I have loved A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens ever since I was a child.  I know this is a common statement and there is a myriad of people who say the same.  As a post-World War II American, it’s common that I first experienced A Christmas Carol in an entertainment form well before ever reading Dickens’ great novella.  Actually, I had yet to learn more than beyond the alphabet the first time I saw A Christmas Carol.  But at the age of six, when I saw my first version, I was hooked.  It became and has remained my favorite Christmas story and it never gets old.  As I grew up and eventually read the novella, my love for the story was stronger (Dickens became and remains one of my favorite novelists although Evelyn Waugh is my all-time favorite English writer).  Along with it, my passion for adaptations only grew.  Whenever any version was broadcast on television, that was how I spent my time; it was one of the highlights during the Christmas season for me.

It was the VHS / VCR era, after I was finally able to get my first VCR, when I started my personal collection of various versions of A Christmas Carol.  Back then the average retail VHS movie cost $30 – 50 retail (or more!), which was a steep price at the time; so obviously, I was recording them as they were broadcast.  It was at that time I realized how many dramatizations there were.  As the cost of VHS movies steadily dropped, it was wonderful replacing my home-recorded broadcast versions with better quality retail ones.  What was even better was versions I had never seen before or were rarely shown began to become available!  It became an obsession to watch every version I could obtain during the season.  As my collection grew, it became hard to watch as many as I could when my free time would allow.  There were even times I would do marathon watching, viewing of one right after the other, on Christmas Eve and Day.  In all the years I’ve been doing this, attempting to watch them with a semblance of a plan is only recent.  I’m watching at least one a night starting at Advent (December 1st).

I am not a critic and have no wish to try to appear as one.  I will be briefly writing about each version I watch to convey my personal perceptions and opinions.  As I stated previously, this is a semblance of a plan. I have no predetermined order I will be viewing most versions, although I do have personal traditions of watching particular versions on Christmas Eve and Christmas night.