c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
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
A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.
— Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home
They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves.
— Eric Sevareid
Peace on earth will come to stay, When we live Christmas every day.
— Helen Steiner Rice
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 melody that would last forever.
— Bess Streeter Aldrich, Song of Years
Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart. 
— Washington Irving
On a busy day twenty-two thousand people come to visit Santa, and I was told that it is an elf's lot to remain merry in the face of torment and adversity. I promised to keep that in mind.
— David Sedaris
Christmas it seems to me is a necessary festival; we require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our human relationships: it is the feast of failure, sad but consoling.
— Graham Greene, Travels With My Aunt
He took the Who’s feast, he took the Who pudding, he took the roast beast. He cleaned out that ice box as quick as a flash. Why, the Grinch even took their last can of Who hash.
— Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch stole Christmas! And other stories
Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends.
— Margaret Thatcher
And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content. “As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Thank you," he says."Thank who?""I don't know.
— Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Everyone wants a Christmas tree. If you had a Christmas tree Santa would bring you stuff! Like hair curlers and slut shoes.
— Janet Evanovich, Visions of Sugar Plums
Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.
— Peg Bracken
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
Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children; to remember the weaknesses and lonliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and to ask yourself if you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thougts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open? Are you willing to do these things for a day? Then you are ready to keep Christmas!
— Henry Van Dyke
Christmas, my child, is love in action.
— Dale Evans Rogers
I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!
— Charles Dickens
I truly believe that if we keep telling the Christmas story, singing the Christmas songs, and living the Christmas spirit, we can bring joy and happiness and peace to this world.
— Norman Vincent Peale
Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith.
— W.H. Auden
Remember, if Christmas isn't found in your heart, you won't find it under a tree.
— Charlotte Carpenter
As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, Christmas is.
— Eric Sevareid
To the American People: Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world. Presidential message, December 25, 1927
— Calvin Coolidge
Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'.
— Bing Crosby
The knowing is easy. It's the doing that gives us trouble.
— Vannetta Chapman, A Simple Amish Christmas
Everyone wants to feel loved, but when all you feel is alone it's tough to accomplish anything else.
— Glenn Beck, The Christmas Sweater
The universe is a trillion, trillion threads moving in seemingly unrelated directions. Yet when you look at them together, they create a remarkable tapestry.
— Richard Paul Evans
Thanksgiving was nothing more than a pilgrim-created obstacle in the way of Christmas
—  a dead bird in the street that forced a brief detour.
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
I walked inside Macy’s and faced the pathetic spectacle of a department store full of shoppers, none of whom were shopping for themselves. Without the instant gratification of a self-aimed purchase, everyone walked around in the tactical stupor of the financially obligated.
— Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
At ChristmasA 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 he'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 A. Guest
Good for Christmas-time is the ruddy colour of the cloak in which--the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her basket--Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf who ate her grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth. She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But, it was not to be; and there was nothing for it but to look out the Wolf in the Noah's Ark there, and put him late in the procession on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded.
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Tree
Christmas Eve is my favorite... I think the anticipation is more fun than anything else. I kind of lost that. The idea that something - food, traditions, an arbitrary date on the calendar - can be special because we decide it should be. We make it special. Not just for ourselves, but for others.
— Kiersten White, My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories
Matt is grinning at me like I'm the new Christmas toy he really wanted, but can't play with yet because he hasn't read the instructions.
— Jillian Dodd, That Boy
Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall
— Larry Wilde
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies!
— Francis Pharcellus Church
The light of the Christmas star to you. The warmth of home and hearth to you. The cheer and goodwill of friends to you. The hope of a child-like heart to you. The joy of a thousand angels to you. The love of the Son and God's peace to you.
— Sherryl Woods, An O'Brien Family Christmas
There has been only one Christmas -- the rest are anniversaries.
— W.J. Cameron
Christmas is the gentlest, loveliest festival of the revolving year - and yet, for all that, when it speaks, its voice has strong authority. 
— W.J. Cameron
Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.
— Alan Bradley, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out any quicker than the Christmas spirit
— Kin Hubbard
Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the year, the memory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world around us, should be active with us, not less than our own experiences, for all good.
— Charles Dickens, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
The Christmas tree, twinkling with lights, had a mountain of gifts piled up beneath it, like offerings to the great god of excess.
— Tess Gerritsen, The Sinner
Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it; for mirth is also of Heaven's making. 
— Leigh Hunt
I manage a toast to the Christmas treeand one to the sweet absurdityin the miracle of the verb to be.Lucky you, lucky me.
— Miller Williams
Colored lights blink on and off, racing across the green boughs. Their reflections dance across exquisite glass globes and splinter into shards against tinsel thread and garlands of metallic filaments that disappear underneath the other ornaments and finery.Shadows follow, joyful, laughing sprites.The tree is rich with potential w
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Christmas works like glue, it keeps us all sticking together.
— Rosie Thomas, Iris & Ruby
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 find morning and suddenly saying to myself: 'Why, this is Christmas Day!
— Ray Stannard Baker
But what Dakota most enjoyed about the beginning of winter was the crispness of the air (that practically demanded the wearing of knits) and the way that tough New Yorkers - on the street, in elevators, in subways - were suddenly willing to risk a smile. To make a connection with a stranger. To finally see one another after strenuously avoiding eye contact all year.
— Kate Jacobs
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
Glen had a disability more disfiguring than a burn and more terrifying than cancer. Glen had been born on the day after Christmas. "My parents just combine my birthday with Christmas, that's all," he explained.But we knew this was a lie. Glen's parents just wrapped a couple of his Christmas presents in birthday-themed wrapping paper, stuck some candles in a supermarket cake, and had a dinner of Christmas leftovers.
— Augusten Burroughs, You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas
O Christmas Sun! What holy task is thine!To fold a world in the embrace of God!
— Guy Wetmore Carryl
Like kids who only ever get socks for Christmas, but still believe with all their hearts in Santa.
— Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Of course, my Christmas is (so much more) gorgeous and romantic (than Germany's)!! And unlike the rest of the world, we leave wine behind for Santa Claus!""So Santa-san is delivering gifts to children while driving under the influence . . . ?
— Hidekaz Himaruya, Hetalia: Axis Powers, Vol. 2
I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.
— Harlan Miller
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. Even though you grew up and found you could never quite bring back the magic feeling of this night, the melody would stay in your heart always - a song for all the years.
— Bess Streeter Aldrich, Song of Years
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
Christmas is a bridge. We need bridges as the river of time flows past. Today's Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday.
— Gladys Taber
Christmas is the keeping-place for memories of our innocence.
— Joan Mills
At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year.
— Thomas Tusser
Say what's in your heart, Annie.''You're in my heart, Samuel.
— Vannetta Chapman, A Simple Amish Christmas
A Christmas gambol oft could cheerThe poor man's heart through half the year.
— Walter Scott
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
... 'But Gold was not all. The other kings bring Frank Innocence and Mirth.' | Darcourt was startled, then delighted. 'That is very fine, Yerko; is it your own?' | 'No, it is in the story. I saw it in New York. The kings say, We bring you Gold, Frank Innocence, and Mirth.' | 'Sancta simplicitas,' said Darcourt, raising his eyes to mine. 'If only there were more Mirth in the message He has left to us. We miss it sadly, in the world we have made. And Frank Innocence. Oh, Yerko, you dear man.' ...
— Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels
Without the door let sorrow lie,And if for cold it hap to die,We'll bury 't in a Christmas pie,And evermore be merry.
— George Wither
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected. 
— Samuel Johnson
To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year. "The Distant Music of the Hounds," 1954
— E.B. White, The Second Tree from the Corner
Sometimes in the company of others I find a disagreeable spirit of competitiveness kicks in and each person is shamed into spending rather more than he would have wished. This is a historically established syndrome, of course. One Magus going to Bethlehem would probably have sprung for a box of After Eights. Three Magi on the same trip found themselves laden with gold, frankincense and myrrh and bitterly comtemplating their overdrafts.
— James Hamilton-Paterson, Cooking with Fernet Branca
As I wrote 'The Christmas Lamp' I realized that tradition is priceless, whether you have a small family, a large family, or no family.Tradition doesn't have to be logical; it only has to emphasize the light of Christ and his everlasting love.
— Lori Copeland, The Christmas Lamp
Except the Christ be born again tonightIn dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,The world will never see his kingdom bright.
— Vachel Lindsay
Nick chided a censor, who wished some books gone, and suggested she scan Fahrenheit 451. For the book-budget cutters, Old Claus had no plan, cause if they could read, they just read Ayn Rand.
— David Davis, Librarian's Night Before Christmas
There are some wonderful aspects to Christmas. It's magical. And each year, from at least November, well, September, well, if I'm honest, May, I look forward to it hugely.
— Miranda Hart, Is It Just Me?
Christmas is a time for families.
— Dorothy Koomson, My Best Friend's Girl
Mankind is a great, an immense family... This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.
— Pope John XXIII
For the rest, silence or good music, not much food, a lot of solitude, walks on the Heath, the time to think while others... well, often fall apart. Not so bad, not so bad at all. Being queer and self-sufficient is the best present at this season.
— Will Self, The Book of Dave: A Revelation of the Recent Past and the Distant Future
I hear that in many places something has happened to Christmas; that it is changing from a time of merriment and carefree gaiety to a holiday which is filled with tedium; that many people dread the day and the obligation to give Christmas presents is a nightmare to weary, bored souls; that the children of enlightened parents no longer believe in Santa Claus; that all in all, the effort to be happy and have pleasure makes many honest hearts grow dark with despair instead of beaming with good will and cheerfulness. "A Plantation Christmas," 1934
— Julia Peterkin, Collected Short Stories of Julia Peterkin
Mama Lo can get a bit nasty whenever I play with the cubs. She thinks I'm going to eat one, but they're not to my taste. Too hairy. Now if she'd let me skin one, I might be interested." (Simi)He laughed in spite of himself. "Are you joking about that?" (Gallagher)"Oh no. I never joke about hairy food. It's disgusting." (Simi)
— Sherrilyn Kenyon, A Dark-Hunter Christmas
I am here, forever, to protect you. To help you, to love you. To keep you happy.” It was an oath that every elf knew, but never had to say. There was no prompt. At a certain age, two elves of nearly the same name would meet. Then one would say the oath, simply because they felt compelled to. It was more than a promise; it was a feeling. One that every single elf was born with.
— Kristina Aziz
What do you think of Christmas?""I like it," she said. "I think we should have it every year.
— Liz Flaherty, One More Summer
Oh! lovely voices of the skyWhich hymned the Saviour's birth,Are ye not singing still on high,Ye that sang, "Peace on earth"?
— Felicia Hemans
When purchasing gifts becomes the focal point of the season, we lose focus on what's truly important.
— Joshua Fields Millburn
You don't seem to understand," I whispered. "It's Christmas relationships that are worrying Carol and me so! It worries us dreadfully! Oh, of course we understand all about the Little Baby Christ! And the camels! And the wise men! And the frankincense! That's easy! But who is Santa Claus? Unless—unless—?" It was Carol himself who signaled me to go on. "Unless—he's the Baby Christ's grandfather?" I thought Derry Willard looked a little bit startled. Carol's ears turned bright red. "Oh, of course—we meant on his mother's side!" I hastened to assure him.
— Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, Fairy Prince and Other Stories
Twas a cold Yuletide evening, and I wandered the stacks, shelving multiple titles that the patrons brought back. We toiled overtime at our library here, 'cause the powers that be cut our staffing this year.
— David Davis, Librarian's Night Before Christmas
Christmas ought to be brought up to date,” Maria said. “It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.
— John Masefield, The Box Of Delights
Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused— in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened— by the recurrence of Christmas.
— Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz
We can _start_ making Christmas and Santa can finish up.
— Toni Buzzeo
The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!
— Charles N. Barnard
Yule—Yul log for the Christmas-fire tale-spinner—of fairy tales that can come true: Yul Brynner.
— Marianne Moore, Complete Poems
Best of all are the decorations the grandchildren have made ~ fat little stars and rather crooked Santas, shaped out of dough and baked in the oven.
— Gladys Taber
We sat on the floor eating donuts, completely dazed and hung over. I looked up at the window every so often to gaze at the Christmas lights. They were so beautiful. They blinked on and off in what should have been the early night dark but was really the early morning dark.
— Chrissi Sepe, Bliss, Bliss, Bliss
A real Christmas baby was not to be lightly named.
— Kate Douglas Wiggin, The Bird's Christmas Carol
In the days approaching Christmas, she always reminds me of the previous year: 'Jane crocheted you an entire poncho, and all you gave her was a bone-shaped beach stone.
— Sara Baume, A Line Made by Walking
So on Christmas morning I was up at five o'clock, making the fire as bright as a furnace, baking minc'd pies and boiling plum puddings the size of Medici cannonballs, and setting three sides of roast beef to turn on the spits. Soon I breathed again that steam that tells the soul it is Christmas, and all the year' work done, and time for feasting; the smell of oranges, sugarplums and cloves, all mingled with roasting meats.
— Martine Bailey, An Appetite for Violets
As joy dwindles with the yearsI wistfully recallWhen the christmas treeLooked ten feet tallAnd the presents under itSeemed endless And more Than mere wrapping paper.
— Justin Wetch, Bending The Universe
Odd that a festival to celebrate the most austere of births should end up being all about conspicuous consumption.
— Jeanette Winterson, Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
Perhaps I should just bury myself and become a diamond after thousands of years of intense pressure
— Lemony Snicket, The Lump of Coal
Anyone could see the ticker tape. It was more frightening than the that never stopped calculating the national debt. This one said '27 SHOPPING DAYS TO CHRISTMAS'.It might as well have said '27 DAYS TO ARMAGEDDON'.
— Jeanette Winterson, Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
I'm mad at global warming for all the obvious reasons, but mostly I'm mad at it for ruining Christmas. This time of year is supposed to be about teeth-chattering, cold weather that necessitates coats, scarves, and mittens. Outside there should be see-your-breath air that offers the promise of sidewalks covered in snow, while inside, families drink hot chocolate by a roaring fire, huddled close together with their pets to keep warm.
— Rachel Cohn, The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily
You have a drawer full of dull butter knives and an old pair of kitchen shears. You are hardly armed to the teeth.
— Kingfisher Pink, Marley
To love is to give hope to even the darkest atmosphere.
— Mark Andrew Poe, Harry's Christmas Carol
Love is a word that can truly change any atmosphere. Love is at the very root of having a positive attitude. To love is to give hope to even the darkest atmosphere. That is why I am so much in Harry Moon’s corner. He really does want to bring light to the darkness.
— Mark Andrew Poe, Harry's Christmas Carol
Oliver Marley supposed there were more dignified ways to end his life. A lifelong victim to the twin sins of an infertile imagination and pragmatism, the thought of travel simply never crossed his mind.   Had it occurred to him, Oliver could have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, into the abyss of the Grand Canyon or said au revoir off the Eiffel Tower. But truth be told, Oliver never was much of a traveler. Even locally there were certainly higher quality casinos to choose from, taller parking garages from which to leap. Instead he found himself perched atop the nearest appropriately-sized structure to his home, that being the parking garage of the Circus Time Hotel & Casino. His view not of Alcatraz Island and the rough waters of the San Francisco Bay, nor the breathtaking vistas of the Arizona desert, or the romanticism of the Paris skyline for that matter. Rather he found himself bathed in a noxious blend of pink and green neon, staring into a pair of giant blinking pastel eyes belonging to the eighty-foot clown staring down at him like a frilly guardian angel. Then again, when your primary objective is to pancake yourself on a public sidewalk, perhaps you’re not in the best position to nitpick over the intricacies of what does and does not constitute bad taste. Oliver would just have to live with the clown, at least for another minute or two.
— Kingfisher Pink, Marley
Turkey is the main course in more Christmas dinners than any other meat or fowl. The high proportion of meat to unusable bone and fat makes it an ideal bird for a feast. Turkeys were domesticated in Mexico long before Spanish explores found them and introduced them into their homeland. From there they spread throughout Europe and gradually replaced most of the native Christmas feast foods.
— Patricia Del Re, The Christmas Almanack
I had hard feelings around the holidays, the one time of year I couldn’t help but fall prey to the canned self-pity Christmas prescribes.
— Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen
Later that day I went back to the old turf-house door and drew back the ivy. There between the stones was the dried-out bird's nest that was no longer in use because its owner was on her foreign holidays. I eased my letter to Santa out of my pocket and tucked it into the nest. I considered this the ideal resting place because the owner and Santa both belonged to foreign places and came here across the sky. There was the mystery of the unknown about the worlds they both came from
—  they belonged in the sky and my letter was destined to join them there when the time was right.
Mrs. Casey, do you love Christmas? Well you know, she answered reflectively, Christmas can be a sad time for people too. It's a remembering time for us older ones. We remember the people who are gone.Oh, I never thought of that, I told her in surprise.Well that's youth for you, she said; you don't start to look back over your shoulder until there is something to look back at, and around Christmas I tend to think of the Christmases past and the people gone with them.
— Alice Taylor, An Irish Country Christmas
I always remember your own grandmother, she continued, nodding her head, old Mrs. Taylor. She died on a Christmas Night.Oh, I said shivering. I wouldn't like to die on a Christmas Night. A good night to die, she smiled; they say that the gates of heaven are open on Christmas Night.
— Alice Taylor, An Irish Country Christmas
Christmas, 1492….Unfortunately, on Christmas morning 1492 Columbus' ship, the Santa María, ran aground on the northern coast of what is now Haiti. Not having any way to refloat her, the crew off-loaded the provisions and equipment from the ship before she broke up. For protection they then built a flimsy fortification on the beach, calling it “La Navidad.” With the consent of the local Indian Chief, Columbus left behind 39 men with orders to establish a settlement, and appointed Diego de Arana, a cousin of his mistress Beatriz, as the Governor. The story of what happened following this unfortunate incidence, on Christmas morning, so long ago is found in the “FAPA” award winning book “The Exciting Story of Cuba” by Captain Hank Bracker available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, BooksAMillion.com and Independent Book Stores everywhere.
— Hank Bracker
December is full of the beauty of Light and love we can bring into our life.You can chose to be stressed or you can choose to let the small stuff go and be peaceful this Holiday season.It really is a choice you make.
— Eileen Anglin
It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats.
— Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales
The singing grew louder as they approached the church. It made Harry’s throat constrict, it reminded him so forcefully of Hogwarts, of Peeves bellowing rude versions of carols from inside suits of armour, of the Great Hall’s twelve Christmas trees, of Dumbledore wearing a bonnet he had won in a cracker, of Ron in a hand-knitted sweater…
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
And families now, families who have been separated throughout the year, assemble once more together. Now under these conditions, my friend, you must admit that there will occur a great amount of strain. People who do not feel amiable are putting great pressure on themselves to appear amiable! There is at Christmas time a great deal of hypocrisy, honourable hypocrisy, hypocrisy undertaken pour le bon motif, c'est entendu, but nevertheless hypocrisy.
— Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Here’s an Advent illustration for kids — and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don’t know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really happy and you feel hope. But which is better? The happiness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and it’s really her?That’s the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing.
— John Piper
May the light illuminate your hearts and shine in your life every day of the year. May everlasting peace be yours and upon our Earth.
— Eileen Anglin
It was dusk and the light had an ultra-violet quality to it, a final burst of pigmentation as night and day rushed at each other in a clash of colour prisms before darkness finnaly, inevitably won out.
— Karen Swan, Christmas in the Snow
It's not about presents but it is about your presence. Therein lies the spirit of the holiday season.
— Julieanne O'Connor
This is the way the wheel turns, coming at last to full circle, with wild as well as tame at he crib; lion and turtle-dove together an barnyard beasts lying down with the fox. For wild and tame are but two hlaves and here, where all begins and ends, everything must be whole.And always, among the sleepers, there must be somebody waking - somewhere, someone, waking and watchful. Or what would happen to the world..?
— P.L. Travers, The Fox at the Manger
On the day after Christmas, some store or another will always take out and ad saying there are only 364 shopping days to Christmas. No one is amused.
— Gerard Del Re, The Christmas Almanack
When we wake, it’s officially Christmas Eve.”	“Good. Because I have something special to give you.”	She turned over her shoulder and cocked an eyebrow. “Thought you just did.”		He chuckled, a deep and throaty sound. “Something else.
— Lisa Carlisle, Dark Pursuit
Sierra, it's Christmastime. Put a stupid mistletoe over his head and kiss him already!
— Jay Asher, What Light
It's supposed to be jolly, with mistletoe and holly... and other things ending in olly.
— Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
They rode up a trail until the trees parted and they got their first good view of Lone Peak across the valley and river. This late morning it was breathtaking. The stark peak gleamed against the deep blue of the big sky. No wonder this area had been named Big Sky.
— B.J. Daniels, Cardwell Christmas Crime Scene
There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure 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 other journeys. And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" Fred, A Christmas Carol.
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
The tree burst into color and we all gasped at the red, yellow, green, white and the blue lights boldly growing in the cold night, the only lights for miles around in the inmense darkness of the range.
— Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses
All ceremony depends on symbol; and all symbols have been vulgarized and made stale by the commercial conditions of our time...Of all these faded and falsified symbols, the most melancholy example is the ancient symbol of the flame. In every civilized age and country, it has been a natural thing to talk of some great festival on which "the town was illuminated." There is no meaning nowadays in saying the town was illuminated...The whole town is illuminated already, but not for noble things. It is illuminated solely to insist on the immense importance of trivial and material things, blazoned from motives entirely mercenary...It has not destroyed the difference between light and darkness, but it has allowed the lesser light to put out the greater...Our streets are in a permanent dazzle, and our minds in a permanent darkness.
— G.K. Chesterton, The G.K. Chesterton Collection [34 Books]
Ooh!” Willy pipes up. “Maybe he'll write a story about Santa and Mrs. Claus getting caught with their pants down with other people. If we get lucky, maybe he'll kill-”“Don't finish that sentence, elf.”“Randy, you're such a spoilsport. You can't say you haven't conjured up that scenario in your big head a time or a dozen. Continue. Maybe I'll write that story.”“No, you won't. Your idea of a good story is nothing but sex, sex, and more sex. You'd never make it through writing a chapter because you'd have to stop and jerk off a half dozen times.”“Ew! Not about Santa and Mrs. Claus. Yuck,” Willy comes back at him with a sour look on his face. “That's not even funny, Randy.
— Candi Kay, Blake the Rogue Reindeer & His Cocky Human
Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!‘I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!’ Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. ‘The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this.’” “Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset.”  “And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
It's just sex, Blake. Isn't that what you said to me the last time? No emotions. Just sex.”“I'll only end up hurting you,” I say to the wall. “Worse than I did before.”He moves from the back of the sofa and comes to stand directly in front of me. His dick is mere inches from my mouth. I have to swallow several times to keep from using my tongue on it. I close my eyes.“I can't, Seth. If I take you now I'll be rough and I'll end up hurting you in other ways.”“Being rough wasn't a concern of yours before.”“I'm not the same person I was before.
— Candi Kay, Blake the Rogue Reindeer & His Cocky Human
Christmas and the others can end up making you sad, because you know you should be happy.
— Ava Dellaira, Love Letters to the Dead
Enjoying your Christmas in the land of the dead? Fun and different, right?
— Molly Ringle, Immortal's Spring
There comes that phase in life when, tired of losing, you decide to stop losing, then continue losing. Then you decide to really stop losing, and continue losing. The losing goes on and on so long you begin to watch with curiosity, wondering how low you can go.
— George Saunders, In Persuasion Nation
The armored infantry was Santa Claus, the battle was out Christmas. What else for the elves to do on Christmas Eve but to let their hair down and drink a a little eggnog.
— Hiroshi Sakurazaka, All You Need Is Kill 2
Santa is like a queen bee. All the elves are his drones, who exist to feed him royal jelly, which I guess would be milk and cookies. If an elf escapes and eats royal cookies, it will turn into another Santa. That’s what all those mall Santas are. They’re trying to start their own festive colonies.
— Thomm Quackenbush, Flies to Wanton Boys
By holiday time, Buena Vista Street felt like Bedford Falls, with its vintage lights and decorations, and a classic Santa Claus listening to children's holiday wishes at Elias & Co. Cocoa clutching---Guests in scarves and parkas filled the streets and shops.
— Leslie Le Mon, The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014 - Dca: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Place on Earth
Have a drink, Coughffles.” “Stop it with the names!” I laughed and coughed.
— Shaye Evans, Christmas Wishes
So they told us all about how other kids were deceived by their parents, how the toys the grown-ups claimed were made by little elves wearing bell caps in their workshop at the North Pole actually had labels on them saying MADE IN JAPAN.
— Jeannette Walls
Life's not always a bed of noses. "We've been put on this earth to do good, and as long as you can put you hand on yer heart and say you've done yer best you can gan to yer rest with an easy conscience," was what me granny used to say. Before they dragged her off to the funny farm dressed as a Christmas turkey (it were the stuffing that gave the game away).
— Andre the BFG, Andre's Adventures in MySpace
He disowned me,” I murmured. “Kicked me out and told me to come back when I changed my choice.”“He seriously used those words? That it was a choice?”I nodded. “You can’t change it. Your sexuality is like your DNA. You can’t cut off your finger so it’s no longer there, because it is you. You’re born with it—you just discover it when you mature.
— Shaye Evans, Christmas Wishes
For this was Christmas, which had always been a time of magic, to him and to all the world.
— Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising
Pepe absently thought, happy beyond words that he was actually holding hands with Lucia.	Passing a stall with a particularly pungent odor of manure made Pepe falter, realizing a barn wasn't the most romantic place to propose. Then he remembered the Savior born on this very night so long ago, and he figured if God could choose a stable for such an important miracle, he could too.
— Debra Holland, Montana Sky Christmas
Ouch. What is that?”“Water, you wimp.” Humor colored his tone and when I looked up, he was smirking again, but this time it was different. He was beaming, radiating—like he used to.
— Shaye Evans, Christmas Wishes
The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.It could be, perhaps his shoes were too tight.But I think that the most likely reason of allMay have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
— Dr. Seuss
The entirety of his life to this point had merely been to prepare him for what he was to do next: bring hope to the hopeless and joy to the joyless. He would serve mankind by reminding them every year that a King had been born who had died for thier sins.
— Glenn Beck, The Immortal Nicholas
If you can't find the spirit of the holidays in your heart, you'll never find it under a tree.
— Michael Holbrook
New Year eve is an ecstasy of new anticipation.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
8. Santa Claus is concerned about the problem of Arctic ice. The ice is the spouse of the elves, and she is sick. She is the primary source of their magic, as the elves cannot be separated from the place where they live. For many years now, this is all they have asked for for Christmas: that the ice should come back
— Catherynne M. Valente, The Bread We Eat in Dreams
I wish you a Merry Christmas sparkle with endless love, gladness and goodwill.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
Nobody expects you to understand the mind of God or know why he would love us in the midst of our weaknesss and sin.
— Glenn Beck
God has accepted your repentance. He gives his forgiveness freely.
— Glenn Beck, The Immortal Nicholas
There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas — something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.
— Jerome K. Jerome, Told After Supper
Don’t wait until Christmas to show love. You never know those who will breathe their last breath before the sacred season.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
When you give a gift at Christmas and see the smile of the people you love reflected in their faces, that's magical. It is not about spending a lot of money or buy a gift that is functional, it's just a way to say I love you. Christmas is a symbol of union and joy, Christmas is forgetting self and finding time for others.
— Betty Poluk
My idea of Christmas is love.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
Would people please stop telling me Santa Claus doesn't exist? I met him when I was a kid, surrounded by teenaged elves n stuff, one of them had a camera, and he was fun and smelt of fags n beer, I remember his big red nose too, even the hairs in his nostrils. You see I met him, sat on his lap chatted and he gave me a toy car, n yeah it was in a market, but I know he was the real Santa........
— Steve Merrick, stevesevilempire
I have loved you from the moment I heard your voice. Thank you for coming here, and being my Christmas miracle.
— Alexa Riley, Snow and Mistletoe
I get that Christmas is generally schmaltzy. I understand that it is used as a cynical cash grab. I know how far it is from what Jesus would have wanted. Nevertheless, I like that people put forth some effort to see one another during this season, that some people shake out of their commonplace anthood and toward sainthood.
— Thomm Quackenbush, A Creature Was Stirring
Christmas was gluing cotton balls to Santa’s beard in Coke ads, sneaking candy canes off the tree daily (that my parents replaced every few nights), enough gift-wrap to wallpaper a room, the terror and delight of knowing a magical being would enter my home while I slept.
— Thomm Quackenbush, A Creature Was Stirring
Even if one is doing nothing more than eating Chinese food with one's Muslim and Jewish friends (don't order the pork lo mein), being together on the longest nights of the year, as the cold sets into the ground and makes it crunch, the warmth inside is infectious and transcendent.
— Thomm Quackenbush, A Creature Was Stirring
Elves don't shimmer
— David Rangel
If Christmas is a universally comprehensive and keenly clandestine rescue mission strategically crafted by God Himself eons before the rescue was necessary, it would naturally follow that if it is doomed to anything, it is doomed to incontestable success.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus
Maybe the greatest hope of Christmas is that what it purports to be is exactly what it is.
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus
What could be more exciting than an October day? It's your birthday, Fourth of July and Christmas all rolled into one.
— Peggy Toney Horton
But here I am in July, and why am I thinking about Christmas pudding? Probably because we always pine for what we do not have. The winter seems cozy and romantic in the hell of summer, but hot beaches and sunlight are what we yearn for all winter.
— Joanna Franklin Bell, Take a Load Off, Mona Jamborski
Can you handle it?"	"Hell yeah."	"I mean..." Tom glanced around the tavern where pack members filled nearly every chair at the wooden tables. The room was humming with conversation. He leaned forward. "Because of the ghosts."	"That don't exist."	"Right."	"Yeah, I can handle it.
— Terry Spear, A Silver Wolf Christmas
Of course there is a Santa Claus. It’s just that no single somebody could do all he has to do. So the Lord has spread the task among us all. That’s why everybody is Santa Claus. I am. You are.
— Truman Capote, One Christmas
She told me that love has a magic all its own.
— Margaret Mallory, The Gift
Jack Frost hibernates from March to November,dreaming snowflake designs to share in December.With glittering breath, snowstorms, and blue blizzards,lakes made of crystal, he’s an icy wizard!People assume winter will be harsh, cold, and crueland that Jack must be a wicked, cold-weather ghoul.But he’s truly an artist, known as Bringer of Ice,and although his heart is cold, he’s really quite nice.
— Claudine Carmel, Lucy Lick-Me-Not and the Greedy Gubbins: A Christmas Story
How old did someone have to be before they could be put to use to make tea?
— Jenny Oliver, Four Weddings and a White Christmas
Christmas is a holy time to rekindle our love for another.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
Giddy-up, giddy-up!" she cried, switching her horse's flanks with one of her mother's long knitting needles as a riding crop.  "Take it easy!" Bear protested. "I'm going as fast as I can!"  Caroline had to laugh at the sight.  "Now if you don't ride nicely, I'll buck you off and run for the woods!"  "No, you won't," retorted Bianca smugly. "It's too cold out there. Giddy-up!
— Sarah Brazytis, Our Christmas Bear
Sillman looked at his interrogator with hopeless eyes. 'I think while I was passed out, I dreamed about my mom's gingerbread cookies. Maybe the guy who knocked on the glass was eatin' one.' 'Mm,' said Peace-not-War. 'Well. That's helpful. We'll put an APB out on the Gingerbread Man. I'm not hopeful it'll do us much good, though. Word on the street is you can't catch him.
— Joe Hill
The rest of the year, I wondered if the point of Christmas was just spending money and getting fat and opening gifts. Indulging.But when Christmas finally comes, and that warm, tingly, mints-and-sweaters-and-fireplace-fires feeling gathers in the bottom of your stomach, and you're lying on the floor with all the lights off but the ones on the Christmas tree, and listening to the silence of the snow falling outside, you see the point. For that one instance in time, everything is good in the world. It doesn't matter if everything isn't actually good. It's the one time of the year when pretending is enough.
— Francesca Zappia, Made You Up
The family is the key of Christmas.
— Scott Hahn
Jesus came to be the light for the world, and then there's the Christmas star and the idea of letting your light shine...But not blinding your neighbor with it.
— Marta Perry, An Amish Family Christmas: Heart of Christmas / A Plain Holiday
This faulty light fitting at the front door with the dangerously flickering bulb looks rather festive. Who says I don't do Christmas?
— R.D. Ronald
I actually hate Christmas," says Eileen. "Everybody has this idea you have to have a good time, like happiness comes in a ruddy packet." Her face is flushed with heat. "One time, I stayed in bed all day. That was one of my best Christmases.
— Rachel Joyce, Perfect
But Time and Tide and Buttered Eggs wait for no man.
— John Masefield
Just been poisoned by my gran. Nothing says Christmas better than familicide and anaphylactic shock.
— R.D. Ronald
You shouldn't just give during Christmas and Thanksgiving you should be giving all the time.
— Alcurtis Turner
As long as we keep loving, it will always be Christmas.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
He does not require that we live a perfect life. He only requires that we try to live as He wills. The only way to fail Him is by giving up.
— Patricia Davids, An Amish Family Christmas: Heart of Christmas / A Plain Holiday