Uncles and aunts, and cousins, are all very well, and fathers and mothers are not to be despised; but a grandmother, at holiday time, is worth them all.

The line playfully ranks family relations, conceding the value of the wider kin network while insisting that a grandmother becomes uniquely central during holidays. Fern’s phrasing suggests that festive gatherings intensify the emotional labor of family life—hosting, feeding, soothing, and binding generations together—and that grandmothers often embody that stabilizing warmth and continuity. The humor (“are all very well,” “not to be despised”) softens what is essentially a moral claim: affection and gratitude should be directed toward the often-underrecognized figure who makes “holiday time” feel like home. It also reflects a sentimental nineteenth-century ideal of domestic influence, but with Fern’s characteristic wit.