Susan Lucci plays Ebenezer Scrooge in Ebbie, a Lifetime holiday classic.

Who knows what Lifetime Television viewers did back in 1995 to earn a spot on Santa’s naughty list (we were still a year away from asking Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?), but boy were we richly rewarded with Ebbie. A holiday classic for the ages, this modern retelling of A Christmas Carol, set in a department store, established All My Children star Susan Lucci as the finest cinematic interpreter of Dickens since David Lean—and gave us all the beautiful gift of reading “Taran Noah Smith as Tiny Tim” in the opening credits.

Lucci stars as Elizabeth ‘Ebbie’ Scrooge, a cutthroat store owner who kicks things off by telling her right-hand woman, Roberta (Wendy Crewson) of a malfunctioning musical window display, “Tonight is their final performance!”

“But Elizabeth,” Roberta exclaims, “Dobson’s Christmas windows are a tradition!”

“Spare me,” Ebbie rants (she later says the same of Christmas carols). “Tradition is a thing of the past, Roberta Cratchit. It would cost me a fortune to get those puppets repaired. Besides, I’m running a business here, not some G-rated peepshow. Next year I want merchandise in those windows.”

“Merry Christmas, asshole. Here’s a $10 gift card to Golden Corral.”

Roberta’s expression lays bare, more than once, how much charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent she thinks her corporate overlord possesses. One of the charms of Ebbie is how openly her employees hate her, and how little she cares. However, I’ll say in her defense that some Dobson employees are wildly inept.

Take, for instance, Printout Guy. As Ebbie makes the rounds, grimly handing out meager Christmas bonuses—a tradition that gives her a migraine—Printout Guy approaches to hand her the papers she asked for three hours earlier. Skimming the content, she rages “No, no, and no! Nothing from linens, nothing from hosiery. The numbers from toys don’t include children’s books! This is completely useless to me. This tells me nothing. Fix it. Now.” What the hell did he give her, anyway? A pizza delivery menu? What kind of buffoon leaves out children’s books in his holiday sales report?

Roberta couldn’t be more over Ebbie’s shit by that point, but Printout Guy (played by a generic Canadian, as is the case with most of the roles in Ebbie) observes “She’s scary. But alluring, in an odd sort of way.” Indeed, Lucci’s a dynamo of ridiculous pettiness, barely taking the time to speak with her do-gooder niece (Molly Parker) before tersely telling her “Pick something out for yourself. Don’t be extravagant.”

It’s not long before she’s mentioning bootstraps, complaining about overpopulation, and indignantly asking why she should donate to the less fortunate when she already pays her taxes. When she ducks into her office to work at her computer, we’re supposed to think she’s tirelessly crunching numbers. Given what we know of her, though, it’s hard not to suspect she’s up to neckbeard shit on a Libertarian subreddit.

After a night of dizzying awfulness, Ebbie retires to her bloodless luxury apartment to eat a microwave dinner alone (portrayed here like that’s a bad thing). That’s when she’s visited first by Jake Marley (Jeffrey DeMunn of Billions), her deceased business partner, followed by the ghosts of Christmas past (played by spirited Dobson’s perfume girls in majestic Dollar Tree wigs).

It doesn’t take long to realize why Ms. Scrooge isn’t filled with the holiday spirit—many of the worst things to have happened in her life occurred around Christmas. This might as well be Silent Night, Deadly Night as we glimpse her drunken dad’s most haunting outburst, the tragic death of her pregnant sister, and the dissolution of a long-term relationship.

“You can’t rely on anybody, you have to take care of yourself,” she solemnly tells the ghosts. As the evening passes she receives more otherworldly visitors, all played by abused employees, and sadly (for us) reconsiders her stance. The pleasures of Ebbie, which ultimately suffers from being more corny than camp, are mostly front-loaded in her department store reign of terror (and in flashback scenes filmed with a camera lens greasier than a sack of Five Guys’ fries). But the steps she takes to make amends also serve as a misty water-colored reminder of her terribleness.

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Streaming and DVD availability

Ebbie, also known as Miracle at Christmas: Ebbie’s Story, is available on DVD from KL Studio Classics. If you’re hearing impaired, please note that this release does not include subtitles.

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… But wait, there’s more!

While Lucci is best known for her work as Erica Kane on All My Children (which I stopped watching around the time Bianca, Erica’s lesbian daughter, was raped), her finest work might’ve been in the SNL sketch “All My Luggage.” If you haven’t seen it, well, check it out. You will be moved.