I have always thought of Christmas time,
when it has come round, as a good time;
a kind, forgiving, charitable time;
the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year,
when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely,
and to think of people below them
as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave,
and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.- Charles Dickens