We can still have a Dickens of a Christmas as we get older

Charles Dickens, more than any writer before or since, taught the world how to rejoice at Christmas. Yet among his many beloved works is a short essay — now largely forgotten — in which he reflected not on Christmas as children know it, but on Christmas as it appears to us after years have passed and life has grown more complicated. With apologies for daring to tamper with a classic, I have taken great liberty in revising Dickens’ sentiments for a modern audience, convinced that they are as relevant today as when he first penned them, in the 1850s. 

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As we grow older, Christmas becomes less about what we receive and more about who and what we welcome. 

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

When we were young, the joy of Christmas felt simple and complete. We had everything we wanted around the Christmas tree. There was no need to welcome anything else. The days were awash in the clear, bracing light of morning, the future wide open with possibilities and a seeming eternity of time stretched out before us. 

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But inevitably life grew more serious — and more filled with shadows. There were dreams we once obsessed over that never came to pass. A life we imagined we would live. A person we thought we would become. A marriage we hoped for that didn’t take place — or one that didn’t last. A vocation that never materialized. Children who never arrived. Paths on the horizon, gleaming with promise, that turned out not to be ours. 

Most of the year, we keep these sad thoughts locked away. But at Christmas, they knock gently at the door. And Christmas asks us to let them in.

Not to mourn them bitterly. Not to pretend they never mattered. But to invite them to sit with us around the Christmas tree, beneath the soft lights, among familiar voices. These old dreams do not come to reproach us. They come to remind us that we once hoped deeply — and that hoping deeply was never foolish, but rather a sign of being vibrantly alive. 

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Then there are the people we have loved and lost — not to death, but to time, misunderstanding, distance and estrangement. Christmas does not permit the convenient lie that they no longer matter. It insists, graciously but firmly, that love once given somehow remains real forever.  

If conscience allows and wounds have not made it impossible, we welcome at least the memory of these old loves to sit quietly with us around the Christmas tree.

Then there are those sad shades from the city of the dead. Those who once sat at our table, who laughed in our homes, who steadied us when we were small or walked beside us when we were afraid. They return now, not as ghosts to frighten us, but as spiritual presences to bless us. They take their places around the Christmas tree, not demanding tears, but offering gratitude — for the love we gave and still give to them, and for not being forgotten. 

And then there are our enemies. 

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As we grow older, the world seems to divide more easily and, yes, more violently. Differences harden. 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 asks something unreasonable: that we welcome even those who oppose us.

Not by surrendering truth. Not by excusing cruelty, ignorance and stupidity. But by remembering that human beings are not solely the arguments they make or the positions they hold. Christmas reminds us that every person — even the one who angers us most — is unique, precious, unrepeatable and made in the image and likeness of God. It reminds us that every human being was once a little child, once held in someone’s arms, once deeply hoped for. 

Peace, Christmas tells us, is not the absence of conviction or even vigorous argument, but rather the presence of mercy 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: little boys and girls with bright eyes, shining faces, and tousled curls, absorbed in wonder. But if we allow ourselves a moment of reverent imagination, we might see that they are not alone — that their angels stand near them, smiling, hands on their shoulders, invisible but attentive, rejoicing not only in their present beauty, but in what they are becoming.

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For these children are growing. 

They will have dreams just as fierce as ours once were. They will chase ambitions just as real, experience adventures just as glorious, feel joys just as heart-stopping, and sorrows just as heavy. Christmas asks us to be happy that the world is not ending with us; happy that youth will be reborn, again and again, long after our own stories are finished. 

And finally, besides these children and their angels, Christmas calls us to invite other boys and girls into our homes, as well: the children we once were; the children who grew up too quickly; the children we loved instinctively but could not protect as we wished. They gather in the glow of the Christmas tree, too, drawn by its promise that innocence is not an illusion, and wonder not a lie.

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Indeed, Christmas tells us that childhood is not something we lose — for nothing is ever lost with God. It is something we are meant to recover, tempered by sorrow, strengthened by love and guided by faith. 

Christmas does not require us to have all the complicated problems of our life resolved. It does not insist that our lives be free from irritation, sadness, suffering and stress. It simply invites us to come in out of the cold and "rest a while" in the presence of something holy. Those are, after all, the words spoken by the One whose birthday we celebrate on Christmas Day.

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And so, this Christmas, we welcome everything and everyone to take their place beside us around the Christmas tree. 

We welcome the past without bitterness.  We welcome the dead without despair.  We welcome old dreams without disappointment.

We welcome enemies without surrender.  We welcome children — seen and unseen — with gratitude. 

And in doing so, we discover that Christmas has been welcoming us all along; welcoming us into a peace that transcends all understanding, and into the abiding and boundless joy of a Child laid in a manger.