- "Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world of the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart."
-- George Mathhew Adams - "The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting."
-- Louisa May Alcott - "Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever."
-- Bess Streeter Aldrich - "I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: 'Why this is Christmas Day!'"
-- Ray Stannard Baker - " The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!"
-- Charles N. Barnard - "Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas."
-- Peg Bracken - "The earth has grown old with its burden of care But at Christmas it always is young, The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair And its soul full of music breaks the air, When the song of angels is sung."
-- Phillips Brooks - "Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given--when Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes."
-- Joan Winmill Brown - "I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never aone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the word seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses."
-- Taylor Caldwell - "Remember, if Christmas isn't found in your heart, you won't find it under a tree."
-- Charlotte Carpenter - "Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."
-- Calvin Coolidge - "There are no strangers on Christmas Eve."
-- Adele Comandini and Edward Sutherland. Michael O'Brien (Charles Winninger), Beyond Tomorrow, after proposing that the partners invite three strangers to dinner (1940) - "Christmas, in its final essence, is for grown people who have forgotten what children know. Christmas is for whoever is old enough to have denied the unquenchable spirit of man."
-- Margaret Cousins - "Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'."
-- Bing Crosby - "Whatever else be lost among the years, Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing: Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears, Let us hold close one day, remembering Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men. Let us get back our childlike faith again."
-- Grace Noll Crowell - "It is the personal thoughtfulness, the warm human awareness, the reaching out of the self to one's fellow man that makes giving worthy of the Christmas spirit."
-- Isabel Currier - "The threat of Christmas hung in the air, visible already in the fretful look of passersby as they readied themselves for the meaningless but necessary rites of false jovialities and ill-considered gifts."
-- Peter Dickinson - "Something about an old-fashioned Christmas is hard to forget."
-- Hugh Downs - "They err who thinks Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart."
-- Mrs. Paul M. Ell - "Christmas, my child, is love in action."
-- Dale Evans - "Do give books - religious or otherwise - for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal."
-- Lenore Hershey - "My first copies of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn still have some blue-spruce needles scattered in the pages. They smell of Christmas still."
-- Charlton Heston - "At Christmas, all roads lead home."
-- Marjorie Holmes - "It comes every year and will go on forever. And along with Christmas belong the keepsakes and the customs. Those humble, everyday things a mother clings to, and ponders, like Mary in the secret spaces of her heart."
-- Marjorie Holmes - "My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?"
-- Bob Hope - "When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things - not the great occasions - give off the greatest glow of happiness."
-- Bob Hope - "The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas."
-- W. C. Jones - "The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin."
-- Jay Leno - "A Christmas candle is a lovely thing; It makes no noise at all, But softly gives itself away; While quite unselfish, it grows small."
-- Eva K. Logue - "Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive."
-- Robert Lynd - "Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love."
-- Hamilton Wright Mabi - "The merry family gatherings-- The old, the very young; The strangely lovely way they Harmonize in carols sung. For Christmas is tradition time-- Traditions that recall The precious memories down the years, The sameness of them all."
-- Helen Lowrie Marshall - "There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions."
-- Bill McKibben - "I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month."
-- Harlan Miller - "Christmas is the keeping-place for memories of our innocence."
-- Joan Mills - "Christmas is, of course, the time to be home - in heart as well as body."
-- Garry Moore - "What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace."
-- Agnes M. Pharo - "Mankind is a great, an immense family... This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas."
-- Pope John XXIII - "One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
-- Andy Rooney - "The best Christmas trees come very close to exceeding nature."
-- Andy Rooney - "Christmas--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved."
-- Augusta E. Rundel - "Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone."
-- Charles Schulz - "As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, Christmas is."
-- Eric Sevareid - "Christmas is the day that holds time together."
-- Alexander Smith - "Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion."
-- Ralph Sockman - "Christmas ... is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart."
-- Freya Stark - "Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends."
-- Margaret Thatcher - "At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year."
-- Thomas Tusser - "What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus? Claustrophobic."
-- Unknown - "Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles."
-- Unknown - "If there is no joyous way to give a festive gift, give love away."
-- Unknown - "Why does Scrooge love Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Because every buck is dear to him."
-- Unknown - "Many banks have a new kind of Christmas club in operation. The new club helps you save money to pay for last year's gifts."
-- Unknown - "Until one feels the spirit of Christmas, there is no Christmas. All else is outward display--so much tinsel and decorations. For it isn't the holly, it isn't the snow. It isn't the tree not the firelight's glow. It's the warmth that comes to the hearts of men when the Christmas spirit returns again."
-- Unknown - "Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world - stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas."
-- Henry Van Dyke - "Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts."
-- Lenora Mattingly Weber - "Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance - each beautiful, unique and too soon gone."
-- Deborah Whipp - "Somehow, not only for Christmas, But all the long year through, The joy that you give to others, Is the joy that comes back to you. And the more you spend in blessing, The poor and lonely and sad, The more of your heart's possessing, Returns to you glad."
-- John Greenleaf Whittier - "Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall."
-- Larry Wilde
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