How wonderful it is for those who love Christmas to read and hear stories that inspire the happiest of seasons. And no story is as compelling as Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," penned in 1843. But what inspired the "Carol"? What triggered Dickens' imagination to write a story so unlike anything he had written before-a story about Christmas, a story wrought with flashbacks and flash-forwards, and a story infused with the supernatural? In...