A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens --Book Group

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was the perfect choice for our book group meeting for December.  As a family we greatly enjoyed reading it.  Especially since Dad was finished with his school studies and he could join in the nightly readings too.  We had some great doctrine oriented discussions....and what makes a person 'good' type discussions too.

Rachel lead this discussion.  She read another book by Dickens, a short story entitled The Magic Fish-bone. This was delightful, full of many laughs, plus the kids got to see a litter side to Charles' writing style.

We learned that the sending of Christmas greeting cards began in the Victorian era.  Although wood engravers produced prints with religious themes in the European Middle Ages, the first commercial Christmas and New year's card is believed to have been designed and printed in London, England in the 1843, the same year that Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was published.  So, that's what we did. We recreated some beautiful Victorian styled Christmas cards.

The younger group spent some time talking about similarities and differences between the Cratchits and Alicia's family (from the Magic Fish Bone).  They also discussed how each of the ghost looked and if their appearances were meaningful and/or symbolic.  Of course we discussed what they learned...and Scrooge learned, from each of the 4 ghosts.  (Don't forget Marley was a ghost too!)

The older group had some fun during their discussion time  finding different literary devices that Dickens used in this book.  Metaphor, Simile, Hyperbole (Cailin's fav!) and Personification.  They also learned about the British money system before 1971.  Before decimalization in 1971, money was divided into pounds, shillings and pennies. Connor especially enjoyed figuring our how much money Bob Cratchit earned per year if he earned 15 bob per week.....not a whole lot!  that's for sure!

The ghost of Christmas present talked of many yummy things to eat. Filberts and Norfolk Biffins (which Rachel and Gayliegh  didn't know by name), were mentioned, so once they  found out that filberts are a type of nut and Norfolk Biffins were a type of apple, they just had to share baked apples for our cooking activity/treat.  (We weren't sure what they were either!)  Mmmmm, oh so scrumptious!  The sister missionaries even stopped by and we were able to share with them.  As the day was exceptionally cold and windy it was a great way to warm up....for all of us!

Now we're on to The Hobbit!