“There was a time when Christmas Day embraced our entire microcosm like a magical ring within which we felt we lacked for nothing: it contained all the joys, warmth, and hopes of our home; it gathered everyone and everything around the Christmas fireplace, and this image lit up brilliantly in our astonished childhood eyes.
This time is revived through the “Christmas Stories” of six iconic writers of world literature, as well as through “The Meaning of Christmas as We Grow Older” which reminds us, as Charles Dickens says: the man who with his pen rejuvenated—and established—the traditional celebration of Christmas in Western culture.
EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK
Welcome, everything! Welcome, whatever was and wasn’t and whatever we hoped would exist; come under the Christmas tree, sit around the fireplace, in the places for open-hearted diners! And if, in the depths, in the shadows, the flames illuminate the face of an enemy who has sneakily crept in? Forgive him until you say “Christmas”! If the wrong he did to you allows you to accept him in the company, let him in too. Otherwise, he has no place here—nor to return your wrong nor to accuse him.
On this day, we exclude nothing and no one!
“Wait a minute,” a little voice says. “Nothing and no one? Think again!”
“On Christmas Day, we exclude nothing and no one from our fireplace.” Charles Dickens: “The Meaning of Christmas as We Grow Older”
It is nine o’clock at night.
I have money.
Where will I dine?
My friends, happier than I, will forget their loneliness in the clamor of a revel.
— The night is for wine! they shouted a moment ago.
I did not want to be in the game. I have already crossed, without drowning, this red sea of youth.
— The night is for tears; I replied to them.
My meetings are in the theaters. The Madrileños celebrate the Birth of our Christ by listening to the comedians burst forth!
Some families, to whom I am a stranger, wanted to give me the charity of their home warmth, inviting me to eat—because we no longer dine...! But I did not go; I will not go; I do not want this; I am looking for my secret dinner, the supper of Christmas Eve, my home, my family, my traditions, my memories, the old joys of my soul... the Religion they taught me as a child!
Antonio Pedro de Alarcón: “The Poet’s Christmas Eve”
And then he dreamed that there was someone in the room and he immediately knew—as happens in dreams—that this someone was Christ.
“You wanted to see me, Uncle Panof,” he said calmly. “You’ll see me tomorrow, then, when it will be Christmas. Keep your eyes open, though, for I will not tell you who I am.”
When Uncle Panof woke up, the bells were ringing and a faint light was coming through the shutters. “Bless me, Lord!” he said. “It’s Christmas.”
He got up and stretched to relieve himself. And then his face shone with happiness as he remembered the dream he had seen. After all, this Christmas would be very special, for Christ would visit him. In what form? As a baby, the first Christmas? As an old man, as a carpenter—or as the Great King, the Son of God? He had to keep his eyes open all day long, to recognize him however he might appear.
Leo Tolstoy: “The Special Christmas of Uncle Panof”
