Charles Dickens described the Christmas holidays as “a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant 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 other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys” (A Christmas Carol). Without exaggeration or overstatement, then, it could be argued that Dickens has had more influence on how we traditionally celebrate Christmas today than any other individual in history – except one, that is, the central character of the seasonal narrative, Our Lord himself, the Christ whose Mass is fundamental to everything else that might take place.