Deseret Book version of A Christmas Carol

Ebenezer Scrooge is a wealthy Mormon man who has spent most of his life focusing his time and energy on earning more money for his family, including his youngest son, Bob, who Scrooge feels is a spendthrift. Bob has several children, but he spends most of his time with his disabled son Tim. After Bob nearly lost his house, Ebenezer had to buy it for him and now allows him to live there for free. Ebenezer also gave Bob a job at his business, but is constantly docking his pay because he isn’t working full-time. He takes nearly every afternoon off and most Fridays, as well. Ebenezer doesn’t know how he has managed to have such a lazy son and is embarrassed most Sundays when Bob and his family come to his ward for church and they are badly dressed and don’t seem to have spent much time on hygiene.

On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer prepares to give Bob and his family the “gift” of an “accounting” of all the things he’s paid for during the year, and a warning that if Bob doesn’t start contributing more to the company and to the church, he’s going to fire him and call social services to take the children to foster homes, where they’ll be cared for properly by upstanding Mormon parents. He doesn’t look forward to doing this, but it’s the only step he can take, he thinks, to help Bob become a more responsible parent and to show a better example for his children. Bob doesn’t even pay tithing or fast offerings, and continues to take ward funds to help pay for food and clothing and medical bills for Tiny Tim, who is a cute kid whose smiles seem to melt the hearts of all the ward members.

But Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by a series of “spirits.” The first spirit is his long-deceased father, who comes to remind Scrooge of all the mistakes that he made in his early years as a parent, how many times he yelled at Bob and made him feel small, as well as that important occasion when his first business went bankrupt and his own father bailed him out. He sees his past self when his dearly departed wife nearly left him, packing her bags and preparing the children to leave because he didn’t spend enough time with them and she thought they’d be better off with a father who wasn’t always trying to earn more money than they could ever spend. Ultimately, she stayed because he came home before she left and promised her that he would prove to her that she was more important to him than anything else—a promise that he didn’t keep.

Scrooge thinks about his past as he waits for the second spirit, who is his stake president. His stake president takes Scrooge on a magical visit through the stake, where Scrooge gets to see the many Mormons who are struggling on Christmas Eve. One man is considering taking his own life because he is suffering from untreated depression. A woman is weeping because she has just received an eviction notice from the landlord and Christmas will be very slim. A child is praying to God for just one thing: for his parents not to get divorced. And then Scrooge goes to his son Bob’s house and sees that Bob’s family is happy. They are taking all their presents to the local homeless shelter to share with children there. Tim says “We don’t need anything else. We have each other.” Scrooge sees Bob carrying Tim everywhere and realizes that Tim really needs his father with him more than he had imagined.

The third spirit comes, this time the spirit of Bob’s grandson, born to Tim in the future. The child shows Scrooge the poverty that Tim will live in once his father is gone, but how Tim is a doting father to his son. They live in a bad neighborhood in a rat-infested apartment, but they are kind to everyone they meet and Tim is working to make the world a better place by being an advocate in court for poor families who are behind on their rent. When Scrooge goes back to his own time, he has changed completely. He doesn’t need money anymore and he doesn’t want to spend all his time in his business. His wife is gone, but his children aren’t, and his grandchildren need him. He calls his business partner to sign the day-to-day business dealings over to him, with the proviso that Bob will always have a place there, then goes to spend Christmas with Bob and Tim and brings nothing at all with him, because he knows they don’t need his gifts. They only need his love.