In September of 2025, President Trump signed NSPM-7, a national security directive aimed at instructing federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to combat what the administration sees as left-wing terrorism. Part of this entailed a list of indicators the administration claims lead to violence. Chief among these indicators were anti-capitalist and anti-Christian sentiments.¹

This puts A Christmas Carol in an awkward position.

Written by Charles Dickens in 1843, A Christmas Carol is one of the most adapted works of literature; even if one has never read the original novella they are almost certainly very familiar with the story. That there are so many adaptations that have been and continue to be made across all mediums and genres speaks to the enduring popularity of the core story. And that core story is incredibly critical of capitalism.

Ebenezer Scrooge is very much a capitalist. He is consumed with a need to collect more and more money, losing his fiancé in the process as he continually postpones their wedding until he can make just a little bit more. He views the world through the lens of transactions, other people only valuable insofar as they contribute to his accumulation of wealth. He is a miser, to such an extent that his name has itself become shorthand for a miserable person who cares for no one or nothing.

But A Christmas Carol is a story of redemption, where over the course of a Christmas Eve, Scrooge is haunted by the now well known ghosts of Christmas’ Past, Present and Future (as well as Marley, his already deceased business partner). And it is in this redemption that its messaging comes through.

A Christmas Carol comes across as a somewhat secular story, but that comes less from a desire to appeal to a broader audience and more from an assumption that the audience already understands the importance of Christmas as a Christian holiday. No one stops the story cold to explain the Nativity as Linus does is A Charlie Brown Christmas. Rather, Dickens takes a higher level view and focuses on the broader meaning of the season; generosity and good will towards others. The idea that we are made better by caring for one another. Jesus may not factor into the story, but Tiny Tim’s “God bless us, everyone” still gets across the idea that everyone, regardless of their station in life, is worthy of love. And it is this message that is the cornerstone of Scrooge’s transformation. A life lived for oneself is lonely and pointless. A life lived for others, a life of compassion and generosity, is by contrast filled with joy.

There is a fundamental incompatibility between the teachings most Christians profess to believe in and capitalist ideology, as illustrated by Dickens’ tale. To take NSPM-7 at face value, a sort of Catch-22 is presented. A Christmas Carol espouses anti-capitalist sentiments, but to ban it would itself be anti-Christian, so tied it is to the holiday of Christmas and the feelings it elicits. It lays bare the nonsensical aims of the Trump administration and the prevailing conservative ideology.

Of course, that is if you take it at face value. But as Kevin Kruse’s One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America details, American Christianity has long been subservient to capitalist ideals. “God helps those who help themselves” is a statement that appears nowhere in the Bible, yet that does not stop people from reciting it as if it were a bonus Commandment. It’s a prosperity gospel mentality, and it is meant to smooth over the cognitive dissonance one might feel in trying to reconcile these belief structures. Tying work ethic to morality was a hallmark of the Puritans and it carries all the way over to our present, where it provides a cover for people to refuse to help certain individuals or groups to maintain they are a Good Person.

Christmas may be a time of charity and good will towards all, but look at which traditions get priority in our popular culture. A Christmas Carol may be one of the most retold Christmas stories, but Santa is still the most prominent and iconic figure for most Americans. He dominates holiday pop-culture; even as numerous Christmas movies make the case that the holiday is about more than presents, even as there are always pleas to remember Jesus is the reason for the season from the pulpit, Santa remains. And with him, the mindset of presents under the tree. Gifts and things and the spending of money. I recognize this is starting to sound like any number of “Christmas has become so commercialized” spiels that have probably existed as long as the holiday has. But it is an apt illustration of the deliberate ties that have formed between capitalism and Christianity, and it is not an accident that Santa gets the spotlight.

It is not uncommon to hear people refer to Santa as a socialist or communist, what with the giving away presents for free. The number of “jokes” I have heard about Santa and free handouts is unfortunate. But this idea isn’t really accurate. For as much as we associate Santa with the giving of free gifts there is a deeper aspect at play. The traditions Santa evolved from, such as St. Nicholas, were not merely an excuse to give children toys. The naughty or nice aspect was taken seriously, with the event intended to evoke a miniature judgement day.² It was essentially training, a way to get children used to the idea of their actions being judged, just with the stakes reduced from their immortal soul to knick-knacks. Receiving a toy from St. Nick was literally a referendum on your morality, as was receiving sticks (or even a visit from Krampus) on your wickedness. Over time many of these edges have been sanded down, but even if it is largely window dressing at this point the concept of Santa giving gifts to “good” children has remained.

This issue is that (spoilers) Santa is not real. He does not actually have any power over whether a child receives presents. Instead that power resides with the income of the parents. Yet we still preserve the cultural myth of Santa, and with it the idea that all a child needs to do in order to get the toy they covet is to be “good.” The corollary then, is that a child who does not receive gifts (or even does not receive as many gifts as the other kids) is “bad.” The lack of toys is representative of a moral failing, and if only little Tommy or Susie had behaved better, they would have gotten more. It is the mantra of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps applied to children, internalizing the idea at a very young age that it is only the individual and not larger systemic influences that determine your circumstances.

(I do want to be clear; I am not saying that you are problematic or wrong if you do Santa with your kids. I was a kid too, its fun for them! But as with many things (especially those we enjoy) it is always worth examining and better understanding them. I don’t think you need to stop doing Santa with your kids, but maybe consider reigning back how much you do end up spending.)

This is part of what makes A Christmas Carol somewhat anomalous. Yes Scrooge does buy things for others at the end of the story in his reformed state, most prominently a turkey. But it is in service of a larger goal, one of community. The important part is not that he bought a turkey but that he joined Bob Cratchit for Christmas dinner, embracing the bond they share and promising to nurture it going forward. “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world,” Dickens writes in the closing paragraphs of the story. Scrooge’s reward comes from Embracing generosity and the human connection he had forgone for so long. A Christmas Carol is explicit in its belief that the best version of ourselves is one that shows compassion and charity for all. “God bless us, everyone.” The poor and downtrodden are not seen as unworthy, but rather those who deserve it most.

It is also what puts the story in tension with mainstream conservative thought, especially as that ideology continues to embrace authoritarianism ever more overtly. Community and connection breed empathy, and empathy makes authoritarian control more difficult. Feelings of isolation and insulation are much better suited for getting “us vs them” narratives to stick. For them, Christianity is not about any actual teachings but instead a label, a way to distinguish “you” from “them.” The nice from the naughty. Just as the number of presents a child receives can become a short hand for their virtue, so too does the perception of being “Christian.” So too does the belief in capitalism. This is the reason being critical of both are now being presented as indications of terrorism despite them being mutually exclusive when thought is put into it. It is a continuation of the project to link the two so that one need not feel bad for supporting a system that benefits an ever shrinking portion over the needs of everyone else.  God bless us, and only us. We are getting what we deserve, Santa double checked.

Were it written today A Christmas Carol would certainly be branded as woke, and I am sure that the next big adaptation that comes out will have those shots fired at it. For those in power the tension will always resolve in support of self-interest, and they will always seek to use labels or indicators to set themselves apart from everyone else. But this story has not endured for over a century and a half by being easy to dismiss. It has endured because its message applies to us, and all of us. It is a Christmas story, and thus technically a Christian one, but its application is not limited to that group. The best version of ourselves is one that cares for others with no asterisk attached. And this is the take away that is needed now, and is needed always.