Open Hearts

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