The language around Christmas is usually pretty treacly, as befits the season. But future writers should remember that one of the amazing things about the holiday's ur-text, Charles Dickens's 1843 novella, "A Christmas Carol," is that it's pretty grim, that is to say realistic, when it comes to depicting Scrooge's past and Tiny Tim's present. Without Dickens's eye and ear for extreme emotional and fiscal predicaments…
