Source identified1
“There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas.”
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.
Source note: Sketches by Boz, “Characters,” Chapter II, “A Christmas Dinner,” Project Gutenberg #882. The sentence introduces a passage about family gatherings, forgotten quarrels and renewed social feeling; it is narrator prose, not dialogue by a fictional character.
Source identified2
“Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
The sentence does not deny bereavement or hardship; it redirects attention toward the good that remains present while acknowledging that every life also contains misfortune.
Source note: Sketches by Boz, “Characters,” Chapter II, “A Christmas Dinner,” Project Gutenberg #882. The line appears in Dickens’s Christmas reflection immediately after a passage about remembering an absent child, so gratitude is presented alongside loss rather than as a denial of it.