No Miracle on 34th Street (Updated ending)

Alistair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge

Before we've had a chance to finish our seconds on Thanksgiving, independent television stations and cable channels dust off (metaphorically, as they're no longer kept on film or videotape) the classic Christmas movies.

Had he lived today, Charles Dickens would be amazed at the myriad versions of his A Christmas Carol. Dozens of actors have breathed life into Ebenezer Scrooge, from the iconic Alistair Sim to Bill Murray. Scrooge even appeared in other movies (in different incarnations) as the animated Dr. Seuss's Grinch and Lionel Barrymore's Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.

Although we've had nearly two centuries to absorb the lesson from Dickens, Scrooge is still alive and well in the 21st Century. Nowadays, Scrooge lives on in the guise of retailers who insist their employees report before sunrise on Black Friday and work late on Christmas Eve. One finds him in the headquarters of Chase Bank, which ordered a Fort Worth branch remove the Christmas tree in its lobby, for fear of offending their non-Christian customers.

Lionel Barrymore as Henry Potter

But no coal-hearted Scrooge wannabe is more notorious these days than the manager in the San Francisco Macy's store which fired John Toomey, the Santa they've had since 1990 over a mild quip he's used thousands of times without causing offense until one self-important couple complained. Customers with more than a decade of fond memories of visiting him each year rushed to his defense, including some who are now bringing their own children to renew the ritual.

In 1947, writer Valentine Davies and director George Seaton brought us Miracle on 34th Street, the story of Kris Kringle, an elderly gent with a luxurious beard and a gift for languages, who was hired by the flagship Macy's store in Manhattan to serve as their surrogate St. Nick. He runs afowl of another fictional Scrooge in Macy's HR Dept., who has him sacked and institutionalized for insisting he was the one and true Santa Claus.

Natalie Wood, Edmund Gwenn

John Toomey, the 2010 Santa who was fired from the San Francisco Macy's, doesn't declare he's the one and only true Santa, but there's a twinkle in his eye when he says he's one of Santa's many helpers. He's bounced back by accepting a gig from Lefty O'Doul's, the legendary restaurant just a block away from his churlish former employer.

In the movie, Mr. Kringle's lawyer, played by John Payne, wins his release on Christmas Eve. In San Francisco, Mr. Toomey found a warm and secure home at Lefty's. It isn't as happy an ending as the movie, but it came in the (St.) Nick of time.

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