Sunday, December 18, 2005

It's not Bartlett's. . . . .

Other people say it so well.

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
--Hamilton Wright Mabi

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! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, "God Bless Us, Every One!
--Charles Dickens

Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.
--Mary Ellen Chase

Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles.
--Unknown

If there is no joyous way to give a festive gift, give love away.
--Unknown

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world - stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.
--Henry Van Dyke

The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfuly wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.
--O. Henry

I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday - the longer, the better - from the great boarding school where we are forever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest.
--Charles Dickens

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

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
--Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the word seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.
--Taylor Caldwell

The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas. --W. C. Jones

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
--Burton Hillis (Better Homes and Gardens)

Whatever else be lost among the years, Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing: Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears, Let us hold close one day, remembering Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men. Let us get back our childlike faith again.
--Grace Noll Crowell

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

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever.
--Bess Streeter Aldrich

Peace on earth will come to stay, When we live Christmas every day.
--Helen Steiner Rice

There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
--Erma Bombeck (I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression)

I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.
--Harlan Miller (Better Homes and Gardens)

Christmas ... is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart.
--Freya Stark ("The Wise Men" Time and Tide)

And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, Which shall be to all people. "For unto you is born this day in the city of David A Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, Lying in a manger.
--St. Luke ii. 10-12

From Home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another. The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other.
--Emily Matthews

Until one feels the spirit of Christmas, there is no Christmas. All else is outward display--so much tinsel and decorations. For it isn't the holly, it isn't the snow. It isn't the tree not the firelight's glow. It's the warmth that comes to the hearts of men when the Christmas spirit returns again.
--Unknown

Bless us Lord, this Christmas, with quietness of mind; Teach us to be patient and always to be kind.
--Helen Steiner Rice

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From the Editorial Page of The New York Sun, written by Francis P. Church, September 21, 1897:
"Dear Editor--I am 8 years old."Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus."Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'"Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
--Virginia O'Hanlon115 West Ninety-fifth Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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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 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--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.
--Augusta E. Rundel

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
--Washington Irving

The merry family gatherings-- The old, the very young; The strangely lovely way they Harmonize in carols sung. For Christmas is tradition time-- Traditions that recall The precious memories down the years, The sameness of them all.
--Helen Lowrie Marshall

He who has no Christmas in his heart will never find Christmas under a tree.
--Sunshine Magazine

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.
- - - Alexander Smith

The time draws near the birth of Christ;The moon is hid; the night is still;The Christmas bells from hill to hillAnswer each other in the mist.
- - - Alfred, Lord Tennyson "In Memoriam"

Best of all, Christmas means a spirit of love, a time when the love of God and the love of our fellow men should prevail over all hatred and bitterness, a time when our thoughts and deeds and the spirit of our lives manifest the presence of God.
--George F. McDougall

Christmas, my child, is love in action. ... Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.
--Dale Evans Rogers

Christmas--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.
--Augusta E. Rundel

...God's visit to earth took place in an animal shelter with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn king but a feed trough. ... For just an instant the sky grew luminous with angels, yet who saw the spectacle? Illiterate hirelings who watched the flocks of others, "nobodies" who failed to leave their names...
--Philip Yancy ("The Glory of Humility" in Christmas Stories for the Heart)

Late on a sleepy, star-spangled night, those angels peeled back the sky just like you would tear open a sparkling Christmas present. Then, with light and joy pouring out of Heaven like water through a broken dam, they began to shout and sing the message that baby Jesus had been born. The world had a Savior! The angels called it "Good News, " and it was.
--Larry Libby ("The Angels Called it Good News" in Christmas Stories for the Heart

Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him--and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.
--Max Lucado ("The Arrival" in Christmas Stories for the Heart)

Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don't quite know how to put our love into words.
--Harlan Miller (Better Homes and Gardens)

So here comes Gabriel again, and what he says is "Good tidings of great joy ... for all people." ... That's why the shepherds are first: they represent all the nameless, all the working stiffs, the great wheeling population of the whole world.
--Walter Wangerin Jr. (Preparing for Jesus)

Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it "white".--Bing Crosby

The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!
--Charles N. Barnard, American author, travel writer.

My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?
--Bob Hope, American film actor and comedian.

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 (1912-1992), American newscaster

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
--Hamilton Wright Mabie

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.
--Oren Arnold

Keeping Christmas is good, but sharing it is better.
-- Arnold Glasow

The only blind person at Christmastime is he who has not Christmas in his heart.
--Helen Keller

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.
--Alexander Smith

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a Child himself.
-- Charles Dickens