Word crawl/A Christmas Carol Word Crawl

Write 100 words because Jacob Marley was dead to begin with. Dead as a doornail. You must write that many words to believe he is dead and you must believe he is dead or the rest of this story cannot come to pass.
A year ago this Christmas, will be the first anniversary of his death, so write 365 words to count the days since his passing. The miserly old Ebenezer Scrooge, who was his partner in life, has taken over his share of the business in death and has therefore seen fit to hire a man of unquestionable character -- Bob Cratchit.
Begrudgingly, however, he also decided to hire you as his more close and personal assistant. Though he little thinks he can afford it-- you make yourself useful and prove yourself worthy of the extra salary he pays by writing all the words he tells you to.
On that fine Christmas Eve morn, the office is colder inside than the snowy weather outside, and you and Bob Cratchit are freezing your tails off. Scrooge turns his attention to you, bidding you write 150 words because he’s busy counting his money.
 
Bob Cratchit, seeing his opportunity, goes to grab coal for your collective fire-- but Scrooge sees him with the eyes in the back of his head.
“MR. Cratchit!” Scrooge shakes his boney finger at him, “What do you mean by this, stealing my coal from me?”
“Well, Mr. Scrooge, we’re awfully cold in the office. We thought maybe just a few pieces of coal to feed the fire…”
Scrooge, however, is having none of it, demanding that for your impertinence that you both sprint for fifteen minutes to warm your fingers up.
That’s when Scrooge’s dear nephew, Fred, comes through the door. “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Uncle, he hangs a wreath inside of the office, “AND HOW ARE YOU THIS FINE SEASON?”
“Bah Humbug!” Scrooge says, “Christmas indeed. What money does it put in anyone’s pocket? If I had my way every fool who goes around with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”
Since you, secretly, celebrate Christmas, pick one:
Buried with a stake of holly through your heart: Do a Carrot and Stake challenge.
Boiled in your own Christmas pudding: Complete a Fifty Headed Hydra
Fred, however, has none of it, crying out, “IT IS THE ONE TIME OF SEASON WHEN MEN AND WOMEN ALL COME TOGETHER TO BE JOYOUS AND TO BE GOOD AND CHARITABLE TO ONE ANOTHER. SO THOUGH IT HAS NOT MADE ME RICHER, I SAY GOD BLESS IT.”
You and Bob Cratchit begin to clap vigorously at this, “Here, here!”
Scrooge, distastefully cries out, “One more peep and you shall both be unemployed!”
Fred invites Scrooge to dinner on Christmas, though you know Scrooge will not attend, and then he leaves.
Shortly followed by two men who are there to collect charity payments.
Scrooge, the richest man in London, refuses to give to the poor. Saying his taxes support prisons and workhouses and his money goes to them.
“Some would rather die!”
“Well if they’re going to die, they had better do it,” Scrooge spitefully declares, “And decrease the world’s surplus population!”
As Christmas Eve comes to an end, Bob and you want Christmas day off. Scrooge, who believes it is a poor excuse to pick a man’s pocket, makes a deal with you-- write 300 words in fifteen minutes -- if you succeed, you may have Christmas off.
Bob, not his personal assistant, is given the day off without stipulation. But he is to be back all the earlier the next morning.
You follow Scrooge home. Every now and then, swearing you hear some strange thing following you. It sounds like metal dragging on the ground. Sprint for ten minutes as you keep looking back over your shoulder.
When you and Scrooge arrive at his house. A strange thing appears on the doorknob, it is as though the doorknob has changed into the face of a crying man. You want to believe your senses have left you, but Scrooge sees it, too. He jumps back as surely as you do but when you both look again it is only a doorknob.
“Mr. Scrooge, what was that?” you ask him.
“What was what? Bah, humbug. Superstitious fool. Just for bringing it up, write 100 words. “
The two of you go upstairs into your rooms.to eat your dinners alone by the fire. Rich as he is, he only allows you bread and cheese. Sprint for 5 minutes because you are basically treated like a prisoner.
Before you can finish your meal and go to bed that night, you hear that strange noise out in that hall again. You gasp and almost faint at the next sight you see.
Chains and weights tossed to the top of the staircase, matching precisely with the chains you’ve been hearing all night. And a haunting spirit follows them. A terrified, dreaded feeling comes over you at the appearance of a ghost-- an actual ghost.
He looks right at you but does not seem to see you.
 
“SCROOOGE!” he calls out.
You point out Scrooge’s room if just to keep him away from you. Despite this, you can’t help eavesdrop.
“You may be an undigested piece of beef!” Scrooge bravely scolds the ghost, “There is more of gravy than grave of you, I wager.”
Do you doubt your own senses? :
Gravy: Write 150 words as you laugh at yourself and your own sense of fear. You are, after all, liable to have eaten something off with Scrooge’s penny-pinching ways.
Grave:. Write 300 words as you quiver and quake, knowing the truth for what it is. You do not doubt your own senses.
 
“Jacob Marley!” Scrooge gasps, recognizing his partner. “Why do you wear such chains?”
“These are the chains I forged in life! Link by link!”
“But you were always a good businessman!” Scrooge says
 
“MANKIND WAS MY BUSINESS!” Jacob’s spirit cries out, “THEIR WELFARE AND NOT THEIR WALLETS SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY CONCERN!!”
 
Join someone in a sprint of any duration because Mankind is your business.
 
“You have one just like it, Scrooge.” Jacob warns, “Longer, even, than mine. And I have come to save you from my fate.”
 
Roll any-sided dice, multiply by 100 and write that amount of words to represent the length of the chain Scrooge has forged in life.
 
Do a three-digit challenge for the three spirits that will come to haunt Scrooge.
 
As the night passes, you’re still lying awake, when a bright light comes shining through your window and you know what that means. You rush to Scrooge’s bedroom in time to be whisked away with him to the past!
Beat the wordcount of your last sprint or war because you’ve gone back in time.
 
You, Scrooge, and the Ghost of Christmas Past approach a schoolhouse. Where within there sits a young, lonely boy, still working despite it being Christmas day.
“The school is not completely deserted, who is that boy?”
“You know who it is.” grumbles Scrooge. “It is me as a boy. I was forced to write everyday, even during Christmas..”
 
Do a fifty headed hydra to empathize with the young Scrooge.
 
A young pretty girl comes running into the schoolhouse, “Ebenezer! I asked father if you could at last come home for Christmas and he said you could! Oh happy day!”
 
Write for the duration of this song because Ebenezer can go home!
 
Write 200 words for the happy news you soon learn is really sad. The father only let Ebenezer out because he wanted to send him to learn his trade in business. Ebenezer is once again sent away to become a business apprentice.
Time fades to another Christmas where you see him and his best friend Jacob Marley apprentice to a great manager -- Fezziwig!
 
Write for the duration of this song as Fezziwig presents a Christmas feast
And for the duration of this song as the dancing begins.
 
This is the very Christmas that Ebenezer met the love of his life, Belle. Write for 10 minutes to celebrate young love.
“You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
“Yes. More than anything.” Scrooge agrees.
 
“Anything?” The past prompts.
“No! Spirit! I beg you! Show me not that!”
“I can not change the past, Scrooge. I can only show you shadows of what have been.”
You watch, with a heavy heart, the Christmas where Belle releases Ebenezer -- now Scrooge-- from the burden of their engagement.
“Would you choose a poor girl like me, now?”
Ebenezer says nothing, leaving Belle to walk away.
Engage in a word war for the conflict now within Scrooge’s heart.
 
Scrooge, upset, cries out, “HAUNT ME NO LONGER!”
 
Sprint for five minutes as you help Scrooge put out the light of Christmas Past. 
 
Panting, the two of you feel free of the burden of spirits-- only momentarily. 
You hear the sound of a jolly man laughing in the other room. Scrooge and you, shoulder to shoulder, go to investigate the noise. Scrooge has you write five minutes to be the first to go into the dining room. When you’re both inside, you see a giant of a man sitting on a pile of presents and food. He wears a long red and green robe and sports a bushy red beard and mane under a crown of holly.
“COME! COME AND KNOW ME BETTER, MAN!!!”
Write 100 words to know the ghost of Christmas Present better.
 
“You have never seen the likes of me before, have you?” Asks the Ghost of Christmas Present, “Nor have you walked with any of my brothers -- of which there are more than 1800?”
Write 1800 words or more as you think on the Ghost’s brothers.
“I have little experience feeling joys of Christmas, Spirit.” Scrooge confesses.
 
As the three of you walk the streets of London, the Spirit educates you and you take notes by writing for the duration of his song
 
You watch him sprinkling good cheer on passersby. And he leads you straight to the home of Scrooge’s nephew, Fred. Fred and his friends are celebrating Christmas and playing a fun guessing game called What am I?
Fred begins to give clues: It is an animal -- it grunts and growls, it is disagreeable, it is unwelcome!
Your guess --
Rat: Sprint 10 minutes.
Bear: Write 100 words
Pig: Do a Carrot and Stick challenge
Scrooge: Write 1% of your word count within the hour.
 
You call out your guess but it does no good, you’ve forgotten they can not hear. Despite, you and Scrooge both have a ton of fun playing the game until someone in the crowd calls out.
“I KNOW! IT’S YOUR UNCLE SCROOGE ISN’T IT?”
 
You and Ebenezer both go silent. Sprint five minutes as you remember the reputation your boss still has across London. Is he really the same as he was?
“Yes.” Fred confirms.
“I’m sure I don’t understand why you invite him every year.”
“He is my Uncle. One day maybe it will do him a scrap of good to be invited by me. After all, I love the man. And his ill nature affects only him. What has he to lose? The best company there is!”
“Here, here!” They toast each other.
 
“Take me from here,” Scrooge grumbles, looking as a scolded mutt.
The spirit, whose generosity compelled him to sprinkle more good cheer on the poor than the rich, leads the two of you straight to Cratchit’s home.
Poor as they are, they enjoy Christmas just the same. Write 100 words for all of his children, except the youngest who only gets 50.
Because of his good heart, you are compelled to sprint for five minutes as you enjoy the Christmas spirit abound in the room.
 
“Merry Christmas to Scrooge! God Bless him! Founder of the Feast!”
“Founder of the Feast, is he?” Cries Cratchit’s wife, “I’m sure he’s merry. Bless him, indeed. I’ll give him something to feast upon if I ever meet him!”
“Please, my dear. It is Christmas after all.”
“For your sake and the sake of your job, I will toast his health and that is all.”
Write 200 words as you toast Scrooge’s health.
Though lame, Tiny Tim, his youngest son seems the most generous and good spirited of them, even the most joyous that Christmas day declaring, “God Bless Us! Everyone!”
Sickly and weak despite his cheer, you worry about his health.
A sentiment shared by Ebenezer who asks the Ghost of Present, “Tell me, Spirit, will Tiny Tim live?”
“If these shadows remain unaltered...I see a vacant seat and a crutch without an owner well preserved.”
“No, Spirit!” Ebenezer says, “Please!”
“But if he is going to die,” the spirit begins--
“No…” Scrooge pleads, knowing where it’s going.
“He had better do it, and decrease the world’s surplus population.”
You and Ebenezer flinch at the repetition of Scrooge’s words. Write 400 words as you take note of Ebenezer’s regret.
You and Ebenezer finally take notice of something that perhaps you should have paid attention to before. That the Spirit seems to have aged considerably. In fact, his red beard has turned white, his flesh seems heavy and his eyes sunken in.
“Spirit!” Ebenezer cries, “You seem tired?”
“You seem….older?”
“Right you are.” Says the spirit, sitting down, “My time on this planet is coming to an end. The present never lives long, you know. But before I go…” The area around you darkens, black as night and darker for the lack of a moon. “I would give you one last lesson.”
“Oh yes, Spirit!” Ebenezer proclaims, “I have learned more from you than any spirit yet!”
He opens his robes to reveal two writhing creatures that resemble children.
“Look here!” He cries, pointing to the demonic creatures.
“Are they yours?”
“They are man’s! One is ignorance and the other want. Beware them both, I say!”
 
Beware Ignorance: Write to the nearest 1000
Beware Want: Write for ten minutes without breaking or backspacing.
As the last stroke of midnight hits, the Ghost of Christmas present falls down dead.
The two of you stand and watch the place where the body of the Spirit once lay. In dread of the ghost...yet to come.
A tall shadowy cloaked figure, like a grim reaper, approaches the two of you from the shadows.
“Spirit,” Ebenezer says, “I fear you more than any spectre I have yet met. But I know you are here to teach me a lesson and I am prepared to follow and learn from what you have to teach.”
The spirit says nothing, only points with his finger and the two of you are led back onto the streets of London.
A few gentleman stand around outside of a bank, “Who’d he leave all his money to?”
One of them asks, “Not me! I know that much!”
“Well he can’t be buried with it, I’d wager. Though I’m sure that’s what he’d have liked.”
The three of them laugh as they head off to go about their business.
 
“Who do they speak of Spirit? Who died?”
Sprint for ten minutes because you already have your suspicions.
The spirit says nothing instead bringing you into a dark corner of the market.
“I have here,” you recognize the voice as the maid in Ebenezer’s house, “His bed curtains. I stole them right from his deathbed. What good are they to him, now?” 
“That’s terrible!” You can’t help calling out. But she can’t hear you.
“That’s not all, I have his cufflinks!”
Write 100 words as you try to conceal your sorrowed gasp, you recognize the cufflinks and the curtains!
Ebenezer, however, seems more concerned with the lack of tenderness shown by them.
“Show me, please, some tenderness connected with death.”
The two of you are whisked away from the scene and to another one. An image of Bob Cratchit crying on a chair, holding a crutch, as his wife comforts him.
“No!” You begin to cry, as well.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come points up the stairs. Ebenezer and you ascend-- dreading but knowing what you will find.
As the two of you approach the figure lying still on the bed, the scene changes.
Write for fifteen minutes as you’re getting over that whiplash.
 
The shrill whistling wind blows right through you and sweeps the snow over the graveyard. The Spirit points straight to a tombstone, the details of which are covered by a wall of snow.
“I will…” Ebenezer says shakily, “follow where you are pointing...but first answer me this. Tell me, are these the shadows of things that will be or are they merely the shadows of things that may be?”
The spirit says nothing, pointing again. You and Ebenezer both approach the stone. He falls to his knees and wipes away the snow. There, engraved, is the name Ebenezer Scrooge
“Please believe me, Spirit! I am not the man I once was! I am not who I was! Why would you show me these things if it were beyond hope? I will remember the lessons I have been taught! I will honor Christmas all year round! Just please tell me I can erase what has been written on that stone! Please Spirit, I am not who I was! Please!”
Ebenezer grips the Spirit’s robes, sobbing his eyes out and though the night is dark, you notice the shadows seems to be growing all around you until the vision has disappeared completely.
You wake up on the floor near Scrooge’s bed where Scrooge seems to have fallen out of it.
Sprint to 150 words as you race over to help him up.
“Oh, Mr. Scrooge! Oh, Mr. Scrooge sir!”
Ebenezer leaps to his feet suddenly, “I’M ALIVE!!”
He grabs you both your hands and dances you around the room, “OH WE’RE ALIVE, < YOUR NAME>! WE’RE ALIVE! I’M AS GIDDY AS A SCHOOL BOY!”
 
Write for eight minutes as you celebrate with Ebenezer!
He throws open the windows, “BOY, DOWN THERE? WHAT DAY IS IT?”
You’re curious, too. Wondering if you’ve both missed Christmas, but you have not!
“THEY DID IT ALL IN ONE NIGHT!” Scrooge announces to you, “Oh, <Your Name> We have so much to do--- I, I have so much to do. You, my good assistant, have this beautiful Christmas day off! Yes and on the next Christmas, too. Except, I would ask you a favor-- if you would join us in our festivities today!”
Join a wordwar of any duration as you and Ebenezer race to Bob Cratchit’s house.
Ebenezer shushes you and chuckles to himself, “Watch this.” he whispers at you.
He knocks on Bob’s door.
“Yes,sir, Mr. Scrooge?” Bob fearfully asks.
“MR. Cratchit! What do you call this hour and you’re not at work??”
“BUT SIR--” Bob stutters pleading, “YOU SAID I COULD HAVE THE DAY OFF!”
“I??? I EBENEZER SCROOGE? I SAID THAT?” Scrooge shouts.
“Yes, sir, I mean no, sir, I mean but you did, sir! Honestly, sir, you did, sir!”
Ebenezer snickers, almost breaking character and then says, “BOB, I WILL HAVE NO MORE OF THIS BUMBLING OFF OF YOU...AND THEREFORE I ...AM GOING TO RAISE YOUR SALARY!!”
Had Bob a drink he would do a spit take.
You, too, despite all you’ve seen are most surprised by this!
Roll a 6 sided dice and multiply the number by 100 to see how much your salary has been raised, then write this many words.
 
After this, Ebenezer celebrates Christmas with you and Cratchit’s family. Afterwards, in the evening, the two of you leave for Fred’s house.
That night, for the first time, you watch as two estranged family members are finally drawn together.
 
As the years pass, Ebenezer Scrooge is better than his word and more. To Tiny Tim, he becomes a second father and to all the people in London, he becomes a man that keeps Christmas in his heart all year round. As good a friend as anyone could ask for...but you have had the honor of being called Ebenezer’s best friend and companion for the rest of his life.
And as Tiny Tim observed; God Bless Us, Everyone.