Character ask: the crachit family excluding Bob and tiny tim from a Christmas carol
Favorite thing about them: What a loving, heartwarming family they are, how much joy they share at Christmas despite their poverty (it's no wonder that their humble yet happy Christmas dinner is one of the most iconic holiday scenes in all of literature), and how they support and comfort each other through the pain of Tiny Tim's death... or rather, how they would have if Scrooge's change of heart hadn't saved him. In the case of Mrs. Cratchit, I also like how unabashedly she despises Scrooge. Her husband Bob, of course, is the embodiment of goodwill who can't utter a word against him, so I'm glad that Dickens allows some righteous anger from her. It's annoying that the 1938 film cuts that part and has her cheerfully propose the toast to Scrooge instead – apparently, Hays Code-era Hollywood had more rigid ideas of how "the deserving poor" should behave than Dickens did.
Least favorite thing about them: Nothing about them personally. But if it's true that the Cratchits are idealized versions of John and Elizabeth Dickens and their children as they were during Charles's childhood (the oldest boy Peter corresponding to Charles himself), as Michael Patrick Hearn argued in The Annotated Christmas Carol, then it makes me a little sad to know that the real family was more dysfunctional than their fictional counterparts. But that has no bearing on how I view the characters.
Three things I have in common with them:
*Like Mrs. Cratchit, I can't stand greedy, hard-hearted people like pre-redemption Scrooge.
*I can make very good mashed potatoes and homemade applesauce.
Three things I don't have in common with them:
*I haven't lived in poverty.
*I've never tasted roast goose, though I'd like to.
From Mrs. Cratchit, in response to Bob's Christmas Day toast to Scrooge:
“The Founder of the Feast indeed! I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”
“I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s, not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!”
And following Tiny Tim's death in Christmas Yet to Come, her response to Peter's remark that Bob seems to have walked home more slowly lately:
“I have known him walk with—I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed... But he was very light to carry, and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble."
OTP: For Mrs. Cratchit, Bob. For the children, none until they're older.
nOTP: Each other, apart from Mrs. Cratchit and Bob.
Random headcanon: Peter Cratchit is the great-great grandfather of the Pevensie siblings in The Chronicles of Narnia and Peter Pevensie is named after him. Maybe this is a silly idea, since it only stems from the fact that they're both London families whose oldest sons happen to have the same name, but why not?
Unpopular opinion: I wish more adaptations would include all six Cratchit children from the book. Even some of the best adaptations reduce the number of children to five, four, or even three. I understand why this happens, since not all versions have the budget to include all six, but I always enjoy seeing them all. In the book, it's clear that the "two young Cratchits," the boisterous little boy and girl whose names are never mentioned, are a chief source of the family's Christmas cheer – probably because they're the most free to be lively, playful children, since Martha, Peter, and Belinda are more focused on helping their mother with the work of the feast, while Tiny Tim is too frail. Yet those two are the children who most often get the axe in adaptations, and I think that's a shame.
Song I associate with them:
"The Lord's Bright Blessing" from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.
"Bless Us All" from The Muppet Christmas Carol.
"Christmas Together" from A Christmas Carol: The Musical.
"Yes, There Is a Santa Claus" from The Stingiest Man in Town (the subject has no basis in the book, but it's a rare solo for Martha Cratchit that shows her being a sweet big sister to Tiny Tim).
Favorite pictures of them:
This illustration by Sol Eytinge Jr.:
This illustration by E.A. Abbey:
This vintage illustration:
This illustration by Roberto Innocenti:
From Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, 1962:
From the 1970 musical Scrooge:
From The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1992:
