Inspired by A Christmas Carol
The Ghost of Christmas Present
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A Christmas Carol art prints
Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks in 1843, and it has belonged to Christmas ever since. My print is the warmest moment in it, made with AI image tools and art-directed by me in the style of an Edwardian gift-book illustration.
Prints from A Christmas Carol
The story behind the scene
In Stave Three, Scrooge wakes to a blaze of light from the next room and a voice calling him in. His own dull room has been transformed: holly, mistletoe and ivy on every wall, a roaring fire, and heaped up like a throne turkeys, geese, puddings, oranges and bowls of punch. On it sits "a jolly Giant, glorious to see", the Ghost of Christmas Present. Dickens dresses him in a simple deep green robe trimmed with fur, bare-footed, with a holly wreath on his head and an antique scabbard at his side with no sword in it, rusted. I loved getting him right, in green rather than Father Christmas red. He lives for one day only, and by the end of the stave he has grown old. That night Scrooge sees how the Cratchits keep Christmas.
Who is the Ghost of Christmas Present?
He is the second of the three spirits who visit Scrooge in Stave Three, and he stands for the generosity of Christmas as it is being kept that very day. He takes Scrooge to see the Cratchits' small, happy dinner, his nephew Fred's party, and people keeping Christmas in the hardest places: miners on a moor, the keepers of a lighthouse, sailors at sea. He lives for one day only and grows old as the night goes on. At the end he opens his robe to show two wretched children clinging to him. "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both."
Gifts for A Christmas Carol fans
For the Dickens reader, a hallway that gets dressed every December, or anyone who watches a Christmas Carol every year without fail. Leave a little extra time for delivery in December. Unframed A4 prints start at £19.99.
Questions
- What does the Ghost of Christmas Present look like?
- Dickens describes a jolly giant in a deep green robe bordered with white fur, bare-footed, with a holly wreath on his head and an empty, rusted scabbard at his side.
- Which part of the book is he in?
- Stave Three, the third of the five staves.
- Why is the ghost green and not red?
- Dickens wrote him in green. Red came later, with modern Father Christmas.
- Who are the children under the Ghost of Christmas Present's robe?
- Two children called Ignorance and Want. Dickens uses them to warn Scrooge, and his readers, about the poverty around them.
- What is the Ghost of Christmas Present supposed to be?
- The spirit of Christmas as it is lived now: plenty, warmth and sharing, and a reminder of those who have none.