Is Christmas A Humbug?

In Dicken's Christmas Carol, the principle character, Ebenezer Scrooge, is famous for the phrase, Bah, Humbug! The word is also immortalized in the Wizard of Oz as the Scarecrow calls the revealed fake wizard a humbug.  The term means fake, false, deceptive or a hoax.  Ebenezer is rejected by his father after the death of his wife's giving birth to him.  He fills his life with money that is powerless to reject him.  Like his father, he rejects all forms of love, companionship, and family; rejecting them before they can do it to him.  In one of the staves or segments of the book, the husband of Belle, Ebenezer's former fiancee says he saw him in his counting house "all alone in the world."  It is said of Dickens , "His view of life was later to be described or dismissed as “Christmas philosophy,” and he himself spoke of “ Carol philosophy” as the basis of a projected work. His “philosophy,” never very elaborated, involved more than wanting the Christmas spirit to prevail throughout the year, but his great attachment to Christmas (in his family life as well as his writings) is indeed significant and has contributed to his popularity." (biography.com)  Christmas was a theme through many of Dickens stories and while his father was imprisoned for debt in England, Charles was forced out of school to work in a factory to help with the family and gained an understanding of the working class in England.  These events would find themselves as a basis for many of his characters and backdrops. 

Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?  (Mark 8:35-37 The Message)

Scrooge tried to save himself into prosperity and rejected mankind, even the least of man--the poor and destitute.  Scrooge is a picture of anyone who believes that self is more important than others.  Scrooge lost his way, perhaps because of his upbringing.  In contrast to the harshness of his father he was introduced to Fezziwig, who showed a young man the joy of fellowship and Christmas.  So who was the real fake--Fred, the nephew who continually welcomed his uncle to his home or Scrooge who saw everyone and everything Christmas related as a fraud?