The film opens at the London Exchange on Christmas Eve in 1843 where everybody is looking forward to Christmas Day except for the crabby and greedy miser Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge who hates Christmas shows his cold attitude to others by refusing to show mercy to a father and his daughter who are in debt, supporting the prisons and workhouses for the poor and refusing to dine with his nephew Fred. That night though as Scrooge dines alone before going to bed the ghost of his seven year dead partner Jacob Marley appears. He tells Scrooge to repent or suffer the same as him by wearing a chain as Marley wears the one he forged from his own greed. Other ghosts also haunt Scrooge who too wear chains implying they were selfish and cold-hearted when they were alive. Marley tells Scrooge he will be