Charles Dickens Christmas essay teaches how holiday changes as we age

More than any writer before or after him, Charles Dickens taught the world how to love. Christmas. Yet among his much-loved works is a short essay, now largely forgotten, in which he reflects not on Christmas as children know it, but as it appears to us after the years have passed and life has become more complicated. With apologies for daring to alter a classic, I have taken great liberty in revising Dickens’s sentiments for a modern audience and am convinced that they are as valid today as they were when he first wrote in the 1850s.

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As we get older, Christmas becomes less about what we get and more about who and what we get. Welcome.

We welcome people, of course; family, friends, neighbors and even the occasional stranger who finds themselves at our table. But Christmas asks us to welcome much more than that. Indeed, Christmas itself is an act of hospitality; it is an act of hospitality not only to the home but also to the soul.

When we were young, the joy of Christmas seemed simple and complete. There was everything we wanted around the Christmas tree. There was no need to welcome anything else. The days were awash in the clear, refreshing light of the morning; The future was wide open with possibilities, and a seemingly endless amount of time lay ahead of us.

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But inevitably life became more serious and more filled with shadows. Once upon a time, we had dreams that we were obsessed with but never came true. A life we ​​dreamed we would live. A person we thought we would be. The marriage we hoped for didn’t happen or last long. A job that never materialized. Children who never came. Roads on the horizon, shining with hope, that turned out not to be ours.

We keep these sad thoughts locked away for most of the year. But at Christmas they knock softly on the door. And Christmas asks us to let them in.

In order not to mourn them bitterly. Not acting like it’s no big deal. But inviting them to sit with us around the Christmas tree, under the soft lights, among familiar sounds. These old dreams don’t come to blame us. They come to remind us that we once hoped deeply, and that hoping deeply is never foolish, but rather a sign of vibrant survival.

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Then there are the people we love and lose; not to death, but to time, misunderstanding, distance and alienation. Noel doesn’t allow the lie that these things don’t matter anymore. He gently but firmly insists that love once given will somehow remain true forever.

If conscience permits and wounds do not make this impossible, we would at least welcome the memory of these old loves to sit quietly with us around the Christmas tree.

There are also those sad shadows of the city of the dead. Those who once sat at our table, those who laughed in our homes, those who trusted us when we were little, those who walked with us when we were afraid. They no longer return as ghosts to scare us, but as spiritual beings to bless us. They take their place around the Christmas tree, they do not demand tears, they express our gratitude for the love we gave them and still give them and for not being forgotten.

We also have enemies.

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As we get older, the world seems to divide more easily and, yes, more violently. Differences become stark. Words become weapons. People we once admired, or at least understood, become symbols of everything we think is wrong with the world. Christmas enters this battlefield and demands something unreasonable: that we welcome even those who oppose us.

If conscience permits and wounds do not make this impossible, we would at least welcome the memory of these old loves to sit quietly with us around the Christmas tree.

Not by delivering the truth. Not by excusing cruelty, ignorance and stupidity. But remembering that a person is not just about the arguments he puts forward or the positions he defends. Christmas reminds us that every person, even the person who annoys us the most, is unique, precious, unrepeatable, and created in the image and likeness of God. It reminds us that every person was once a little child, once held in someone’s arms, once deeply hopeful.

Peace, Christmas tells us, is not the absence of faith or vigorous argument, but the presence of compassion in the midst of the “good fight.”

Children, of course, should always remain at the heart of Christmas. We see them gathered around the tree: stunned little boys and girls with bright eyes, bright faces and tousled curls. But if we give ourselves a moment of respectful imagination, we can see that they are not alone; Their angels stand beside them, smiling, hands on shoulders, invisible but attentive, reveling not only in their current beauty but in what they are becoming.

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Because these children are growing up.

They will once have dreams as violent as ours. They will pursue the same true passions, experience the same magnificent adventures, feel the same heart-pounding joys and the same heavy sorrows. Christmas asks us to be happy that the world is not ending; I am happy that youth will be reborn again and again, long after our own stories are over.

And finally, Christmas calls us to welcome into our home these children and their angels, as well as other boys and girls: the children we once were; children who grow up too quickly; Children whom we instinctively love but cannot protect as we would like. They also come together under the glow of the Christmas tree, moved by its promise that innocence is not an illusion and there is no lie.

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Indeed, Christmas tells us that childhood is not something we lose; because with God nothing is lost. It is something we must heal from, tempered by pain, strengthened by love, and guided by faith.

Christmas doesn’t require solving all the complicated problems of our lives. It does not insist that our lives be free of anger, sadness, pain, and stress. It simply invites us to come out of the cold and “rest for a while” in the presence of something sacred. After all, these are the words spoken by the One whose birthday we celebrate on Christmas Day.

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And so we welcome this Christmas everything and everyone Let them take their place with us around the Christmas tree.

We face the past without pain. We welcome the dead without despair. We meet old dreams without disappointment.

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We meet the enemies without surrendering. We welcome children, visible and invisible, with gratitude.

And in doing so we discover that Christmas has been welcoming us all along; It invites us to a peace that surpasses all understanding and to the eternal and boundless joy of a Child laid in a manger.