•Why it earns a slot
First published in December 1843, this novella single-handedly shaped the modern English-speaking idea of Christmas as a season of generosity and fellow-feeling, and its characters, from Scrooge to Tiny Tim, have remained in continuous cultural circulation for over 180 years.
On Christmas Eve, the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his dead business partner Jacob Marley, who warns him that three spirits will come to give him a chance to escape Marley's fate of eternal wandering in chains. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge his lonely childhood and the warmth he once knew, the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals the joyful poverty of his clerk Bob Cratchit's family and the fragile life of Tiny Tim, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge a future in which he dies unmourned and Tiny Tim is dead. Scrooge wakes on Christmas morning transformed, raises Bob Cratchit's salary, sends the Cratchits a prize turkey anonymously, and becomes a generous second father to Tiny Tim, who does not die.
This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: gutenberg.org.