Read these lines: "I have always thought of Christmas time 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 people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave." What is the central idea?

1. The four words chosen for the season are kind, forgiving, charitable and pleasant. 2. The speaker then says hearts that are shut up for the rest of the year open freely at this one time. 3. He adds that people begin to see those below them as fellow travellers rather than another race. 4. All three parts point the same way, towards openness and kindness, option A. 5. Gifts are never mentioned, and the speaker says outright that the season has never put gold or silver in his pocket. _Source: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave I Marley's Ghost_