If you think of the beloved song "White Christmas," you might like to remember that it was written by a Jewish man who all but dominated the American music milieu from the '20s through the '50s.
Christmas movies are a genre unto themselves: between live-action and animated features, there are literally hundreds of titles out there. Inevitably, some are pretty bad, others amusingly cheesy.
It's never too late to make things right in the world and try to be better people and, most importantly of all, pay your blessings forward.
The film was not only the perfect remedy for my blues, but I came out of the theater convinced that I had just seen the truest, most honest, and thus, best Christmas movie ever made -- an opinion I have never swayed from.
Books remind us, again and again, that we are not alone in the world. We are not alone in suffering heartache, questioning purpose, searching for justice, or defining meaning.
For the past 27 years Michael Elkins has directed and starred in "The Gift" at Notre Dame University in Belmont, Calif. It plays for just nine shows, eight of which are free to the public. In lieu of purchasing tickets, audience members bring food and toys to be donated locally.
While Fox News is perpetuating the war on Christmas, Jon Stewart is putting an end to it by exploring the true meaning of the season. As the "Daily Sh...
For reasons I can no longer remember, I instead decided to write a parody of A Christmas Carol. The best I can recollect is that a novella would be short enough to be manage.
When I found out I was having twins, I realized I'd need all kinds of help. I read parenting books, registered for two of all the "must-haves" and selected the pink and blue layette. But the best preparation I did was building a team of "mom mentors."
My Christmas wish is that someone uses a Dickens or Jacob Marley connection to help our elected officials with their much-needed wake-up calls. I think a visit from a few ghosts who could show them the past, present, and future might be in order.
If you're already feeling sick of Christmas, we've got the supercut that gives voice to your disgust. Here's almost every possible version of Ebenezer...
The Gift is created by a volunteer cast and crew. Costumes have been gathered, and kept, sets been added to over the years. This is perhaps the greatest gift of theater I have ever witnessed. But how does it work?
As I sat down to watch South Coast Rep's fine production of "A Christmas Carol," it occurred to me that there are twelve days of Christmas and twelve steps in a recovery program. What better framework, then, with which to revisit the show than as a Yuletide rehab story set in Victorian England?
Reflection, small acts of kindness, and ultimately, transformation are just three of the lessons offered in Dickens' A Christmas Carol. On my own reflection, I'm convinced it was that transformed character of Scrooge that my old friend was thinking of when she gave me that tiny statue of Scrooge so many Christmases ago.
In my opinion, there can never again be anything as magical as Christmastime during my childhood in the 70's. Sure, every kid dreamed about the toys and presents they hoped to receive, but it was so much more than that.
Every season it's delightfully unavoidable. It's on for 24-hours, and you watch it at least twice. It's kind of heroin for holiday spirit. Why wouldn't you want to see the leg lamp again? Bunny pajamas. The tongue on the pole. You'll shoot your eye out, kid.
"Scrooge & Marley," is a modern adaptation of Charles Dickens's holiday classic, "A Christmas Carol," due to hit theaters later this month. While the ...
"What if [fathers] could only pass down one thing -- one book, movie, album or work of culture -- for their sons or daughters to treasure the same way...
The story maker penetrates our skulls and seizes control of our cognitive and emotional machinery. Here are some examples of stories that have changed the world--in big ways and small, in good ways and bad.
It isn't easy keeping an open heart in the face of greed and arrogance in an environment that does not support and respect you, but holding on to a wider vision of life can be transformative and healing.
It's been 168 years since Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol to illustrate the horrific living conditions of the English poor and promote the true nature of Christmas. If Dickens were still alive, he'd be compelled to update his tale.
At some point in its history, Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' stopped being just a book and became a Christmas experience, a force of its own, br...
In the fall of 1843, a British novelist found himself facing financial uncertainty. Although his previous novels had sold moderately well, his family bills were mounting and the mortgage was due.
From those that missed the mark on the tube, to those that aimed to be holiday blockbusters at the theater but ended up being holiday busts, the one thing they all have in common is that they succeed in being bad in their own special ways.
When I was a child in the 1950s, Christmas glowed. My parents didn't have much money to spend at Christmastime, but being poor didn't really matter al...
