Article December 23, 2002 Issue

Capturing hearts year after year

By Elaine K. Lang

Why do people reread Dickens's A Christmas Carol every year? Why do children, and adults, like How the Grinch Stole Christmas! enough to read or watch it every December? Why are thousands of videos of It's a Wonderful Life sold each year? What is it about stories like these that captures hearts year after year?

Of course the authors deserve credit for imaginative storytelling and great characters. Classics have earned their places of honor on bookshelves and in film libraries. But what is it that's so special in particular about these three very different examples? The answer, I think, goes much deeper than the successful creation of a Christmas scene. And they don't even have a religious message, per se. But each of these three stories does include a spiritually significant element. Redemption.

In all three stories, the main character overcomes bitterness, discouragement, cruel cynicism, and a sense of futility, which threaten to crush out joy and the love of life.

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