DEAR EBENEZER

To be opened on the 25th December, 1840

Dear Ebenezer,

I am writing to you as a young man from my school boarding house hoping this letter finds you in good health (and wealth!) as an old man, presuming you have managed to survive the endless, merciless winters here in England that always seem so viciously cold.

It really is bitingly cold here today in this old school room and colder still for the lack of surrounding human bodies usually in attendance to warm these austere spaces, though strange it may seem I find myself becoming increasingly adapted to the climate - you might say I've made it my friend.

Speaking of friends, I don't wish to alarm you but I've often found I've maintained communications with those strange voices that visited me as a child and have continued to keep me good company though I'm loathe to tell anyone about them but you whom I know I can trust implicitly. I've heard too many grim tales of sanatoriums and I have no plan to visit one if I can surely help it. No, I shall keep these 'friends' secret and hope that they don't prey upon me so often that I lose all sense of what is real and what is not.

At this present moment, I like to imagine myself much later in life more well adapted to hardship and never prone to seeking sympathy as a victim, which I hate! I shall never seek sympathy for what, or whom, does me wrong, neither shall I offer sympathy to those searching for it in me as if it's expected or guaranteed. Man must make his own good fortune, don't you think? Yes, in some ways I'm grateful that I have this solitude in mid-winter to reflect on what I don't have currently that others do - warm company, good cheer, ebullient laughter. This cold in the air I sense is seeping into my soul and making me far stronger than the weak people I see around me. I vow to you, Mr Scrooge, that I will ensure you have no reason to have any regrets later in life. You will have all that a man can desire including a dutiful, loyal wife, a gathering of children and possibly friends (just so long as they can be trusted).

Vaguely in the background I hear a distant choir singing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' and I must say it warms the heart to hear it carry from so far away where I'm seated, at my desk, writing these words to you.

Now, I shan't write much more other than to say a very Merry Christmas to you, old man and hope you now note how well this letter from your past has aged, like a vintage wine.

Never forget, life, though it may be hard, is always abundant in opportunity to defy its endless misery.

Warmest regards,

Ebenezer

25th December, 1798