the counting-house and eventually returns to his home, an isolated townhouse formerly owned by his late business partner, Jacob Marley. In keeping with his miserly character, Scrooge lives in a small suite of largely unfurnished rooms within the house which he keeps dark and cold. While he unlocks his door Scrooge is startled to see the ghostly face of Marley instead of the familiar appearance of his door knocker. Marley has come to warn Scrooge that his miserliness and contempt for others will subject him to the same fate Marley himself suffers in death, condemned to walk the earth in penitence since he had not done it in life in concern for mankind. A prominent symbol of Marley's torture is a heavy chain wound round his form that has attached to it symbolic objects from Marley's life fashioned out of heavy metal: ledgers, money boxes, keys, and the like. Marley explains that Scrooge's fate might be worse than his because Scrooge's chain was as long and as heavy as Marley's seven Christmases ago when Marley died, and Scrooge has been adding to his with his selfish life. Marley tells Scrooge that he has a chance to escape this fate through the visitation of three more spirits that will appear one by one. Scrooge is shaken but not entirely convinced that the foregoing wasn't a hallucination, and goes to bed thinking that a good night's sleep will make him feel better.

At one o'clock in the morning the first spirit appears and introduces himself to Scrooge as The Ghost of Christmas Past. This spirit leads Scrooge on a journey into some of happiest and saddest moments of Scrooge's past. These include the mistreatment of Scrooge by his uncaring father, the loss of a great love sacrificed for his devotion to business, and the death of his sister, the only other person who ever showed love and compassion for him.

Visions provided by the second spirit, The Ghost of Christmas Present, show him the meagre Christmas celebrations of the Cratchit family, the sweet nature of their crippled son, Tiny Tim, and a possible early death for the child; this prospect is the immediate catalyst for his change of heart. They also show the faith of Scrooge's nephew in his uncle's potential for change, a concept that slowly warms Scrooge to the idea that he can reinvent himself.

The visit of the third spirit, The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a grim spectre much more frightening that the other spirits, harrows Scrooge with visions of the Cratchit family bereft of Tiny Tim, of Scrooge's own lonely death and final torment, and the cold, avaricious reactions of the people around him after his passing. Without explicitly being said, Scrooge can avoid his own fate, and that of Tiny Tim – but only if he changes.

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