It should be mandatory for oligarchs and other filthy rich people to watch Alastair Sim in the classic movie A Christmas Carol, based on the Charles Dickens novel. I can’t see how anyone could watch that film and not be moved and inspired by it.

“Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

That was Marley’s ghost in the tale lecturing Scrooge before he was to be visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve.

As Ingrid Van Mater wrote in a review of A Christmas Carol called Mankind Is Our Business, Marley’s words “stand as an eloquent expression of our grand human purpose.”

I think most people in the world get the message. And when they celebrate Christmas, that spirit is part of it for them, along with “peace on Earth, goodwill to men.”

With that in mind, I hope you are all touched by the spirit of Christmas.

Happy Holidays!

— Jillian