Is there a term for a grandma who buys her LEGO-crazed grandson a set that she fully intends to keep, once built? (He will, of course, be welcome to visit it any time he likes.)

I sprung the challenge on Cameron during our Thanksgiving get-together on Saturday.

His response was almost poetic:

Goose! If you buy it, I’ll build it!

Within minutes, our Master Builder was hard at work, with his trusty sidekick, Papaw, at the ready. (Farmer Gary has engaged in LEGO servitude whenever requested over the years, as all three of our sons – with gleaming eyes – popped open new boxes of building materials.)

But first, I wanted to explain the story of A Christmas Carol to Cam. His Great-Great Grandpa Vayo was a big fan of Charles Dickens, and A Christmas Carol was among his favorites.

Cameron quickly recognized the storyline: “Goose! Do you mean Bah Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas? I love that movie!”

I’m not sure the lad is ready to credit Mr. Dickens with coming up with the story of Ebenezer Scrooge just yet, but he sorted through the LEGO pieces with great enthusiasm.

“Goose!” (I love that he calls me Goose – and uses it quite often.)

“Goose! Could you find this little guy’s legs?”

I explained to him that the little guy’s name was Tiny Tim and that he was a sick child who wasn’t getting the medical care he needed because Ebenezer Scrooge didn’t pay Tim’s daddy enough to afford … gulp … healthcare.

As we found Tiny Tim’s legs and snapped them on, Cameron expressed his concern for the little fellow.

I took him through the story of the three ghosts (“Goose! I know them! They’re the Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future!”). We finished up with the “Ghost of Christmases Yet To Come,” when Mr. Scrooge realized he had an opportunity to make a positive change.

As Cameron and Gary worked for the next several hours, adding a crutch to Tiny Tim’s miniscule hand and completing the diorama for our library, the irony weighed on me. We think of “Dickensian” as representing poor social conditions during the Victorian era, and yet here we are, with Congress once again battling over healthcare.

It took a nine-year-old child to remind me how far we’ve yet to go. From A Christmas Carol‘s launch in 1843 to our current times, the world is still full of Scrooges, with far too many Tiny Tims struggling to survive.

Humbug!

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