Town House

Pickles
$ 239 39
‘Sea Trader Smoked
Oysters
$ 1°: 09;
Tomato

Juice

v-8 un
fuice

Sweet Mix

Cucumber Chips

Baby Dills

J Litre .........22 20

104g.....-

Genuine Japanese

Mandarin

Oranges
PRICED RIGHT
Al SAFEWAY

In-Store Bakery Specials |

FRENCH

95°
269°

Seasons greetings from
all the staff at Safefoay

Caesar’s

Crab Meat Cocktail
$349

Town Resse Pitted

Black Olives
$ 1 39

Edwards

Coffee
$629

Large or Small
398 mL.......---

Frozen

$2.18 kg 99°

WHILE STOCKS LAST!

Maraschino

Cherries

Bulk
Chocolates

McLaren's
375 mL ..

T-Bone Steaks

Grade A
Beef

58.80...

* 6/90° |

KAISER

$3°9 |

Oranges
21"?

) Bulk
Peanuts

sachet 28° ,
E penn tog

Lucerne Gourmet

Town House
284 mi tin ..

Sotewey. Regula
thick sited. $00 g pke

Shrimpmeat

2 | 8 5 ° Christmas Shopping are 1984

ACCOUNT”
& Paid Monthly —

Kootenay

Credit Union

Christmas comes to Castleg
i a
#

SNOW COVERED...
Christmas is only two
days away and there is
little doubt Castlegar

residents will wake toa

whi hristmas. Snow
gives everything a
magical aura including
CP Rail tracks and
station (left), afence
(top) and tree (right)

Coshews Photos by Ron Nermen

SUNDAY TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY] THURSDAY

FRIDAY |SATURDA

23 25

CLOSED CLOSED

26 28 | 29

9a.m.

30 1

CLOSED CLOSED

For More Savings See Flyer in Last Sunday's Paper!
Prices effective through Monday, Dec. 24 in your
friendly, courteous Castlegar Safeway Store.

Tues., Wed.

Monday
8:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. CLOSED 9a.

We reserve the right to limit sales to retail quantities

Thursday & Friday
. to 9 p.m.

Saterday
9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

CANADA SAFEWAY LIMITED

MYSTICAL LOVE
AFFAIR WITH
THE ‘CAROL

“The lovely legends of the day; the stories and the
songs and the half-fairy lore that gather around it; the
ancient traditions of dusky woods and mystic rites; the
magnificence and simplicity of Christian observance
from the Pope in his triple tiara, borne upon his portative
throne in gorgeous state to celebrate pontifical high mass
at the great high altar of St. Peter's, to George Herbert
humbly kneeling at his rustic church at Bemerton . . . the
lighting of Christmas trees and the hanging up of
Christmas stockings, the profuse giving, the happy family
meetings, the dinner, the game the dance — they are all
the flower and fruit of Christmas. For Christmas is the
day of days which declares the universal human
consciousness that peace on earth comes only from good
will to men.” Geo. W. Curtis

For over 50 years now, I, and I suspect many like me,
have been carrying on a kind of mystical love affair with
that fragile but immortal fable, that sentimental but
sensitive, simple but profound little tale by Charles
Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

When Dickens published it on Dec. 17 1843 he
regarded it as a ‘pot boiler,’ a quick means, in the right
season to make a little extra money. He wrote of it lightly
in his preface to the book:

“I have endeavored in this ghostly little book, to
raise the ghost of an Idea which will not put my readers
out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the
season, or with me. May it haunt their house pleasantly,
and no one wish to lay it.”

To the author's surprise the book was an instant
success and has, for almost one and a half centuries in
numerous editions, many translations and scores of
interpretations on stage screen and cartoon, some good,
some awful, and one or two excellent — continued to
tough many a heart at Christmas time. Like that other
“quickie,” the Messiah, it not only touched some
fundamental chord in the concept of Christmas but in
some subtle ways has modified our manner of its
celebration, an] made itself a very part of the language of
the season.

I have read the “Carol” at least 40 times, always at
Christmas, and never miss any new presentation. Still, I
get as much pleasure from it as I did on that very first
reading so many years ago, for it has both an immortality
of emotions, and an upsurge of hope and optimism which
will not be extinguished. a special joy in life and living
which will not be extinguished

Dickens is a master craftsman, and one never ceases
to learn from his example. Try. for example, reading
aloud that opening description of the main character:

John Charters .
Reflections

& recollections

“Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone.
Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping.
etutching old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint. from whom
no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and
self-contained as an oyster .

I am sure that if Diekens had taken the time to
rewrite the “Carol” he would have found occasion to give
greater depth to some of the characters, including
Serooge, as Alaistair Sim did in that best of all-time, 1951
black and while British film version of the story, when he
appeared as the very epitome of Scrooge.

I am sure that he could have fieshed out some of the
scenes, created a little more dramatic impact, for nothing
is perfect. But there are so many scenes which are a joy
forever that such complaints are pin-pricks. One of my
favorites is the Fezaiwig ball which begins ever so quietly

AFAVORITE... The
Fezziwig ball is one of
the scenes which makes
Charles Dickens A
Christmas Carol a
pleasure to read

when the Spirit of Christmas Past brings Scrooge to the
Fezziwig warehouse, then spirals:

“The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door and
asked Scrooge if he knew it!

“ ‘Know it! said ‘Was | apprenticed here?

“They went in at sight of an old gentleman in a Welch
wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been
two inehes taller he must have knocked his head against
the ceiling. Scrooge eried in great amazement:

“ "Why, it’s old Pezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezzi
wig alive againf ”

“Old Fesziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the
lock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his
hands, adjusted his eapacious waistcoat; laughed all over

The action then expands to the two apprentices and
the whirlwind preparations for the ball; expands still
more with the arrival of the fiddler who tunes up “like 50
stomachaches,” expands still more with the arrival of
Mrs. Fezziwig, “one vast substantial smile,” and the three
Miss Fezziwigs, “beaming and lovable,” and finally the
arrival of all the varied company, “some shyly. some
boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing,
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all
went, 20 couples at once

It is a scene of pure joy in five short pages and |
never tire of reading it.

The moral — for Dickens was ever the Victorian — is
buried in the end, in the conversation between the Ghost
of Christmas Past and Scrooge, talking about Fezziwig:

“Why! Is it not? He has spent a few pounds of your
mortal money three or four, perhaps. It is so much that he
deserves this praise?”

Scrooge answers: “It isn't that, Spirit. He had the
power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our
service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that
his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and
insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ‘em up:
what then? The happiness is quite as great as if it cost a
fortune.”

Then there is the dark side — the two children,
“wretched, abject, frightful hideous, miserable,” hidden
beneath the cloak of the Spirit of Christmas Present

“Spirit are they yours?” asks Scrooge

“They are man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon
them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their
fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware
them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware
of this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is
Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the
Spirit stretching out its hand toward the city

On second thought, the basic truths — good and bad

don’t seem to have changed in 141 years after all

The last chapter; “The End of It,” and the changed
and happy totally Scrooge “giddy as a drunken man.” is a
part of the essential happy ending. even though I suspect
it may oceur more often than our cynicism allows. but it
is always a joy to read

Some of my readers may have seen the latest TV
version of A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott in
the Scrooge role. As one reviewer noted, it was more
faithful to the original than the Alistair Sim version and
beautiful to look, but it lacked the romance, the essential
magic

Once again I must admit, the British produce superb
character actors. The Scott version is good. though. and I
would certainly recommend seeing it if you have the
chance, for any good “Carol” is worth seeing at this time
of the year

If you have a copy |. the book at home. I would

himself, from his shoes to his organ of ; and
called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat jovial wate
“Yo, ho therel Ebenezer! Dick’

reading it aloud. It is wonderful enter
tainment for the holiday season, and would make a very
special kind of gift to romantics of all ages in the family