Have Yourself a Quotable Christmas
by Karen L. Oberst

  Anyone who is part of my Quote of the Day list can testify to the fact that I love Christmas. I generally spend the entire month of December sending out quotes related to that holiday. This year I'd like to share some of my favorites with you. If you are not Christian, don't despair! For most of these, simply substituting "today" or another date that is significant to you will make these just as meaningful.

The quotes that I have chosen fall into three categories. The first is how Christmas makes everyone feel like a child. The second group talks about opening your heart to others. And the last category emphasizes family and remembering the past.

I love Christmas!

  Christmas is for Children Christmas is for Children

  • 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)

  • Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts. ~ Lenora Mattingly Weber (Extension)

  • 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 is a Time to Open Your Heart

  • "But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round...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." ~ Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)

  • 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 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

  • 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)

  • Somehow not only for Christmas
    But all the long year through,
    The joy that you give to others
    Is the joy that comes back to you.

    And the more you spend in blessing
    The poor and lonely and sad,
    The more of your heart's possessing
    Returns to make you glad. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

  • 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. ~ Anonymous (Pipefuls)

  • And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
    Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
    "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
    "Maybe Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more!"

    And what happened then...?
    Well ... in Who-ville they say
    That the Grinch's small heart
    Grew three sizes that day! ~ Dr. Suess (How the Grinch Stole Christmas)

  • 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 a Time to Open Your Heart

  Christmas is a Time for Family and Remembering Christmas is a Time for Family and Remembering

  • 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)

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
    We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
    And etched on vacant places
    Are half-forgotten faces
    Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ("Christmas Fancies" Poems of Power)

  I hope these have inspired you, or brought back memories. Have a very joyous holiday season. Have a joyous holiday season!

Copyright © 2000, 2001 by Karen L. Oberst

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