In “A Christmas Carol” Dickens describes Scrooge this way:

“Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!  Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.  The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.  A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.  He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.  No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.”

Doesn’t 2020 feel this way? My daughter sent me a meme about how we actually got out on New Year’s Eve banged pots, lit fireworks and cheered for this year. And what did it get us? Disease, disaster and mayhem. Personally, I’m sick of my dog staring at me in expectation. We’re not doing anything! This is it! Traveling from the kitchen to the living room IS our vacation, got it?

But it has been a good year too. My second son got married to a beautiful bride, my parents got a new puppy. I finished a book I’ve been working on for ages and I’m starting a new one. My daughter graduated from cosmetology school. I’ll admit, it’s hard to remember the good times in the midst of being locked down and when going to Wal Mart feels like a science fiction movie, but we are blessed. Let us not forget. Scrooge was redeemed. Maybe 2020 will be also…

Dixie is a Cocker Spaniel, born in Missouri now residing in California.