One hundred and sixty-six years ago today, Nov. 17, 1843, a novella about a miserly, cold, hard-hearted curmudgeon and his spiritual deliverance after being visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve was published. The dickens, you say?

“Family life is full of major and minor crises — the ups and downs of health, success and failure in career, marriage and divorce — and all kinds of characters. It is tied to places and events and histories. With all of these felt details, life etches itself into memory and personality. It’s difficult to imagine anything more nourishing to the soul.”

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas doesn’t come from a store? What if Christmas perhaps, means something more?”
— Dr. Seuss

“A woman’s work is never done as ye song says, and happy She whose strength holds out to the end…” So wrote Martha Ballard in her journal on Nov. 26, 1785.