Quotes about Christmas
page 2

“Twas the night before Christmas, the office was closed,
The transom was shut, the staff home in repose;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
But St. Nicholas won’t be coming because this is a Designated National Security Site within the meaning of Para 4.12 of Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act (Amended) and unauthorised intrusion on such a site is an arrestable offense …”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

The Laundry Files, The Rhesus Chart (2014)

Secret, Home, Night

“Bill O'Reilly: What religion is involved with Christmas? What religion?
David Silverman: Christianity.
O'Reilly: That's not a religion. That's a philosophy.”

Bill O'Reilly (1949) American political commentator, television host and writer

Religion

“Donald Trump is Hillary Clinton’s Christmas gift wrapped up under a tree. I am the lump of coal in her stocking.”

Carly Fiorina (1954) American corporate executive and politician

Twitter http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-conspiracy/index.html (8 December 2015). 2010s, 2015

Tree

“As told in the final section of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour Christmas CD:
Jeff Foxworthy: Tell 'em the one you did.
Engvall: Aw, why'd you have to bring that up?
Foxworthy: Come on, share that one with the group.
Engvall: Alright. Well, nobody's immune from this, not even me.
Foxworthy: Not even Brainiac here.
Engvall: I'm in the car park at the mall, and there's this guy with a coat hanger inside his window… and I could not stop myself. I said, "You lock your keys in your car?"”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Driver: No, just washed it, gonna hang it up to dry (dumbass). Here's your sign.
Here's Your Sign, "Here's MY Sign..."

Cars, Guy

“The separation of men from women at the dinner was still in the mediaeval tradition. Another interesting feature of the evening is the relatively small number of people involved. Eighteen sat down to dinner, fifteen couples danced at the ball. The entertaining was ‘the finest that ever was seen’ because of the style and richness of the accompaniments, not because of its size. This was typical of the period. Feasts for several hundred people were still being given in the country, to prepare for an election or celebrate Christmas, births, weddings, and comings of age. They usually centred round dinner in the hall, and could involve all the neighbouring gentry and near-gentry, and even the tenants and local freeholders. But the entertainments which enjoyed the most prestige were small but elaborate ones for relatively few people – just as the prestigious part of the house was devoted to a few large apartments for great people coming on what amounted to a state visit. A hard line was still drawn between the inner ring of the great and smaller fry.”

Mark Girouard (1931) British architectural historian

Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History (1978)

Women, Men, People, Age

“I love Christmas. I work in Pantomime over the christmas period. On christmas eve I always say to the audience: "Let's celebrate the birth of a child and the start of a new beginning. Let's all sing Silent Night." And we all start singing and halfway through it everybody on the stage is just in tears. Calm comes across everybody. And there is no judgement, there is no anger. It is everybody sitting and thinking about one tiny thing but thinking about it all together and being one with each other. It's just incredible.”

John Barrowman (1967) Scottish-American actor, singer, dancer, musical theatre performer, writer and television personality

Fern Britton Meets John Barrowman BBC (2012)

Love, Birth, Thinking, Tear

“On Christmas Eve, during my terrible personal ordeal of the renewed bombing of North Vietnam, which after 12 years of war finally helped to bring America peace with honor, I sat down just before midnight. I wrote out some of my goals for my second term as President.
Let me read them to you:”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

To make it possible for our children, and for our children's children, to live in a world of peace.
To make this country be more than ever a land of opportunity — of equal opportunity, full opportunity for every American.
To provide jobs for all who can work, and generous help for those who cannot work. To establish a climate of decency and civility, in which each person respects the feelings and the dignity and the God-given rights of his neighbor.
To make this a land in which each person can dare to dream, can live his dreams — not in fear, but in hope — proud of his community, proud of his country, proud of what America has meant to himself and to the world.
1970s, First Watergate Speech (1973)

War, Peace, Reading, Help

“He was angry, too, because it would soon be Christmas and he had nothing to give Leslie. It was not that she would expect something expensive; it was that he needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry. […] She wouldn't laugh at him no matter what he gave her. But for his own sake he had to give her something he could be proud of.”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Jesse Aarons
Bridge to Terabithia (1977)

“Terrorism' is a word that has become a plague on our vocabulary, the excuse and reason and moral permit for state-sponsored violence - our violence - which is now used on the innocent of the Middle East ever more outrageously and promiscuously. Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. It has become a full stop, a punctuation mark, a phrase, a speech, a sermon, the be-all and end-all of everything that we must hate in order to ignore injustice and occupation and murder on a mass scale. Terror, terror, terror, terror. It is a sonata, a symphony, an orchestra tuned to every television and radio station and news agency report, the soap-opera of the Devil, served up on prime-time or distilled in wearyingly dull and mendacious form by the right-wing 'commentators' of the America east coast or the Jerusalem Post or the intellectuals of Europe. Strike against Terror. Victory over Terror. War on Terror. Everlasting War on Terror. Rarely in history have soldiers and journalists and presidents and kings aligned themselves in such thoughtless, unquestioning ranks. In August 1914, the soldiers thought they would be home by Christmas. Today, we are fighting for ever. The war is eternal. The enemy is eternal, his face changing on our screens. Once he lived in Cairo and sported a moustache and nationalised the Suez Canal. Then he lived in Tripoli and wore a ridiculous military uniform and helped the IRA and bombed American bars in Berlin. Then he wore a Muslim Imam's gown and ate yoghurt in Tehran and planned Islamic revolution. Then he wore a white gown and lived in a cave in Afghanistan and then he wore another silly moustache and resided in a series of palaces around Baghdad. Terror, terror, terror. Finally, he wore a kuffiah headdress and outdated Soviet-style military fatigues, his name was Yassir Arafat, and he was the master of world terror and then a super-statesman and then again, a master of terror, linked by Israeli enemies to the terror-Meister of them all, the one who lived in the Afghan cave.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

The Great War for Civilization (2005)

Hate, War, World, Home

“I wrote "Eat It" because I wanted to buy a banana boat for Christmas. It worked.”

"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959) American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist

I Love the 80's 3D, VH1, 1985.

“During my cadet years, West Point was still a military cloister, linked tenuously to the outside world by the West Shore Railway, the excursion boats on the Hudson, and a winding road leading westward into New Jersey. A cadet normally entered the Academy in July and never left it on vacation until his second Christmas. In the meantime, he led a completely regimented life, arising at six, going to bed at ten and rarely having a moment without a duty to occupy it.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 25

Life, World

“My dear Father, Charley wrote you in his letter to his Aunt Laura thanking you for your kindness in sending us a nice Christmas present. You must not think because I have not written you myself before this that I appreciated your kindness less. I have been so troubled with pains and weakness in my arm and hand as to be almost useless at times. I think it was nursing so much when the children were sick. I was so relieved when Anna's note to Charly arrived yesterday telling Frankie was better. It would have been dreadful for Mother to have gone out west at this miserable season of the year. I was wretchedly uneasy. I do hope poor Franky will get along nicely now. It will make him much more careful about exposing himself having had this severe attack. Charley received the enclosed letters Anna sent from Sister Eliza and Toad[? ]. I was very glad to get them. It is quite refreshing to read Sister Eliza's letters. They are so cheerful and happy. I had a letter from her on Friday. This Custom House investigating committee is attracting a great deal of attention and time here. It holds its sessions at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Mr. Broome was up on Tuesday evening until ten o'clock but was not called upon. It is very slow. He has been for three weeks passed preparing the statement for those summoned from the Public Stores. Mr. Broome sends Laura a paper to look at—The Fisk tragedy. What is Nora doing with herself this winter. She might write to me sometimes. Give much love to Mother. Ask her for her receipt for getting fat. I would like to gain some myself. It is so much nicer to grow fleshy as you advance in life than to shrivel and dry up. The children are all well and growing very fast. Lloyd has to study very hard this year. His studies are quite difficult. I suppose Charley Harris is working hard too. Mr. Broome sent you a paper with the Navy Register in this week. I received your papers and often Richard calls and gets them. I must close. Mr. Broome and children join me in love to you, Mother, Laura, Anna, Nora, Charly & all.
With much love,
Your devoted child, Mary Jane
I enclose Nancy letter which was written some time ago.”

Charles Boarman (1795–1879) US Navy Rear Admiral

Mary Jane Boarman in a Sunday letter to her father (January 21, 1872)
The people mentioned in Mary Jane's letter were her children Lloyd, Charley, and Nancy; her husband, William Henry Broome; her sisters Eliza, Anna, Laura, and Nora; her brother Frankie; and her nephew frontier physician Dr. Charles "Charley" Harris, son of her sister Susan.
John Broome and Rebecca Lloyd: Their Descendants and Related Families, 18th to 21st Centuries (2009)

Love, Life, Pain, Happiness

“I know that you observe Christmas Day as you learned it at home. I do not observe it. However, as assistant director of this prison, I allow all the Catholics to observe freely and with some joy this day in this home.”

Odilo Globocnik (1904–1945) SS officer

Quoted in "In Tito's Death Marches and Extermination Camps" - Page 163 - by Joseph Hecimovic, John Prcela - 1962.

Home, Learning, Joy

“He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day
When the New York Times said God is dead
And the war's begun.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Levon
Song lyrics, Madman Across the Water (1971)

God, War, Time, Dead

“There are two Christmas traditions I've inherited from my mother. One is the feeling that Christmas isn't complete if you haven't got a ham as well as a turkey. It means that the leftovers are much better. And in a curious way, despite the fact that we're talking about Christmas and ham, it's a very Jewish thing to want to provide a huge spread. I always cook for eight, but make enough to feed 30…”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

As quoted in "An angel at our table" by Harriet Lane in The Guardian http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/houseandgarden/story/0,6000,412368,00.html (17 December 2000)

Way, Feeling, Cooking

“During their long period of unease about a hot Christmas, Australians rarely noticed that they had more access than their British relatives to a vital part of the traditional Christmas story: 'the stars in the bright sky'. Eventually they ceased to lament that their Christmas came in hot weather.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

Black Kettle and Full Moon: Daily Life in a Vanished Australia (2003)

Star, Parting, Weather

“She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.”

Hans Christian Andersen book The Little Match Girl

The Little Match Girl
Fairy Tales (1835)

Love, Hunger, God, Pain

“It is especially shocking that such a tragedy can go on, year after year, with the rest of the world paying so little attention to it. My Christmas message to Colombian refugees and to the millions of displaced people in Colombia is that the world has not totally forgotten them.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

"UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt make holiday visit to Colombian refugees in Costa Rica" (25 December 2006) http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/4590e1674.html

People, World

“The advantages of general independence are too obvious for dispute; but it may be regretted that the rich and poor now-a-days live so far apart : they have no amusements in common, and it is the cheerful hours of life past together that most knit the social ties. The hunt in his forest, and the Christmas by his hearth, drew the baron and his people together, each in their most lightsome mood — the gain was mutual.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Literary Remains

Life, People, Mood, Past

“At Christmas be merry and thankful withal,
And feast thy poor neighbors, the great with the small.”

Thomas Tusser (1524–1580) English poet

"December Husbandry".
A Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (1557)

“Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black levis, suede jacket, sneaker and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia.”

Thomas Pynchon book V.

First lines
V. (1963)

“I'll never forget that Christmas, I sat up the whole night crying ‘cause daddy felt like a bum, see daddy had a job, but his job was to keep the food on the table for you and mom.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Mockingbird".
2000s, Encore (2004)

Food, Moms, Cry, Night

“In 1965 alone we had 300 private talks for peace in Vietnam, with friends and adversaries throughout the world. Since Christmas your government has labored again, with imagination and endurance, to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement. For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in North Vietnam. Able and experienced spokesmen have visited, in behalf of America, more than 40 countries. We have talked to more than a hundred governments, all 113 that we have relations with, and some that we don't. We have talked to the United Nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace. In public statements and in private communications, to adversaries and to friends, in Rome and Warsaw, in Paris and Tokyo, in Africa and throughout this hemisphere, America has made her position abundantly clear. We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military alliance in Vietnam. We fight for the principle of self-determination—that the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course, choose it in free elections without violence, without terror, and without fear. The people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification. This is all we want for South Vietnam. It is all the people of South Vietnam want. And if there is a single nation on this earth that desires less than this for its own people, then let its voice be heard. We have also made it clear—from Hanoi to New York—that there are no arbitrary limits to our search for peace. We stand by the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962. We will meet at any conference table, we will discuss any proposals—four points or 14 or 40—and we will consider the views of any group. We will work for a cease-fire now or once discussions have begun. We will respond if others reduce their use of force, and we will withdraw our soldiers once South Vietnam is securely guaranteed the right to shape its own future. We have said all this, and we have asked—and hoped—and we have waited for a response. So far we have received no response to prove either success or failure.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

People, World, Fear, Peace

“The Christmas just before I turned four, my parents bought me a pair of little black skates and the Bay of Quinte was frozen and my two sisters took me out there and held my hands and taught me to skate. Now I don't know if this is true—although it sounds good!—but rumour has it by the end of the day they couldn't keep up with me.”

Bobby Hull (1939) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Andrew Podnieks, "One on One with Bobby Hull," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198302.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2001-12-11)

Parent, Sister

“"Christmas is Jesus Christ's birthday! / That's what it is all about in the mix!" - Merry Christmas”

Wesley Willis (1963–2003) American singer-songwriter

Lyrics, Solo

Birthday, Christ

“I was raised deeply imbued with my parents' atheism. The thought of really, seriously practicing any religion doesn't really work for me. But I feel at home in religious buildings and ceremonies. I still hang out a lot in Catholic churches in America. I like going to Catholic masses; I always go to Christmas and Easter. In India I always go to temples and to the pujas. But to be committed to the dogma of any religion-to be told what to believe-goes against my grain in some basic way.”

Wendy Doniger (1940) American Indologist

About her intent to practice Hinduism.
Q&A with Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor and author of The Hindus

Religion, Way, Feeling, Home

“My job was to keep the house clean, get the children off to school, help the cook-housekeeper, and serve at table. The house was much more perfect than the sort of gilt-bordered Christmas-card-Heaven that a crooked-nosed woman would sacrifice everything to attain in the next world: it was an all-electric house, with machines being plugged in and started up all day long; there was no such thing as a fire; heat came from hot-springs underground, and the glowing embers in the fireplace were made of glass.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Children, World, School, Spring

“I used to think I could understand everything and express everything. Or almost everything. I remember when I was writing my book about the war in Afghanistan, Zinky Boys, I went to Afghanistan and they showed me some of the foreign weapons that had been captured from the Afghan fighters. I was amazed at how perfect their forms were, how perfectly a human thought had been expressed. There was an officer standing next to me and he said, "If someone were to step on this Italian mine that you say is so pretty it looks like a Christmas decoration, there would be nothing left of them but a bucket of meat. You'd have to scrape them off the ground with a spoon." When I sat down to write this, it was the first time I thought, "Is this something I should say?" I had been raised on great Russian literature, I thought you could go very very far, and so I wrote about that meat. But the Zone—it's a separate world, a world within the rest of the world—and it's more powerful than anything literature has to say.”

Svetlana Alexievich book Voices from Chernobyl

Source: Voices from Chernobyl (2005), pp. 239–240

War, Books, World, Boy

“We cannot pretend that we do not see the armed policeman who marches up and down beneath our window to guarantee our security while we eat our luxurious dinner, or look at the new piece at the theater, or that we are unaware of the existence of the soldiers who will make their appearance with guns and cartridges directly our property is attacked.
We know very well that we are only allowed to go on eating our dinner, to finish seeing the new play, or to enjoy to the end the ball, the Christmas fete, the promenade, the races or, the hunt, thanks to the policeman's revolver or the soldier's rifle, which will shoot down the famished outcast who has been robbed of his share, and who looks round the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures, ready to interrupt them instantly, were not policeman and soldier there prepared to run up at our first call for help.
And therefore just as a brigand caught in broad daylight in the act cannot persuade us that he did not lift his knife in order to rob his victim of his purse, and had no thought of killing him, we too, it would seem, cannot persuade ourselves or others that the soldiers and policemen around us are not to guard us, but only for defense against foreign foes, and to regulate traffic and fetes and reviews; we cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that the men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live; that they do not like working underground, in the water, or in the stifling heat, for ten to fourteen hours a day, at night in factories to manufacture objects for our pleasure. One would imagine it impossible to deny what is so obvious. Yet it is denied.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter 12

Men, Hunger, Pleasure, Imagination

“Over Christmas, Allen Newell and I created a thinking machine.”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Simon (1956) quoted on CMU Libraries: Problem Solving Research http://shelf1.library.cmu.edu/IMLS/MindModels/problemsolving.html 1940s-1950s

Thinking

“I think you know grandchildren now don't write a thank you for the Christmas presents that are walkin' on their pants with their cap on backwards, listenin' to the Enema Man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg and they don't like 'em.”

Alan Simpson (1931) American politician

Interview on Fox News reported in Grandparents Don't Care About Their 'Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg'-Loving Grandkids, Friedman, Uri, 2011-03-08, w:The Atlantic, 2017-11-12 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/03/simpson-grandparents-dont-care-about-their-snoopy-snoopy-poop-dogg/348664/,

Thinking

“And the last words I heard him say were
I shall return for you my love on Christmas Day…”

Dido (1971) English singer-songwriter

Christmas Day
Song lyrics, No Angel (1999)

Love

“I would say that poetry for most people is like the Christmas tree that is kept in the attic and is taken down in its appropriate season.”

Dennis O'Driscoll (1954–2012) Irish poet, critic

Poetry Quotes

People, Tree, Season

“Well, I didn't ever think about Australia much. To me Australia had never been very interesting, it was just something that happened in the background. It was Neighbours and Crocodile Dundee movies and things that never really registered with me and I didn't pay any attention to it at all. I went out there in 1992, as I was invited to the Melbourne Writers Festival, and I got there and realised almost immediately that this was a really really interesting country and I knew absolutely nothing about it. As I say in the book, the thing that really struck me was that they had this prime minister who disappeared in 1967, Harold Holt and I had never heard about this. I should perhaps tell you because a lot of other people haven't either. In 1967 Harold Holt was prime minister and he was walking along a beach in Victoria just before Christmas and decided impulsively to go for a swim and dove into the water and swam about 100 feet out and vanished underneath the waves, presumably pulled under by the ferocious undertow or rips as they are called, that are a feature of so much of the Australian coastline. In any case, his body was never found. Two things about that amazed me. The first is that a country could just lose a prime minister — that struck me as a really quite special thing to do — and the second was that I had never heard of this. I could not recall ever having heard of this. I was sixteen years old in 1967. I should have known about it and I just realised that there were all these things about Australia that I had never heard about that were actually very very interesting. The more I looked into it, the more I realised that it is a fascinating place. The thing that really endeared Australia to me about Harold Holt's disappearance was not his tragic drowning, but when I learned that about a year after he disappeared the City of Melbourne, his home town, decided to commemorate him in some appropriate way and named a municipal swimming pool after him. I just thought: this is a great country.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

The pool was under construction before he disappeared and is located in the electorate he represented.
Interview with Stanford's Newsletter (June 2001)

People, Books, Way, Home

“Nixon’s offences had been so long in the past, so much part of a different era that he now seemed like some lovable but bigoted uncle you tolerated at Christmas and Thanksgiving.”

Jacob M. Appel book The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up

The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up (2012)

Past, Parting

“The universality of card-playing in the reign of this monarch is evident from a prohibitory statute being necessary to prevent apprentices from using cards except in the Christmas holidays, and then only in their masters' houses…But this moderation, I apprehend, was by no means general, for several contemporary writers are exceedingly severe in their reflections upon the usage of cards, which they rank with dice, and consider both as destructive to morality and good order.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 327
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Cards

Universe, Holiday, Housing

“Humanity faces the most complex task of its history so far. Stated in a solution-oriented way, it is necessary gradually to reorganize this planet at two levels. One must deal with the competing necessities of biosphere and mankind with all their environmental and climatic consequences. On the other level, it is necessary to resolve the demands of competing nations and worlds within mankind's hierarchy of socioeconomic developmental levels and the "Christmas tree" of sociopolitical, ideological, and military consequences.”

Krafft Arnold Ehricke (1917–1984) German aerospace engineer

The Extraterrestrial Imperative (1978)

World, Way, History, Tree

“Regarding public Christmas displays: At some point, someone who worked at Rockefeller Center must have said, "Boys, I have a great idea for Christmas. Let's kill a beautiful tree that's been alive for seventy-five years and bring it to New York City. We'll stand it up in Rockefeller Plaza and conceal its natural beauty by hanging shiny, repulsive, man-made objects on it, and let it stand there slowly dying for several weeks while simpleminded children stare at it and people from Des Moines take pictures of it. That way, perhaps we can add our own special, obscene imprint to Christmas in Midtown."”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (2004)

Children, People, Beauty, Way

“I knew that I would speak in the language of the vanquished
No more durable than old customs, family rituals,
Christmas tinsel, and once a year the hilarity of carols.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"1945" (1985), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Robert Hass
New Poems (1985-1987)

Family

“Temptations came to him, in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more hopeful reason than that he didn't get one in December.”

Saki (1870–1916) British writer

"The Reticence of Lady Anne"
Reginald in Russia (1910)

Age, Hope, Boy, Box

“There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.”

Robert Wilson Lynd (1879–1949) Irish writer

On Christmas http://books.google.com/books?id=TXDGeEkIN6oC&q=%22There+are+some+people+who+want+to+throw+their+arms+round+you+simply+because+it+is+Christmas+there+are+other+people+who+want+to+strangle+you+simply+because+it+is+Christmas%22&pg=PA85#v=onepage, The Book of This and That (1915)

People

“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise trip to Iraq Sunday. Also surprised to be in Iraq on Sunday: thousands of U. S. troops who were supposed to be home by Christmas.”

Amy Poehler (1971) American actress

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04tupdate.phtml
Weekend Update samples

Home

“Its berries are red as a maiden's lip,
Its leaves are of changeless green;
And any thing changeless now, I wis,
Is somewhat rare to be seen.
The holly, which fall and frost has borne,
The holly's the wreath for a Christmas morn.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(1st January 1831) Christmas Carol
The London Literary Gazette, 1831

“It is still hard to believe that a man who sends out the Ten Commandments every year for a Christmas card can be so easy buttoning and unbuttoning.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"An Interest in Life" (1959)

“The name was a fluke. A joke. It started when I was doing A Christmas Carol in San Diego. We'd sit backstage and talk about names we'd never give our children, like Pork Pie or Independence. Of course, now people are walking around with those names. A woman said to me, "If I was your mother, I would have called you Whoopi, because when you're unhappy you make a sound like a whoopee cushion. It sounds like a fart." It was like "Ha-ha-ha-ha—Whoopi!" So people actually started calling me Whoopi Cushion. After about a year, my mother said, "You won't be taken seriously if you call yourself Whoopi Cushion. So try this combination: Whoopi Goldberg.”

Whoopi Goldberg (1955) American actress

Playboy interview, Playboy magazine, June 1988

Children, People

“A man is at his finest towards the finish of the year;
He is almost what he should be when the Christmas season's here;
Then he's thinking more of others than be's thought the months before,
And the laughter of his children is a joy worth toiling for.
He is less a selfish creature than at any other time;
When the Christmas spirit rules him he comes close to the sublime.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

At Christmas, stanza 1.
Just Folks (1917)

Children, Thinking, Laughter, Time

“So what's the cost of the culture of corruption? Of people giving breaks to the oil companies and giving giveaways and Christmas presents to the drug companies and the insurance companies? The cost is $90 billion a year. There you go. Quantifiable.”

Amy Klobuchar (1960) United States Senator from Minnesota

Quoted in [interview with Jonathan Singer, Conversation with MN-Sen Candidate Amy Klobuchar, MyDD, February 23 2006, http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/23/12158/1447, 2007-02-25]
2006

People

“Christmas is good news in a world of bad news. This was so on the first Christmas and on Christmas 1959 … Christmas brings hope to a dark world.”

Halford E. Luccock (1885–1960) American Methodist minister

Whoops! It's Christmas (1959)

World, Hope

“Here's a reminder on accepting Christmas gifts from vendors: don't.”

Thomas Watson, Jr. (1914–1993) American businessman and diplomat

Watson Jr. (Dec 8, 1959) cited in: IBM (1988) Thirty years of management briefings, 1958-1988. p. 13.

“It is said of the English, that formerly they were remarkable for the manner in which they celebrated the festival of Christmas; at which season they admitted variety of sports and pastimes not known, or little practised in other countries.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 339
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Christmas

Sport, Country, Season

“I used to think that New York City
Fell from grace with God.
And innocence abroad
Waged a war for the underdog.
When the snow falls
And Central Park looks like a Christmas card,
I just looked beyond the bagman
And the madness that makes this city hard.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
Song lyrics, Reg Strikes Back (1988)

God, War, Thinking, Madness

“One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.”

O. Henry book The Four Million

"The Gift of the Magi" - Full text online http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html The Four Million (1906)

“And I'm tired of living here in this hotel,Snow and the rain falling through the sheets.In fact, I'm tired of 23rd Street.Strung out like some Christmas lightsOut there in the Chelsea night.”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

Hotel Chelsea Nights
Love Is Hell pt. 2 (2003)

Night

“I intend to make this day forward the first day of the rest of my life. We can change our lives. You say, 'Well, what's wrong with your life, Michael?' Well, it's not that there's anything wrong with my life, but it's not what I want it to be. I don't feel that I'm inspiring people in the way I want to inspire them. You see, you can inspire through hate; you can inspire through love, hope, humor – the positives. I look at the history of the world, and I look at the world today, and I realize that if we don't inspire each other through positive attributes – love, hope and humor – we're gonna descend into the barbarism of the Left and the barbarism of ISIS. You like me to be hard, you like me to be tough, you like me to give you the breaking news, you like me to be cynical, you like me to analytical, you like me to give you stuff that you don't hear anywhere else – I get that. But there's a limit to that. There's a lot of area beyond all that.I think of Christmas. Christianity is the religion of peace. Christianity is the true religion of peace. 'Turn the other cheek.' 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' These are messages that come from Christianity. What can you do in an age of deceit and lies and terror? You can go to church again. However un-needing you think you really are, you know in your heart that there's something missing in you. You know that you crave something greater. Because the human being is not a dog. We are unique creatures. And we need something different than the bear, the dog, the snake and the eagle. What is that thing that we need? It's that 'thing' called God.The media has promulgated the idea, and promoted the idea, that we only need food and fornication. And so when people are empty that's what they seek. And when they are really empty, what happens? They become drug addicts. They start with marijuana, they end up with heroin, crack, you name it. As God has been driven out of America, drugs have entered America. What does an empty soul look to do? An empty soul looks to fill itself. Just as an empty vessel needs to be filled with a liquid to be complete, an empty human being needs to fill itself to be complete. And how does it fill itself? I know, again, many of you will laugh because you're cynical; it's through those things I'm talking about – inspiration. Do you think a musician can play one day without inspiration from somewhere? The greatest artists in the history of the world were not drug-addicts. They were usually God-addicts. Look at the greatest art in history, you'll find most of them were super religious people, who literally saw God in their living room, and they took the power of God and that was transmitted through the paintbrush, or through that piece of marble. How could a man like Rodin take a piece of inert stone, and inside that stone see the essence of the human form, and sculpt from that block of inert stone, a marble, the portrait of a human being that looks so real – a hundred years later I go and look at them in the museum, and literally inside that carved eye I can see the person; how is that possible? How? It's a different show than I've ever done in my 21 years, because each day to me – I must tell you – I see as my last day, my last day on Earth.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2015

Love, Life, God, Hate

“If I miss my chance, I didn't even try
I'm not one to regret Christmas in July.”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Christmas in July" (2006)
Lyrics, Others

Chance

“He looked like he could have snapped the chains that held him as easily as you might snap the ribbons on a Christmas present, but when you looked in his face, you knew he wasn't going to do anything like that.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

The Green Mile (1996)

“It was like Rambo sent them all Christmas cards, but instead of cards it was murder.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Astrology is bullshit. http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=astrology The Best Page in the Universe

“Heap on more wood!-the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.”

Walter Scott Marmion

Canto VI, introduction, st. 1.
Marmion (1808)

“But sometimes I'd feel more fulfilled making Christmas cards with the mentally ill.
I want to live and I want to love.
I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From the song "Frankly Mr. Shankly"
From songs

Love, Feeling

“Punk: Well, I've had six days to watch that scene over and over and over, and as painful as it was to watch, as painful it was to experience, I saw something more painful. Something caught my eye that was ten times more painful than my arm being mangled inside of a ladder while Alberto wrenched on it with his cross-armbreaker; it was more painful than Alberto butchering the English language; it was more painful than watching Miz [demonstrates] make his own bad-guy face, and his pathetic attempts to sound like a tough guy—"really? really?"—it was more painful than sitting through two hours of Michael Cole commentary as he struggles to sound relevant. No, I continued to watch Monday Night Raw, and what I saw was old clown shoes himself, the Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim Raw General Manager, John Laurinaitis accept an award on my behalf. This wasn't just any award, it was the Slammy Award for Superstar of the Year, being accepted by a guy who's never been a superstar of thirty seconds. I mean, who's he ever beat? And I'm not a hard guy to find, I've yet to receive said Slammy. So what…[turns around and notices] oh. Speak of the devil. No, no, no, don't apologize. Where's my Slammy at?
Laurinaitis: Punk, I mailed your Slammy to you, but with the holiday season, it may take a while to get to you. But if I were you, I'd be more worried about your championship match tonight than your Slammy.
Punk: Well, if I were you, I'd wish myself best of luck in my future endeavors. But I don't expect you to do that; in fact, you wouldn't do that, just like I'm not gonna lose the Title tonight. So when TLC is over with, you're still gonna have to put up with CM Punk as your WWE Champion.
Laurinaitis: You know what, Punk? I'm gonna be the bigger man right now, okay? I mean, after all, I am taller than you. Good luck tonight, and merry Christmas.
Punk: Johnny, luck's for losers.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

TLC 2011
WWE Raw

Pain, Shoe, Guy, Time

“Three words for those who want to put the Christ back in Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2011-12-24
Christopher Hitchens on The True Spirit of Christmas
The Wall Street Jorunal
0099-9660
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110880355067656.html
2010s, 2011

Christ

“By Christmas, with fair luck, he might be eligible for service in khaki: by Spring, if God was good, all the proud privileges of trench-lice, mustard gas, spattered brains, punctured lungs, ripped guts, asphyxiation, mud and gangrene, might be his.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Eugene Gant contemplating entering the service in World War I
Source: Look Homeward, Angel (1929), p. 434

God, Spring

“From someone whose dad buys him a spade for Christmas, I thought you'd be grateful!”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Xfm 15 December 2001
On Stephen Merchant

“The ones who are saying, "You can’t say 'happy holidays'. You have to say 'merry Christmas', because this is our season - this is the Christmas season." Well, it's not the Christmas season, it's the solstice season. And that's why it's not a war on Christmas. It's a war on the solstice, and the Christians started it.”

David Silverman (1957) American animator and director

interviewed regarding American Atheists' Jersey City, New Jersey "You Know It's a Myth" billboard.

War, Happiness, Holiday, Season

“Well folks, it's October and you know what that means: only a few more weeks 'til Hallowe'en when my family traditionally puts up our Christmas decorations. People come from far and wide to visit our haunted manger. We make their kids stick their hands in a spoooky bowl of Frankincense!! It's actually just spaghetti.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

On The Colbert Report (28 September 2006). Video available at Colbert Nation http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/76103/september-28-2006/the-blitzkrieg-on-grinchitude

People, Family

“In each of the cathedral churches there was a bishop, or an archbishop of fools, elected; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the papal see a pope of fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a proper suit of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted at the divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous dresses resembling pantomimical players and buffoons; they were accompanied by large crowds of the laity, some being disguised with masks of a monstrous fashion, and others having their faces smutted; in one instance to frighten the beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter: and some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the wanton airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. During the divine service this motley crowd were not contended with singing of indecent songs in the choir, but some of them ate, and drank, and played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the priest who celebrated the mass. After the service they put filth into the censers, and ran about the church, leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests, and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with shameless impudence. Another part of these ridiculous ceremonies was, to shave the precentor of fools upon a stage erected before the church, in the presence of the populace; and during the operation, he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses, accompanied by actions equally reprehensible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed the divine service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his benediction to the people before they quitted the church. He was afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn about to the different parts of the town, attended by a large train of ecclesiastics and laymen promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious fooleries the greater effect; they had also with them carts filled with ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace assembled to see the procession. These spectacles were always exhibited at Christmas-time, or near to it, but not confined to one particular day.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 345
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Festival of Fools

People, Fools, Sex, Fashion

“In the United States dramatically, here fortunately much less so, the book store as we have known it is dying. In the United States it is now largely an emporium, featuring music, records, Christmas cards, a large range fo semi-cultural and kitsch products with books fighting for their actual spatial lives. In some of the great university towns such as New Haven, or Princeton, within the past decade, the last good book stores have had to close, and what we have now are text book emporia which are not book stores, but store-houses bracketed according to set reading lists: in other words—where there is none of the genius of waste which a great book store has, where you cannot find what you are not looking for, which is the very essence of a book store.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

Do Books Matter? (ed. Brian Baumfield), ISBN 0705700143, p. 27.
Do Books Matter?

Books, Music, Universe, Reading

“For everyone out there listening, thank you and Merry Christmas.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

2013

“It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

From speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, . Frequently misattributed to The God Delusion.
quoted in [EDITORIAL: A scientist's case against God, The Independent (London), April 20, 1992, 17] and [2011-05-27, What Should I Believe?: Philosophical Essays for Critical Thinking, Paul Gomberg, Broadview Press, 9781554810130, 146, http://books.google.com/books?id=76WxxHN9I0kC&pg=PA146&dq=%22Faith+is+the+great+cop-out%22]

God, Sense

“It's coming on Christmas,
They're cutting down trees.
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace.
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

"River" from Blue
Songs

Peace, Tree, Singing, Joy

“What is patriotism but love of the good things we ate in our childhood? I have said elsewhere that the loyalty to Uncle Sam is the loyalty to doughnuts and ham and sweet potatoes and the loyalty to the German Vaterland is the loyalty to Pfannkuchen and Christmas Stollen. As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini… in food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. IV : On Having A Stomach, p. 46

Love, Death, Food, Feeling

“The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be.”

Henry James book The Turn of the Screw

Introduction.
The Turn of the Screw (1898)

Housing

“Those gathered at the Annual Correspondents' Dinner, or their Christmas party, are not the country's natural aristocracy, but its authentic Idiocracy. No matter how poor their predictive powers, no matter how many times they get it wrong—in war and in peace—the presstitutes always find time for this orgy of self-praise.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Thanks, POTUS, For Breaking-Up The Annual Correspondents’ Circle Jerk." http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/05/thanks_potus_for_breakingup_the_annual_correspondents_circle_jerk.html The American Thinker, May 8, 2017. 2010s, 2017

War, Peace, Nature, Time

“Well, it's very successful politics, isn't it? You know, we are the turkeys that have voted for Christmas.”

Nigel Farage (1964) British politician and former commodity broker

Interviewed on the Today programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04vdjs7, BBC Radio 4, 1 March 2017 2017

Success

“Christmas is here:
Winds whistle shrill,
Icy and chill.
Little care we;
Little we fear
Weather without,
Sheltered about
The Mahogany Tree.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) novelist

The Mahogany Tree, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Fear, Tree, Weather

“I'm not gonna lie, I love the holidays. But Christmas was a lot more fun when you weren't paying for it.”

D. L. Hughley (1963) American actor and comedian

Appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (January 17, 2008)

Love, Lie, Holiday

“Toronto is already in the toils of Christmas, and from several windows the hollow Ho Ho! of a mechanical Santa Claus may be heard. Children watch these creatures with hard, calculating eyes, wondering if the old man is really crazy, or only pretending to be, like Hamlet…”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

Children

“Every year right after the Christmas holidays, our IQ scores were posted on the bulletin board at the Academy. We, the juniors and seniors, had taken our tests several weeks ago, and for the last few days we were all nervous wrecks waiting to see our results. Of course, we were all told that what was really crucial for us to get into the college of our choice was the grade point average of our last two years of high school, plus our SAT scores. But we knew that our IQ score could also make a big difference because our IQ, we’d been told, was what gave us a true measure of our intelligence. So if we hadn’t worked real hard in school or hadn’t tested well in our college entrance exams, then our IQ could make all the difference.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School, Intelligence, Waiting, Holiday

“If I'm president, you're going to see 'Merry Christmas' in department stores, believe me.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, January, Speech at (18 January 2016)

“We shall have a harder Christmas than we have known since the war.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

ibid. Reported in Time magazine (24 December 1973). It was spoken on television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj9OlIiHFo4 Prime Minister

War

“[begin list of sophomoric puns] I bet he'd find a place up the chimney of any woman. He's certainly good at filling their stockings. Trouble is, he wouldn't be much good as a lover as he can only come once a year. [end list of sophomoric puns] (Why Chicks Dig Father Christmas)”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

Fully Ramblomatic, Essays

Lovers

“There stole into my mind Coleridge's poignant lines:
Ah God! It is fell Christmas-tide
So to the shops I hie;
And my shopping-list, like the Albatross,
About my neck doth lie.
This was to be included in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" but was dropped to please Wordsworth, who secretly held shares in a large toy-shop and was afraid it might hurt business.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

God, Lie, Business, Hurt

“Some Muslims imagine that being against Christians' celebrations during Christmas that take place once a year is a great way of striving on the path of God. Instead of being false heroes on that day, they should preach religion all through the year and talk about Islam and preach the miracles of the Qur’an.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

30 December 2013.
A9 TV addresses, 2013

God, Religion, Way, Imagination

“The Administration says then, there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants.But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would've liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our US constitutional right to remain silence. Our US constitutional rights. Our rights that you, sir [addressing veteran in audience], fought and were willing to die for to protect in our Constitution. The rights that my son, as an infantryman in the United States Army, is willing to die for. The protections provided — thanks to you, sir! — we're gonna bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution?! And tries to destroy our Constitution and our country. This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we're going to deal with a terrorist — we don't have to go down that road.There are questions that we would have liked answered before he lawyered up, like, "Where exactly were you trained and by whom? You—you're braggin' about all these other terrorists just like you — uh, who are they? When and where will they try to strike next?" The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat — the threat, then, as the U. S. S. Cole was attacked, our embassies were attacked, it was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me, for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a perfesser of law standing at the lectern!”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

National Tea Party Convention keynote speech, Nashville, Tennessee, , quoted in
regarding President Obama
2014

Hate, War, Children, Law

“Xylophone is spelled with an X, that's wrong, xylophone's zzzz, X? I don't fuckin' see it. It should be a Z up front, next time you have to spell xylophone, use a Z. When someone says "Hey that's wrong." say "No it ain't. If you think that's wrong, you need to get your head Z-rayed." It's like X wasn't given enough to do, so they had to promise it more. Okay, you don't start a lot of words, but we'll give you a co-starring role in tic-tac-toe. And you will be associated with hugs and kisses. And you will mark the spot. And you will make writing Christmas easier. And incidentally, you will start xylophone. Are you happy, you fuckin' X?!”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Mitch All Together (2003)

Happiness, Star, Kiss, Thinking

“At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.”

Thomas Tusser (1524–1580) English poet

"The Farmer's Daily Diet".
A Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (1557)

Christmas

“Now, most of you are probably going to be totally bored out of your minds on Christmas day, and here's the perfect distraction. Test 2.6.15-rc7. All the stores will be closed, and there's really nothing better to do in between meals.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Attributed Source: LKML 2005.12.24 http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/12/24/92

Perfection

“The three wise men from the east recognised this planetary importance in the birth of Jesus Christ. Perhaps these wise men saw Dattatreya in baby Jesus. That is how the date December 25 was finalised. It is said in Datta Purana (mythology) that Dattatreya appears as child, Unmatta etc.
In those days the three wise men from the east recognised the power of Jesus. This day the wise men from the west are experiencing Jesus in Datta Peetham. For the men of reality the concept of east and west are just lines in the air.
Understanding the above may not be possible in just one reading. Read it several times and you will understand the underlying and profound concept. Swamiji has seen in a Church in Basel, Switzerland Jesus with three heads like Dattatreya. This potentiates the above statements.
Let us understand the above and from now onwards let us correlate Datta Jayanti and Christmas in our hearts and experience the unified divine power.”

Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji (1942) Indian guru

Christmas · Datta Jayanti (1996)

Men, Birth, Understanding, Reality

“The development of relations between State and Church affords a very instructive example of how the carelessness of a single statesman can have after-effects which last for centuries. When Charlemagne was kneeling at prayer in St. Peter's, Rome, at Christmas in the year 800, the Pope, giving him no time to work out the possible effects of so symbolic an action, suddenly bent down and presto! popped a golden crown on his head! By permitting it, the Emperor delivered himself and his successors into the hands of a power which subjected the German Government and the German people to five hundred years of martyrdom.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

4 July 1942.
Disputed, (1941-1944) (published 1953)

People, Time

“In less than a century, Christians have gone from opposing over-consumption at Christmas to demanding it be done in Christ's name alone.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

Christ

“There was one in the gang who had Scalextric, and because of that he thought he was better than you.
All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit, Back Again In The D. H. S. S.”

Nigel Blackwell

1987
Lyrics

“Let us remember that this scene [the Nativity] represents so much more than just a touching story or a nostalgic holiday fairytale. It is, in fact, a reminder of the most amazing reality: That God came, and God spoke. Peace on earth, God is with us. And the God who spoke still speaks. And the God who came still comes. This is the true Miracle of Christmas – that as we stand here tonight in our real world with our real lives full of problems and questions, past hurts and future hopes, God is with us.”

Steven Curtis Chapman (1962) American Christian music singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist

Playing Pastor Michael Curtis in the Lifetime movie "Christmas Child," 2003 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346750/

God, World, Peace, Hope

“Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain't a girl—ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an' things that 's worn by Fauntleroy!
Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake—
Hate to take the castor-ile they give for bellyache!
'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no flies on me,
But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!”

Eugene Field (1850–1895) American writer

Jest 'Fore Christmas http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/literature/eugenefield/poems/poemsofchildhood/jestforechristmas.html, st. 1 Love Songs of Childhood (1894)

Love, Hate, Girl, Boy

“As I climbed the steps that went alongside a sort of lumberyard, a man was coming down the steps toward me. He was short and rather old, and he had a slight limp. He took my hand, and at first I was really frightened, but I began to look at him. He said, "I thought you would come with me; don't you want to?" I said, with a kind of fear (was it good to say No to a poor person?): "No, Sir, but merry Christmas." He let go of my hand immediately; I thought he looked a little sad. I continued on my way, and throughout the days that followed I said to myself: "Perhaps I should have said Yes, but I really had to say No."”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Meeting Saint Ignatius, pp. 32-33
My Early Years (1968)

Sadness, Fear, Way, Personality

“Everybody skated and played hockey. When I was five, Dad gave me a heavy box for Christmas. When I opened it, there was only a piece of wood. I was so mad! Then he gave me another box, and the skates were there. Dad used to build a rink behind our house every winter. That's where I started playing hockey. From the time I was seven, I used to sleep in all my equipment. That way, I was ready to play in the morning.”

Guy Lafleur (1951) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Guy Lafleur," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198802.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2003-03-16)

Way, Sleep, Winter, Time

“Three years ago, the white hope of the theatre. Today, a mug. That's New York for you. Puts you on a Christmas tree, and then - the alley.”

Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American screenwriter

Angels Over Broadway (1940)
Screenplays

Hope, Tree

“I've always assumed that every time a child is born, the Divine reenters the world. Okay? That's the meaning of the Christmas story. And every time that child's purity is corrupted by society, that's the meaning of the Crucifixion story. Your man Jesus stands for that child, that pure spirit, and as its surrogate, he's being born and put to death again and again, over and over, every time we inhale and exhale, not just at the vernal equinox and on the twenty-fifth of December.”

Tom Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)

Death, World, Time

“As long as you're rememberin' baby Jesus, does it matter when you're rememberin' 'im[Karl on how he hates Christmas being the same date each year]”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

The Podfather Trilogy, Episode 2 Thanksgiving
On Christmas

Hate, Baby

“I am a worker, a tombstone mason, anxious to pleace averyburies and jully glad when Christmas comes his once ayear.”

James Joyce book Finnegans Wake

Page 113
Finnegans Wake (1939)

“Now it's almost as beautiful as Christmas [then Paula suddenly fell to the floor]…. What a pity! [her last words].”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

as quoted in: Paula Modersohn-Becker, the challenges of pregnancy and the weight of tradition, by Giorgina B. Piccoli and Scott L. Karakas; published in: 'Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine', 6 June 2011, p. 1; as quoted in: M. Bohlmann-Modersohn: Paula Modersohn-Becker: eine Biographie mit Briefen, Albrecht Knaus; Berlin 1995, p. 280
Paula had given birth to her (first) child, Mathilde, on 2 November 1907. Her sudden death, on 21 November 1907, due to thromboembolism, occurred almost immediately after she was allowed to leave her bed for the first time following her delivery; her biographers recount that she combed her hair, adorned it with red roses received as presents, and slowly walked to the living room, where her daughter was in her crib. Paula took the young daughter Mathilde (later called Tille) in her arms and fell down, suddenly.
1906 + 1907

Beauty

Quotes about Christmas page 2

Quotes about Christmas
page 2