A Christmas Carol: Stave Five Summary

The End of It

• That post turns out to be… Scrooge's own bed post. He is back in his bed. And his bed curtains are still there. And he has time to fix his life.
• Scrooge gets dressed and runs to the window, laughing for the first time in many years. He hears church bells, and a boy passing by tells him it's Christmas Day.
• All smiles and compliments, Scrooge tells the boy to go buy the prize turkey from the poultry shop, planning to send it to the Cratchits. He pays for the boy's time, the turkey, and even cab fare for him to haul the thing out to their house.
• Outside, Scrooge runs into those charity collectors from the day before. He gives them a huge pile of money and then goes off to church and to walk around looking at people. All of this makes him super-happy.
• He decides to head over to his nephew's house, where he totally startles his niece-in-law, and where he has a blast at the Christmas party they've got going on (it's the one we saw earlier in the story).
• The next morning, he pretends to be all gruff and crabby at work, and then shocks Cratchit by giving him a huge raise and even buying some coal to heat the place for once.
• And finally, we learn what the real future turns out to be. Scrooge helps out the Cratchit family, takes care of Tiny Tim (who then ends up surviving), and generally becomes a wonderful guy all around.
• Everyone forever after says that he sure is really good at keeping up the spirit of Christmas.

Taken from:

Shmoop Editorial Team. "A Christmas Carol Stave 5 Summary." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.