quotations about Christmas
Probaby the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don't quite know how to put our love into words.
HARLAN MILLER
Better Homes and Gardens
I do like Christmas on the whole ... In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is clumsier every year.
E. M. FORSTER
Howard's End
I grew up in Scotland in the 1970s. There was not much money. The most popular Christmas toy was probably a potato.
CRAIG FERGUSON
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Dec. 20, 2011
And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.
SIGRID UNDSET
Christmas and Twelfth Night
There is something about Christmas that requires a rug rat. Little kids make Christmas fun. I wonder if could rent one for the holidays. When I was tiny we would buy a real tree and stay up late drinking hot chocolate and finding just the right place for the special decorations. It seems like my parents gave up the magic when I figured out the Santa lie. Maybe I shouldn't have told them I knew where the presents really came from. It broke their hearts.
LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON
Speak
Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself.
NORMAN W. BROOKS
"Let Every Day Be Christmas"
Peace on earth will come to stay,
When we live Christmas every day.
HELEN STEINER RICE
attributed, Lessons of Christmas
There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is. Up to a certain specific instant you are feeling ordinary and sad; for it is only Wednesday. At the next moment your heart leaps up and your soul and body dance together like lovers; for in one burst and blaze it has become Thursday. I am assuming (of course) that you are a worshipper of Thor, and that you celebrate his day once a week, possibly with human sacrifice. If, on the other hand, you are a modern Christian Englishman, you hail (of course) with the same explosion of gaiety the appearance of the English Sunday. But I say that whatever the day is that is to you festive or symbolic, it is essential that there should be a quite clear black line between it and the time going before. And all the old wholesome customs in connection with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in brown-paper parcels, out of which an arm of a doll or the leg of a donkey sometimes accidentally stuck. I wish this principle were adopted in respect of modern Christmas ceremonies and publications. Especially it ought to be observed in connection with what are called the Christmas numbers of magazines. The editors of the magazines bring out their Christmas numbers so long before the time that the reader is more likely to be still lamenting for the turkey of last year than to have seriously settled down to a solid anticipation of the turkey which is to come. Christmas numbers of magazines ought to be tied up in brown paper and kept for Christmas Day. On consideration, I should favour the editors being tied up in brown paper. Whether the leg or arm of an editor should ever be allowed to protrude I leave to individual choice.
G.K. CHESTERTON
All Things Considered
There has been only one Christmas -- the rest are anniversaries.
WILLIAM JOHN CAMERON
The Ford Sunday Evening Hour Talks
Forget not Christmas.
HENRY IV
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.
W. T. ELLIS
attributed, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Christmas Cheer
There is a time and a season for all things, as we are told, and the time and the season to decorate our firesides and homes is at Yuletide, when with holly branch and mistletoe we make our Christmas green; with flowers we make it bright and fragrant; with presents we make it bountiful, and with the spirit of peace on earth, goodwill toward men, we make life worth living.
LEE JAMES
"Holiday Decorations,", The Junior Munsey
Christmas is a season of such infinite labour, as well as expense in the shopping and present-making line, that almost every woman I know is good for nothing in purse and person for a month afterwards, done up physically, and broken down financially.
FANNY KEMBLE
Further Records, Dec. 31, 1874
The Angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High."
BIBLE
Luke 1:30-32
What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, Women Know Everything!
Be merry all, be merry all,
With holly dress the festive hall;
Prepare the song, the feast, the ball,
To welcome merry Christmas.
WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER
"Christmas Carol"
Oh! like a wreath, let Christmas mirth
To-day encircle all the earth,
And bind the nations with the love
That Jesus brought from heaven above.
MAUD LINDSAY
"The Story of Gretchen", Mother Stories
Let's be naughty and save Santa the trip.
GARY ALLAN
attributed, Snark! The Herald Angels Sing
I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- 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, and not another race of creatures bound on their journeys.
CHARLES DICKENS
A Christmas Carol
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Christmas Bells"