The Cold Heart

There was once a very wealthy man, a man called Mr Hobart who lived in a big mansion and every Christmas he would hold lavish and expensive parties for his rich friends.
"No one could accuse me of being like Ebeneezer Scrooge", he would say to his party guests, "Because I always celebrate christmas with cheer".
Unfortunately, though the man certainly celebrated Christmas, he didn't really understand its true meaning for he never gave any money to charity or helped anyone less fortunate than himself.
One December day, however, the man started to feel strangely cold.
"My house feels like the inside of a refrigerator", he complained to one of his servants, coming out of his room wrapped in a quilt, "Why would I have had an expensive central heating system installed if I'd wanted to freeze to death".
"But the central heating is on full, Mr Hobart", replied the servant.
"On full", said Hobart angrilly, shivering , "You must be joking. This house feels like an igloo".
But then the servant showed Hobart the thermostat that controlled the central heating and he saw for himself that it was truly turned up full.
"Then there must be something wrong with it", he said, "Because if it was working properly then why would I feel so cold?".
The servant looked at Hobart strangely, sweat pouring down her face because, infact she felt rather hot with the central heating up so high but she was afraid to say anything incase she lost her job.
But then Hobart asked for a heating engineer to be called to fix the central heating and he got into a terrible argument with the engineer who claimed that the heating was working just fine.
"What kind of a repairman are you?", he shouted at the engineer, "If you can't even tell when the heating has broken down. I've a good mind to complain to your company and have you fired".
But then the repairman took out a thermometer from his tool kit and showed it to him.
The thermometer showed that the temperature inside the house was 30 degrees centigrade.
But Hobart refused to believe it.
"You're thermometer must be broken aswell", he said, his teeth chattering as he spoke.
"But the mercury in the thermometer has risen", protested the heating engineer, "How would that happen if it wasn't hot in here?".
Hobart just blew his top completely when the engineer said this because he wasn't used to being contradicted by workmen.
"You don't know who you're speaking to", he said, "I could buy your little heating company three times over if I wanted to".
But the engineer didn't like being shouted at and, packing up his tools, he just walked out, muttering to one of Hobarts servants as he left that their employer was obviously crazy.
"Phone another heating company", he snapped to his butler, "I want this heating fixed and soon. I can't spend Christmas like this".
His butler nodded and went off to contact another heating engineer.
But it wasn't just the central heating that was the problem for Hobart had put on 3 woolen sweaters and two jackets and he was still chilled to the bone.
"Perhaps I'm ill", he thought, "That might be it. I've got pneumonia".
So he called his private doctor and asked him to come and examine him but his doctor couldn't find anything physically wrong with him.
"You definitely don't have pneumonia", he said.
"Then why do I feel so cold?", asked the man.
His doctor thought there might be something psychologically wrong with him.
But even the suggestion that there could be anything mentally wrong with Hobart only made him lose his temper again and he threatened to change his doctor.
The doctor just wrote him out a prescription for tranquilizers and told him to get some rest.
But then the day of Hobarts big annual Christmas Eve party came. He'd ordered a big angel carved out of ice to be placed outside of his house; a champagne fountain cascading into crystal glasses; a christmas tree imported from Lapland and hung with decorations costing thousands of dollars; a choir of carol singers; an orchestra of little people dressed as elves; a shakespearean actor to play Santa Clause and even a top celebrity chef to cook Christmas dinner for he and his guests.
But when his guests turned up in their stretched limousines; some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the country, Hobart didn't want to join them; infact he wouldn't leave his bedroom.
"Its too cold", he said to his butler, "Make some excuse. Tell them I'm sorry but I can't join them for dinner".
But then, as Hobart was returning to the bed in which he had been lying fully clothed, with 3 sweaters and two coats on he looked out of the window and saw the ornamental ice angel in his garden below only it was not playing a harp as it had been but kneeling and praying.
"Thats not right", he thought, becoming angry again, "Thats not what I paid that ice sculptor for".
And, putting on two more jackets he went down stairs and outside to look at the angel properly.
"Why is it praying?", he said outloud, "I said I wanted a happy Christmas archangel not a praying angel".
"I'm praying for your soul", said the ice angel looking up at him.
Hobart was stunned but then suddenly everything seemed to make sense to him.
"Are you the reason I've been so cold?", he asked.
"You are cold outside because you are cold inside", said the ice angel, "And you won't feel warmth again until your cold heart has melted".
Hobart couldn't believe what the angel was saying.
"But I always celebrate Christmas with cheer", he said, "Ask anyone who is anyone and they will tell you that I am known for my Christmas parties".
"You don't have to be a killjoy to be a miser", said the ice angel, "You just have to be selfish and Christmas isn't about parties and showing off. Its about love and kindness and generosity to others. There are so many people, Hobart, who are poor and suffering, not enjoying this Christmas because they are too poor to enjoy it. People as cold as you are but because they can't afford to pay their heating bill or because they don't have a home at all or hungry because they can't afford to buy food. Christmas is about them".
But Hobart didn't want to listen. He believed what alot of rich people believe; that everyone should fend for themselves; that poverty is good because it encourages aspiration and that if people were suffering its because they weren't pulling themselves up by the bootstraps; weren't working hard enough to get to where he was.
Infact he got into a very heated argument with the ice angel much to the bemusement of his guests who were watching him from the window of his living room but when his butler came out to enquire if he was alright, he only asked that a hammer be brought and then, when his butler returned with a hammer he began to smash up the ice angel.
But breaking up the angel didn't stop the cold. It kept biting at his flesh even worse than before and when he went back up to his room and tried to shut the bedroom door an icy wind blew open the front door of his house, howled all around his living room, blowing down his expensive imported tree and shattering his 600 dollar decorations and then it blew upstairs and into his bedroom.
And the wind was so loud that he couldn't hear anything else through its howling.
"Stop! Stop!", he yelled, trying to shut his bedroom door.
But the wind wouldn't stop and so he hid under the blankets of his bed, covering his head.
He spent the whole night like that, wrapped up in his blanket and his sweaters and coats trying to keep out the cold but he may aswell have been lying naked in the snow for all the good they did.
He lay there shaking with his teeth chattering, listening to the wind and, in his head, hearing the angels words,
"You are cold outside because you are cold inside and you won't feel warmth again until your cold heart has melted".
And when he felt  his hand it was so cold and numb that he could swear that it was turning to ice.
But then he had a dream in which his big house was just a palace carved from ice and his butler was a penguin waddling about carrying an ice bucket.
"More ice, sir?", asked the penguin
"No", he said, "No more ice. Please".
The penguin butler poured his ice bucket out onto his lap.
Hobart shrieked, startled by the chill of the ice cubes.
"What are you doing?", he asked the penguin.
"Keeping you cool, sir", it replied.
"I don't want to be cool. I want to be warm. Turn up the heating", he demanded.
"But if I do that you'll only melt, sir", said the penguin.
"Melt?", asked Hobart, confused.
"Yes", said the penguin, "You're made of ice".
Hobart looked at his hand and he saw that it was true; his hand was melting and round about him the flames of an inferno started to grow higher as his penguin butler turned up the heat.
"Stop please", he begged the penguin.
"Everything melts away in the end", it said, "All the ice palaces we carve. Only our love is left behind".
Hobart screamed as the water of a melting world rose above his head.
But then he awoke with a start and it was Christmas morning; the robins outside in his garden were twittering, distant church bells were ringing, a winter sun was streaming through his curtains and a smile slowly spread across his face because, he realised, he didn't feel cold.
"The angel was right. I have been cold", he said, "But I'm not going to be cold anymore".
And from that day on, Hobart became well known, not for his lavish parties thrown for the wealthy few but for his generosity towards those in need.
But not only that, when he saw the joy that his giving gave to people, Hobart realised that to him Christmas had just been one more party to show off his wealth; that he had never really, truly experienced Christmas joy not until he had experienced love for his fellow human being.
"Love is the true joy of Christmas", he observed, feeling a warm glow within his heart.