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A Thanksgiving Carol

Album: Gold Audio 12: At Home and Abroad

Episode: 173

Lesson/Theme: Thanksgiving: being thankful.

Bible Verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Characters: Bernard, Connie, Eugene, Whit

Writer: Phil Lollar

Sound Designer: Dave Arnold

Original Air Date: November 23, 1991

Last Air Date: November 27, 2009

Description:
Eugene and Connie are in the midst of yet another disagreement, this time about Thanksgiving. Eugene believes that, in this modern age, God isn’t at all part of the holiday. Connie feels just the opposite. They both go to Whit to settle the matter. He does resolve things, by agreeing with Eugene! Whit explains that many people don’t associate Thanksgiving with God. To most people, the holiday is just a lot of good food, a day off from work, football games, and a parade on TV. But Whit has a plan to change all that, via a Kid’s Radio production of “The Thanksgiving Carol,” an adaptation of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” The characters are all similar: the miserly money-lender Ebenezer Stooge, who has a stony heart and a mind dulled from greed; his overworked clerk Bob Wretched, who makes barely enough to feed his wife and 10 children; Teeny Tom, Wretched’s crippled youngest son; the haunting Jacob Arley, Ebenezer’s late partner who bears the chains he forged in life (and sounds suspiciously like a long-lost AIO character); and Terence Clodbody, the ghost of Thanksgiving past, present, and future. Through their actions, Stooge learns the true meaning of Thanksgiving, including to whom we’re all giving thanks. God bless us, every one!

Questions:
Why did Eugene think God has nothing to do with Thanksgiving? Was he right? Why or why not? Why do you think some people would like to permanently take God out of Thanksgiving? What are some other holidays in which God is no longer an important part? How can you focus on Him during those special days?