Did you ever wonder what Christmas is like in the Trump White House?

Then he heard it. Heard it deep within the bowels of the White House, down in the levels of sub-basement that aren't even acknowledged to the public. Down beneath the Press Room, beneath the Situation Room, beneath the bunker: a clanking noise, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over long-lost national security apparatus. Trump protested out loud to steel his courage: "Fake! News! I won't believe it."

So begins our Christmas ghost story, reimagining Charles Dickens's immortal Ebenezer Scrooge as President Donald Trump. Readers will be struck by the contemporary relevance of the tale and delighted by the seamless blending of Dickens's original language with the current political landscape. Special hauntings by a trio of luminaries are sure to give a whole new meaning to the political zeitgeist.

May it haunt the republic and your home pleasantly this season!

Charles Dickens first published A Christmas Carol in 1843. The work has never since been out of print, with countless translations and stage adaptations. Many scholars contend that the modern Christmas festival celebrated around the world is profoundly shaped by Dickens’s description of the English Victorian holiday in A Christmas Carol and his other seasonal writings.

Today, A Christmas Carol is generally thought of as a tale of personal redemption, how one man finds his way back from cold avarice to the warmth of general sociability. However, when first written, it was as much a critique of society as it was of an individual. A Christmas Carol is a biting satire of Victorian England, where Malthusianism, the English Poor Laws, and soon-to-emerge Social Darwinism conspired to relegate the indigent of industrializing Britain to “another race of creatures.”

A Christmas Carol is my favorite book.  I have read it every Christmas season since my early teens, always finding it full of new surprises and rich with proverbial wisdom. By casting Donald Trump as Ebenezer Scrooge for A Capital Christmas Carol, I hoped to use satire, and hopefully humor, to explore what this man and his presidency means for our beloved republic. And, to hold out hope for both.

I tried to be as faithful as possible to the Spirit of the work and as generous as possible to its protagonist.   I hope neither Dickensians nor Republicans are put too terribly out of humor with me.

J.B. Mullen lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife and two daughters. Writing provides a pleasant distraction from his professional career in health care. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He is happiest when with his family near, on, or in a body of water.