A FRIEND of mine used to say that he longed to begin Christmas Day by throwing open his bedroom window and shouting: "I haven't missed it! The spirits did it all in one night!"

For anyone who thinks that's really inexplicable behaviour, I should point out that it's a reference to A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol is, of course, one of our best-loved stories at this time of year. Scrooge has been played in various media by Seymour Hicks, Reginald Owen, Alistair Sim, Albert Finney, Laurence Olivier, George C Scott, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart and - just to complete the line-up of greats - Ross Kemp. I heard they've even done a book of it.

Why do we still love this story more than 150 years after it was first published? Clearly there must be something in there that still speaks to us.

For one thing, I can't help thinking there's a management textbook hiding in it somewhere. Scrooge is an employer whose business is clearly performing well when you look at the bottom line, but he's storing up industrial-relations problems by refusing to put more coal on the fire.

This is not a guy who is running a final-salary pension scheme.

You may remember that the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge back to the days when his own boss, Fezziwigg, would throw lavish Christmas Eve parties, where "there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer".

As Scrooge himself acknowledges, it isn't the money that Fezziwigg spent that makes the difference, but the fact that everyone knew he had "the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome". (Of course, Fezziwigg was lucky he wasn't followed around by an Inland Revenue inspector saying "Hmm ... cold roast, cold boiled, mince-pies, beer... if this cost more than fourpence a head, it's taxable.")

Perhaps more importantly, A Christmas Carol is the perfect riposte to all those people who complain about Christmas - that it's too commercialised, that too much fuss is made over it and so on. Dickens, a man who had known both poverty and success in his young life, was kicking against the puritans of his age.

But most of all, the story of Scrooge beguiles us with the unfashionable, but surely heart-warming, message that no one is irredeemably bad, and that it's worth thinking charitably about even the most unpleasant people you come up against.

What's more, Bob Cratchit turns out to be right. Scrooge turns into a different person once he has had the chance to sort out some issues about his past and talk them through. The three spirits are therapists really, only they don't charge by the hour.

So, this Christmas as every Christmas, I think it's worth re-reading Dickens' story and reflecting on how relevant it still seems.

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, pass me another mini-Snickers bar and the Radio Times. It's nearly Christmas.

First published: December 22