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

Steve Doocy gets in the Christmas spirit in Branson, Missouri Fox News' Steve Doocy visits Branson, Missouri to see their town square decorated with thousands of Christmas lights and an eight-story Christmas tree. 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. *** 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. MAN'S SIMPLE CHRISTMAS GIFT SPARKS CHAIN OF EERIE 'GODWINKS' - THEN A FINAL TWIST STUNS EVERYONE As we age, we see how the holiday of Christmas changes. (iStock) 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. IN ANXIOUS TIMES, ADVENT POINTS US BACK TO THE ONLY JOY THIS WORLD CAN’T SHAKE 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...

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