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Speaker 1: What Christmas is as we grow older By Charles Dickens.

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Time was with most of us when Christmas Day, encircling

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all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing

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out for us to miss or seek. Bound together all

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our home enjoyments, affections and hopes, grouped everything and every

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one around the Christmas fire and made the little picture

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shining in our bright young eyes. Complete. Time came, perhaps

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all so soon, when our thoughts overleaped that narrow boundary,

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when there was someone very dear, we thought then, very

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beautiful and absolutely perfect, wanting to the fullness of our

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happiness when we were wanting too, or we thought so,

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which did just as well at the Christmas hearth by

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which that some one sat, and when we intertwined with

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every wreath and garland of our life that some one's name,

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That was the time for the bright visionary Christmases which

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have long arisen from us, to show faintly after summer

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rain in the palest edges of the rainbow. That was

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the time for the beatified enjoyment of the things that

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were to be and never were, and yet the things

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that were so real in our resolute hope that it

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would be hard to say now, what realities achieved since

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have been stronger? What did Christmas never really come when

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we and the priceless pearl who was our young choice

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were received after the happiest of totally impossible marriages by

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the two United families previously at daggers drawn on our account,

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when brothers and sisters in law, who had always been

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rather cool to us before our relationship was affected, perfectly

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doated on us, and when fathers and mothers overwhelmed us

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with unlimited incomes. Was that Christmas dinner never really eaten?

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After which we arose and generously and eloquently rendered honor

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to our late rival present in the company then and there,

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exchanging friendship and forgiveness and founding an attachment not to

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be surpassed in Greek or Roman story, which subsisted until death.

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Has that same rival long ceased to care for that

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same priceless pearl and married for money and become musurious

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above all? Do we really know now that we should

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probably have been miserable if we had won and warned

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the pearl that we are better off without her that Christmas,

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when we had recently achieved so much fame, when we

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had been carried in triumph somewhere for doing something great

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and good, when we had won an honored and ennobled name,

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and arrived and were received at home in a shower

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of tears of joy? Is it possible that Christmas has

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not come yet? And is our life here at the

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best so constituted that, pausing as we advance at such

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a noticeable milestone in the track as this great birthday,

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we look back on things that never were, as naturally

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and fully as gravely as on the things that have

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been and are gone, or have been and still are.

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If it be so, and so it seems to be,

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must we come to the conclusion that life is little

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better than a dream, and little worth the loves and

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strivings that we crowd into it. No far be such

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miscalled philosophy from us, dear reader, on Christmas Day. Nearer

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and nearer to our hearts be the Christmas Spirit, which

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is the spirit of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty,

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kindness and forbearance. It is in the last virtues especially

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that we are or should be strengthened by the unaccomplished

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visions of our youth. For who shall say that they

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are not our teachers to deal gently even with the

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impalpable nothings of the earth. Therefore, as we grow older,

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let us be more thankful that the circle of our

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Christmas associations and of the lessons that they bring expands.

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Let us welcome every one of them, and summon them

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to take their places by the Christmas hearth. Welcome old aspirations,

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glittering creatures of an ardent fancy, to your shelter underneath

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the holly. We know you and have not outlived you yet.

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Welcome old projects and old loves, however, fleeting to your

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nooks among the steadier lights that burn around us. Welcome

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all that was ever real in our hearts, and for

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the earnestness that made you reel. Thanks to Heaven. Do

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we build no Christmas castles in the clouds now. Let

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our thoughts, fluttering like butterflies among the flowers of children,

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bear witness. Before this boy there stretches out future, brighter

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than we ever looked on in our old romantic time,

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but bright with honor and with truth. Around this little

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head on which the sunny curls lie heaped the Grace's

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sport as prettily, as airily as when there was no

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scythe within the reach of time to shear away the

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curls of our first love upon another girl's face near it,

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placid but smiling bright, a quiet and contented little face.

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We see home fairly written, shining from the word as

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rays shine from a star. We see how when our

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graves are old, other hopes than ours are young, Other

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hearts than ours are moved, other ways are smoothed, How

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other happiness blooms, ripens and decays, No, not decays for

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other homes, and other bands of children not yet in being,

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nor for ages yet to be, arise and bloom and ripen.

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To the end of all. Welcome everything, Welcome alike what

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has been and what never was, and what we hope

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may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your

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places round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open hearted?

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In yonder shadow do we see obtruding furtively upon the

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blaze in enemy's face. By Christmas day we do forgive him.

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If the injury he has done us may admit of

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such companionship, Let him come here and take his place,

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If otherwise unhappily, let him go. Hence assured that we

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will never injure nor accuse him. On this day we

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shut out nothing. Pause, says a low voice. Nothing think

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on Christmas Day we will shut out from the fireside, nothing,

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not the shadow of a vast city where the withered

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leaves are lying deep, the voice replied, Not the shadow

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that darkens the whole globe, Not the shadow of the

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City of the Dead, not even that of all days

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in the year. We will turn our faces toward that

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city upon Christmas Day, and from its silent host, bring

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those we loved among us. City of the Dead, in

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the blessed name, wherein we are gathered together at this time,

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and in the presence that is here among us, according

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to the promise, we will receive and not dismiss thy

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people who are dear to us. Yes, we can look

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upon these children angels that alight so solemnly, so beautifully,

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among the living children by the fire, and can bear

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to think how they departed from us, entertaining angels unawares,

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as the patriarchs did. The playful children are unconscious of

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their guests, but we can see them, can see a

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radiant arm around one favorite neck, as if there were

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attempting of that child away among the celestial figures. There

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is one a poor misshapen boy on earth, of a

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glorious beauty now, of whom his dying mother said had

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grieved her much to leave him here alone for so

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many years, as it was likely would elapse before he

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came to her, being such a little child. But he

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went quickly and was laid upon her breast, and in

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her hand she leads him. There was a gallant boy

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who fell far away upon a burning sand, beneath a

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burning sun, and said, tell them at home, with my

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last love, how much I could have wished to kiss

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them once, But that I died, contented and have done

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my duty. Or there was another over whom they read

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the words therefore we commit his body to the deep,

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and so consigned him to the lonely ocean and sailed on.

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Or there was another who lay down to his rest

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in the dark shadow of great forests, and on earth

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awoke no more. Oh shall they not from sand and

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sea and forest be brought home at such a time.

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There was a dear girl, almost a woman never to

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be one, who made a morning Christmas in a house

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of joy, and went her trackless way to the silent city.

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Do we recollect her, worn out faintly whispering what could

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not be heard, and falling into that last sleep for weariness.

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Oh look upon her now, Oh look upon her beauty,

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her serenity, her changeless youth, her happiness. The daughter of

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Jyris was recalled to life to die, but she more

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blest has heard the same voice saying unto her, a

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rise forever. We had a friend who was our friend

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from early days, with whom we often pictured the changes

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that were to come upon our lives, and merrily imagined

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how we would speak and walk and think and talk

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when we came to be old. His destined habitation in

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the City of the Dead received him in his prime.

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Shall he be shut out from our Christmas remembrance? Would

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his love have excluded us? Lost friend, lost child, lost parents, sister, brother, husband, wife.

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We will not so discard you. We shall hold your

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cherished places in our Christmas hearts and by our Christmas fires,

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and in the season of immortal hope, and on the

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birthday of a mortal mercy, we will shut out nothing.

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The winter sun goes down over town and village on

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the sea, it makes a rosy path, as if the

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sacred tread were fresh upon the water. A few more

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moments in its sinks, and night comes on, and lights

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begin to sparkle in the prospect on the hill side,

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beyond the shapelessly diffused town, and in the quiet keeping

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of the trees that gird the village. Steeple remembrances are

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cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in grass,

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entwined with lowly brambles, around many a mound of earth.

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In town and village. There are doors and windows closed

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against the weather. There are flaming logs heaped high. There

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are joyful faces, There is healthy music of voices. Be

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all ungentleness and harm excluded from the temples of the

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household gods. But be those remembrances admitted with tender encouragement.

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They are of the time and all its comforting and

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peaceful reassurances, and of the history that reunited even upon

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earth the living and the dead, And of the broad

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beneficence and goodness that too many men have tried to

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tear to narrow shreds. What Christmas is as we grow older?

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By Charles Dickens