What Christmas is as We Grow Older Page #2

"What Christmas Is as We Grow Older" is a reflective essay by Charles Dickens that contemplates the nature of Christmas and the evolution of its meaning as people age. Through a blend of nostalgia, introspection, and wit, Dickens explores themes of memory, tradition, and the contrasts between childhood innocence and adult responsibilities. The piece invites readers to consider how personal experiences and societal changes shape their understanding of the holiday, ultimately advocating for the enduring spirit of kindness and generosity that defines Christmas.

• Short story

								

her breast, and in her hand she leads him.

There was a gallant boy, who fell, far away, upon a burning sand beneath
a burning sun, and said, “Tell them at home, with my last love, how much
I could have wished to kiss them once, but that I died contented and had
done my duty!”  Or there was another, over whom they read the words,
“Therefore we commit his body to the deep,” and so consigned him to the
lonely ocean and sailed on.  Or there was another, who lay down to his
rest in the dark shadow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more.
O shall they not, from sand and sea and forest, be brought home at such a
time!

There was a dear girl—almost a woman—never to be one—who made a mourning
Christmas in a house of joy, and went her trackless way to the silent
City.  Do we recollect her, worn out, faintly whispering what could not
be heard, and falling into that last sleep for weariness?  O look upon
her now!  O look upon her beauty, her serenity, her changeless youth, her
happiness!  The daughter of Jairus was recalled to life, to die; but she,
more blest, has heard the same voice, saying unto her, “Arise for ever!”

We had a friend who was our friend from early days, with whom we often
pictured the changes that were to come upon our lives, and merrily
imagined how we would speak, and walk, and think, and talk, when we came
to be old.  His destined habitation in the City of the Dead received him
in his prime.  Shall he be shut out from our Christmas remembrance?
Would his love have so excluded us?  Lost friend, lost child, lost
parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you!  You
shall hold your cherished places in our Christmas hearts, and by our
Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday
of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing!

The winter sun goes down over town and village; on the sea it makes a
rosy path, as if the Sacred tread were fresh upon the water.  A few more
moments, and it sinks, and night comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in
the prospect.  On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly-diffused town, and
in the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple,
remembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in
grass, entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth.  In
town and village, there are doors and windows closed against the weather,
there are flaming logs heaped high, there are joyful faces, there is
healthy music of voices.  Be all ungentleness and harm excluded from the
temples of the Household Gods, but be those remembrances admitted with
tender encouragement!  They are of the time and all its comforting and
peaceful reassurances; and of the history that re-united even upon earth
the living and the dead; and of the broad beneficence and goodness that
too many men have tried to tear to narrow shreds.
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