When Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, London was a virtual cesspool. The city's stench was overpowering because the science of sewage disposal involved dumping everything that stank in the Thames. There were rats everywhere and they were not spreading holiday cheer. If St. Nick gave the children anything for Christmas, it was probably cholera. 

 Children were forced to slave away in filthy workhouses. Food was crawling with maggots, which is only slightly less revolting than British cuisine is today. People threw feces out of their windows and then wondered why everybody was always sick.

Yet the Royal Family and the Peers of the Realm lived in obscene splendor.

So being a cynical curmudgeon was a sensible philosophy in Scrooge’s day. He was a realist, a man who understood the miserable, depraved nature of humanity. The affluent kids got ponies; the destitute got food poisoning. There was no reason for good cheer and clearly Jesus was AWOL. So yes, Christmas was indeed humbug.

It also made sense that Scrooge was a miser. Why? Because he was old. Eventually, he would likely fall victim to dementia and require expensive assisted living but, in those days, without money, one would be fated to spending one's golden years in a miserable rat-infested asylum.

But if anything symbolizes the pure inane folly of Christmas spirit in 1840s Britain it's the Cratchit family. 

Bob has a crippled son, barely enough food to feed a squirrel, a house so cold that everybody’s snot freezes, and a wife who should be hospitalized for inappropriate ebullience. Yet poor Bob suffers under the insane delusion that he's content.

"God bless us everyone?" Are you serious? Really? Do the plague-infested rats chewing at your ankles make it look like you're going to be blessed any time soon?