With the holiday season now just a warm memory and a Pacific rain and wind storm rattling our windows and sweeping the cul-de-sac with sheets of cold rain, what better time to recapture some precious moments that will never come again?

It was Christmas Eve and our two best pals, Robbie and Phil, all of 11 and 7 years of age, were in the family room watching a movie that Robbie found on the television screen. With big brother explaining the story to little brother, the scene caused me to smile as I recalled other days and other times.

I should note here that the boys are far more technically advanced than is grandpa, and these 21st-century computer kids know far better than I how to access the Comcast television lineups.

Somehow Robbie, who enjoys National Geographic and the animal channels, had landed on the "Free Movies on Demand" channel. The boys were about to watch Charles Dickens' timeless "A Christmas Carol," the same story that had enthralled me when I was just a kid. The film, made in 1938, featured the fine British actor Reginald Owen as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. As the story began on a snowy London Christmas Eve, grandpa sat down to enjoy the film with "My Boys."

I'd read that story to Robbie when he was very young, and each Christmas that followed I'd repeat the message of good triumphing over evil until Robbie was old enough to tell the story to his kid brother.

I also recalled a moment at the Napa Town and County Fair when Robbie was just 6 years old and still held grandpa's hand. We were standing in a crowd of mostly adults watching a Coney Island-style barker on a small stage, conducting a quiz show. The barker was asking the crowd some general questions and handing out some "two-bit" prizes for correct answers. Lo and behold, he came to a question that stumped the crowd. He had asked for the name of Ebenezer Scrooge's deceased business partner in "A Christmas Carol."

The crowd of about 50 to 60 fair-goers stood mute. That is, until the little boy holding my hand spoke up with a "Jacob Marley!" The crowd and the barker were stunned, then the barker quickly recovered. "The boy is absolutely correct!" he shouted. So Robbie got a prize and a proud grandpa got a memorable moment that will last a lifetime.

If anyone reading this piece is unfamiliar with "A Christmas Carol" or has somehow forgotten the story, let me bring you up to speed on the 1843 classic by the Englishman who also wrote "Oliver Twist," David Copperfield," "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations."

The tale is about a grasping, rich miser named Ebenezer Scrooge who has no charity in his cold heart and treats his counting house clerk, poor Bob Cratchit, like a slave. Never mind the fact that Bob has a family to feed including his lame son Tiny Tim, who walks with a crutch. Scrooge's credo is let the poor die and decrease the surplus population. What a sweetheart!

One Christmas Eve, after finally giving in to his clerk Bob Cratchit's plea for the day off on Christmas Day with a "That's a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 25th of December," the miser wends his way home to his bleak house and prepares for bed with a "Christmas bah humbug" on his snarling lips. However, Scrooge's evening is just beginning because he will be visited by four ghosts.

The first ghost is his once-business partner Jacob Marley, who died seven years earlier on another Christmas Eve. Marley wears the chains, padlocks and counting machines he forged in life and he tells Scrooge of the chains that await him if Scrooge doesn't mend his ways and fast. Marley also advises Scrooge that he will be visited by three more ghosts. The ghost of Christmas past when the clock strikes one, the ghost of Christmas present at the stroke of two, and finally the ghost of Christmas yet to come at the stroke of 3 a.m.

Well, those apparitions arrive as scheduled, and Scrooge is taken back to his childhood school days, a life filled with his late sister's love and the parties his dear boss Mr. Fezzywig would host every Christmas Eve night for his employees -- including a young Ebenezer, who Fezzywig treated like a son. After the ghost of Christmas past disappeared, the ghost of Christmas present arrived and took him to the house of his clerk Bob Cratchit, where despite the pittance Scrooge paid his clerk, there was love and laughter, and where Tiny Tim said, "God bless us every one -- even Mr. Scrooge."

Finally there was Scrooge somehow back in his bed and awaiting the ghost he feared most of all -- the ghost of Christmas yet to come. And as the clock chimed three, a silent spirit arrived to complete the night's work.

Once again, Scrooge was transported back to the house of Bob Cratchit, but no laughter or merriment this time, only tears of sorrow. You see, there was an empty chair that poor Tiny Tim once occupied, and a grieving Cratchit family mourning his loss. Scrooge cried out "Are these shades of what must be, or can I change them?" but the ghost of Christmas yet to come remained silent transporting Scrooge to a lonely graveyard and his own stone at a resting place which no one visits and where no one mourns.

The story ends on a happy note. Scrooge becomes a changed man, Tiny Tim lives and no Londoner ever made merry and helped more people at Christmas time than did the man whom Tiny Tim called "Uncle Ebenezer."

That wonderful story has been read and reread, told and retold for more than 160 years, and it never grows out of date.

When the film ended, Robbie said, "Grandpa -- that story brings families together at Christmas time, that's why I love it so." Then, after a pause, Robbie added, "Do you think a miserable man like Scrooge could really change?"

My only response was, "I hope so Robbie -- I sure hope so!"

Then Phil, who had watched the film for the most part in silence, surprised us by borrowing the words of Tiny Tim when he smiled a "God bless us, every one!"

Parker can be reached at evjenpar@mailbug.com or 224-9956.