Ebenezer Scrooge

Christmas comes with its own vocabulary. I thought it’d be fun to share the origin and meaning of some of the more popular phrases like this one.

Who wants to hear this phrase, which means disgust for the Christmas season?

Not me.

The phrase comes from Charles Dickens’ mean-spirited main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, who made the expression famous in A Christmas Carol.

We used to be hear those words around our house whenever the Christmas storage boxes came out and then the phrase reappeared when we undecorated and refilled the boxes back up.

One year when all the children we still at home and I was getting lots of bah, humbugs, I found the delightful little door knocker pictured above.

You press the ring, and it says bah, humbug in such a funny voice that you can’t keep from laughing aloud. Wish you could hear it I promise you would giggle.

I hung Scrooge in a prominent place and established the Bah, Humbug Rule. Instead of voicing the words, you had to press the knocker.

Infectious laughter quickly replaced the grumpy words.

Poor Scrooge got lots of use while all the children were home not so much because they felt disgust for the holiday, but more to share the laughter. That first year, I think we had to replace the batteries twice.

I continue to hang him every year for the same reason. He brings back fond memories and he makes me laugh.