In Defense of Ebenezer Scrooge: Why Entrepreneurs and Business People Hate Christmas

If you had to deal with uncontrollable revenue declines for two months, you’d be scowling, too.

“Bah! Humbug!” is how Ebenezer Scrooge famously responds to other people’s excitement about Christmas.

For over 175 years, people have interpreted his words from Charles Dickens’s well-tread holiday story A Christma Carol to mean Mr. Scrooge is a crotchety old man who hates the “holiday spirit.” But those people aren’t entrepreneurs. And they don’t run businesses.

Mr. Scrooge, in contrast, is an entrepreneur and business owner. By all accounts, he’s a successful one, too, even being described by Dickens in the third paragraph of the story as “an excellent man of business.”

As an entrepreneur and businessman myself, I feel obligated to take this opportunity to defend Ebenezer Scrooge because I think he’s gotten a bad wrap. Frankly, I agree with Ebenezer Scrooge: I hate Christmas, too. Bah! Humbug!

Before any Christmas ghosts show up to terrify me into seeing the error of my ways, let me explain why I hate Christmas. I know I’m not the only entrepreneur who does. In fact, lots of entrepreneurs and business people hate Christmas for the same reason: we can’t get anything done!

On Christmas, the world stops. Markets close, businesses shut down, consumers stay home so everyone can spend time with their…