by Rev. Tim Kearney

It seems like every vacation destination has a Christmas store of one kind or another. Along Route 1 in Maine is a store known as Coastal Christmas that has nearly every imaginable Christmas decoration. Last summer when I went to the Carolina Outer Banks I noticed a few Christmas stores. I saw in a tourist information place that there were a number of large Christmas outlets in Virginia and Maryland. In Massachusetts there are stores in Rockport and Gloucester that sell Christmas decorations all year round, and Cape Cod may be the capital of Christmas stores. The Cape can boast a number of Christmas shops, the best known being the chain of Christmas Tree Shops, as well as smaller gift shops such as Father Christmas in Dennisport and Christmas Joy of Chatham.

Christmas Joy was not too far from where we vacationed when I was growing up, and my parents made a visit to the store each year. My mother loved the Christmas decorations from around the world, and my father would talk shop with the owners, who would show him catalogs and give him suggestions for displaying Christmas merchandise at the family's drugstore.

Chances are that only four of the Kearney children ever went into Christmas Joy with my parents. More than likely my sisters were allowed in the store. Perhaps my parents even invited them to look around once inside. My younger brother was also allowed in the store, even though he probably had no interest in what was inside.

Whenever I decided to stay outside, however, my parents breathed a sigh of relief. Staying outside was in the best interest of the Kearney family. In Christmas Joy, there was a little sign that read: "Pretty to look at, lovely to hold, but if you break it, we mark it sold!" I recall in the sixth grade being so excited about Christmas that I carried many boxes of decorations from their storage place in the eaves to the living room. One box had ornaments that were very old. In fact, some were from the Chrishnas trees of my great grandparents. Let's just say the ornaments did not make it to the Christmas tree that year.

We also have a manger scene that has been in the family now for four generations, a gift from my mother's beloved Aunt Anna. One of the sheep is missing its head. While I have never been formally accused of being responsible for the decapitation of this poor creature, I know that on a list of suspects, I would rank at the top or near the top, and could easily be convicted on circumstantial evidence alone. I am a bit accident prone at times. If I had a klutzy incident in Christmas Joy, there is a good chance the family would end up with a bill so enormous that we would find ourselves in a workhouse straight out of a Dickens' novel.

In our dining room at home, a hand-painted Dickens' Village sits on our hutch. It is not store-bought fare by any matter of means. Each house and each figure was painted by my mother. For years she saw Dickens' Villages in stores like Christmas Joy, and when she took ceramics lessons she decided to present our family with an heirloom for the ages. Each of its buildings lights up.

Sadly, one Christmas day my foot got caught in the electrical cord. Need I say more? Fortunately my mother knows how to display the scene, so no one can detect the damage. Now my brother-in-law warns people whenever I am near the Dickens' Village, and I suppose with good reason.

Perhaps you have seen the Dickens Villages set in Victorian England? The storefronts are usually taken from the pages of a Charles Dickens novel. One building will be called "Scrooge and Marley" from "A Christmas Carol" and more than likely there will be a "Fezziwig's" too.

There will likely be a store called "Me Old Curiosity Shop" from the book by the same name. The blacksmith shop will probably be called "Gargery's Blacksmith," reminiscent of the lovable smithy who was a father figure to Pip in "Great Expectations."

The figurines will be dressed in Victorian costumes. Bob Cratchit will be carrying Tiny Tim. Scrooge himself may be joining the carolers. In our minds we often associate Christmas with Charles Dickens, due in no small part to Dickens' beloved short novel, "A Christmas Carol."

Some of those who look at the history of how we celebrate Christmas give a great deal of credit to Dickens. He loved Christmas and made certain in his novels that it was a time of great celebration. Think about the great Christmas celebration the young Scrooge attends at the home of his employer, Mr. Fezziwig. Charles Dickens was not writing about what Christmas was at the time, but what Christmas ought to be.

People who read Charles Dickens are often caught by surprise. We are so familiar with the story of "A Christmas Carol" and its happy ending that we read Dickens believing all of his stories will have similar pleasant last pages. The movie musical "Oliver," based on "Oliver Twist," has singing and dancing characters, who may be poor, and are perhaps a bit mischievous, but in the end, most of them are basically happy. The novel is hardly a joy-filled work, however. Poverty, greed, and social injustice are the stuff of most of Dickens' novels. The lovable little urchins Dickens created are not just scruffy children who need food, love, discipline, and perhaps a bit of soap and water. They are the homeless and displaced of society.

Today a Dickens' novel is historical, but in its day, it accurately described the poverty of his time. Yet over and over again, Dickens returned to Christmas, usually in a short story or novel, and would present it as a festive and hopefilled time. The social problems of his day were very real for Charles Dickens, but so too was the hope that is Christmas.

While Dickens was quick to criticize those who used religion in an improper way, he was also quick to create characters who were good and loving people, and in many cases, people of faith. Himself familiar with Scripture, Dickens tried to shape his life on the ethical teachings of Jesus Christ, and taught his children the importance of religion and prayer. When we look at some of the situations that happen in Dickens' novels, such as Pip seeing the goodness in the convict Magwich in "Great Expectations," Sydney Carton going to the guillotine in place of Charles Darnay in "A Tale of Two Cities," or the transformation of Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol," we find Christian undertones.

Dickens may have returned to the theme of Christmas over and over again simply because he loved the holiday, but it seems more likely that he returned out of hope. Dickens was a realist, but not a pessimist. He believed that people could change, and that society could change as well. In his day he did see significant changes in education, workers' rights, and child-welfare laws due in no small part to his writings. Perhaps he returned again and again to Christmas because he had hope in the one who Christmas is all about Jesus Christ.

We have some of the same social ills today as in the days of Dickens. We still believe that education is important and try to make quality education a right for all children. We may no longer have Dickensian workhouses and debtors' prisons, but we know that the rights of workers are often ignored and in some parts of the world, the working conditions of some would make those in a Dickens' novel seem like a luxury. Hypocrisy and alienation are as real today as in a Dickens novel.

We also have new problems today. We have our good politicians, caring religious figures, and honest leaders just as we find in Dickens, and we have others who are so bad that they would make the frauds and hacks of a Dickens' novel look like noble people. Terrorism, environmental abuse, and some of the excessive violence are not be found in the pages of Dickens, but more than likely would be if Dickens were alive today. Yet like Dickens, we too return to Christmas, and the hope that is Christmas... Jesus Christ. We celebrate his birth not as an historical event, but as an event that transformed our world and continues to transform us as well.

In one of the more moving scenes of "A Christmas Carol," Bob Cratchit tells his wife about Tiny Tim in church on Christmas day. Bob says that Tim told him on the way that he hoped the people saw him in church because he was a cripple and he hoped people would "remember upon Christmas day who made lame beggars walk and blind men (sic) see."

This is advice we all need at Christmas. We can get so busy that we can forget what it's all about. We do need to step back a bit and to remember the one who gave sight to those who could not see and who healed the lame ...the one who gives us hope and whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

Like Dickens we celebrate and return to the Christmas season each year. When we hear the Christmas story once again, that beautiful story of the birth of Christ, we will be transformed, and, in turn, the world will be transformed as well.