The world of Stephen Brockelman: Memoir, Arts, Opinion
Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Here’s a greeting and wee gift from me to you.
STEPHEN BROCKELMAN 1978 Dickens' Character Black and White
For our family, it’s just not Christmas without reading or watching a bit of Charles Dickens’ work.
And now that I’m in my early 70s—and I stress the word “early” almost as much as writing “70s” stresses me—I find quite a lot to relate to in Dickens’ 1851 essay What Christmas Is as We Grow Older.
I used the first few lines of the essay to frame my online Christmas card this year.
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is just the tip of his literary, Christmas-related iceberg. According to the Devon & Exeter Institution, “Between 1843 and 1848, he wrote five Christmas novellas, starting with the Carol, which was conceived and written in just six weeks in late 1843.” He also penned many essays and letters on the topic.
I have a personal sense of What Christmas Is is about. To me, he’s saying that we should cherish those we celebrate with today; remember, honor, and drink a toast to those we celebrated with in the past; and open our arms to the people we’ll come to know and celebrate with in the future.
Here’s a link to my downloadable PDF of Dickens’ essay. I hope you enjoy it.
And I hope your holidays are all kinds of happy. I hope the new year treats you well, and offers you comfort and joy and new opportunities to explore, grow, and learn.
As a Sr. Writer at T. Rowe Price, I work with a group of the best copywriters around. We belong to the broader creative team within Enterprise Creative, a part of Corporate Marketing Services.
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A long and winding road: My path to T. Rowe Price was more twisted than Fidelity’s green line. With scholarship in hand, I left Kansas at 18 to study theatre in New York. When my soap opera paychecks stopped coming from CBS and started coming from the show’s sponsor, Proctor & Gamble, I discovered the power of advertising and switched careers. Over the years I’ve owned an ad agency in San Francisco; worked for Norman Lear on All in the Family, Good Times, Sanford and Son, and the rest of his hit shows; and as a member of Directors Guild of America, I directed Desi Arnaz in his last television appearance— we remained friends until his death. In 1988 I began freelancing full time didn’t look back.
In January 2012 my rep at Boss Group called and said, “I know you don’t want to commute and writing for the financial industry isn’t high on your wish list, but I have a gig with T. Rowe Price in Owings Mills…” I was a contractor for eight months, drank the corporate Kool-Aid, became a TRP associate that August, and today I find myself smiling more often than not.
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