Carol for Another Christmas by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Page A

not meeting all your obligations; terror of not providing the best Christmas pageant ever; terror of—heaven forbid!—not having your heart warmed in some way or significantly warming the hearts of your family with a monumental pile of gifts under a tree worthy of Martha Stewart.”
    â€œAnd don’t forget, Harald. Be fair,” Melody put in. “The retailers are terrified, too. In small, touristy towns throughout the land, they quake between tourist season and Christmas for fear the sales figures won’t be up during the holiday season and their businesses will, like, croak. Sometimes even the major stores overstock during the summer when locals avoid large population centers because they’re so full of tourists. So businesses entice customers downtown by appealing to the virtue of the customer who wants to shop early and avoid the Christmas rush by participating in the Christmas in July rush.”
    â€œFine institution,” Phillip said ruefully, going into the mall where little trays and tables of things were set out in front of stores. “Another good excuse to get rid of old merchandise during a sale and make way for the good stuff they get for the real Christmas. Also a way to get rid of old ornaments and seasonal items that didn’t sell last year.”
    Scrooge looked at the many beautiful beaded and sequined, quilted, and tufted ornaments, not to mention the handblown glass ones. They were lovely in design but rather poorly made. Each of them said, “China,” on a small white tag someplace on its surface. “I had no idea China was such a Christmassy place,” he confessed. “I thought it was wholly comprised of opium dens and sinister men with long mustaches and ladies with tiny, bound feet. And—er—dragons; that sort of thing.”
    Curtis rolled his eyes, but Miriam said soothingly, “Remember, he’s a Victorian Englishman, Curtis, and consider the source. The literature of the day was full of that stereotype, and I’ll bet Mr. Scrooge wasn’t exactly widely traveled.” She cocked an eyebrow at him.
    â€œI took the train to Manchester once,” he declared stoutly.
    â€œSee what I mean?” she told Curtis.
    â€œI’m not a complete dweeb, Miriam. I know that,” Curtis said. “It’s just that this kind of trash really annoys me, Scrooge.” He wasn’t talking about Scrooge’s words; he was holding up a Christmas ornament. “Do you know that a lot of this stuff for the holiday of joy and family and giving and warmth and all like that is made by slave labor? I had a cousin at Tiananmen Square . . .”
    Scrooge tried to look politely inquiring, and Melody leaned over and whispered in his ear, “There was a terrible massacre there where the students were protesting for democracy and the government troops shot them and ran over them with tanks.”
    â€œGood heavens,” Scrooge said, and was ashamed for having felt for so long that China, at least, was one place on earth where one did need to decrease the excess population. Apparently all he had heard about how little Chinamen valued life was untrue, for Curtis seemed most genuinely upset.
    â€œSome of those students have never come out of prison,” Curtis told him. “And they, along with other people in disfavor with the government for one reason or another, are locked up in factories no better than those of your own day and tortured and humiliated into mass-producing this sort of trinket.” He tossed the ball back into its basket. “I find it hard to believe anyone can get into such an altruistic mood as people are supposed to at Christmas when surrounded by junk made by slave labor.”
    â€œI do see your point, dear boy,” Scrooge said.
    â€œOh, hey, Curtis, all that altruism and joy is exaggerated, anyway. We all know that the suicide rate is higher at Christmas than other times.” This was