Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas.”
- Source
- Sketches by Boz
- Date
- 1836
Meaning of “There seems a magic in the very name…”
Dickens treats Christmas as a socially charged name that can awaken affectionate memory, reconciliation and family feeling before any particular celebration or gift is described.
Where does it come from?
Sketches by Boz, “Characters,” Chapter II, “A Christmas Dinner,” verified against Project Gutenberg #882 and the scan-backed 1836 Volume I transcription on Wikisource. “There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas” begins the following paragraph, where Dickens describes old jealousies and family estrangements giving way to renewed social feeling and reconciliation. It is early Dickens narrator commentary about Christmas, memory and family relations rather than an empirical claim that holidays automatically repair conflict.
