Tells the story of the solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by the three ghosts of Christmas. This title also includes: "The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton", and the short story from "The Pickwick Papers" on which "A Christmas Carol" was based. After reading the Christmas Carol, the notoriously reclusive Thomas Carlyle was "seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality" and threw not one but two Christmas dinner parties. The impact of the story may not always have been so dramatic but, along with Dickens other Christmas writings, it has had a lasting and significant influence upon our ideas about the Christmas spirit, and about the season as a time for celebration, charity and memory.