One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.

- Andy Rooney

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable 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.

- Charles Dickens

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.

"Christmas Fancies" - Poems of Power

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.

- Charles Schulz

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

Even as an adult I find it difficult to sleep on Christmas Eve. Yuletide excitement is a potent caffeine, no matter your age.

- Carrie Latet

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.

- Peg Bracken

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

- Benjamin Franklin

(from "Christmas Bells" poem)

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

At Christmas, all roads lead home.

- Marjorie Holmes

The Dickensian Christmas-at-Home receives only perfunctory lip-service from a press which draws a steady income from the catering and amusement trades. Home-made fun is gratuitous, and gratuitousness is something which an industrialized world cannot afford to tolerate.

- Aldous Huxley

Now Christmas is come, Let us beat up the drum, And call all our neighbors together, And when they appear, Let us make them such cheer, As will keep out the wind and the weather.

- Washington Irving

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

It was deemed a disgrace not to get drunk at Christmas; and he was regarded as lazy indeed, who had not provided himself with the necessary means, during the year, to get whisky enough to last him through Christmas.

- Frederick Douglass

Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.

- Dale Evans

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'

- Dave Barry

Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people once a year.

- Victor Borge

To Jesus on His Birthday
For this your mother sweated in the cold,
For this you bled upon the bitter tree:
A yard of tinsel ribbon bought and sold;
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.
The merry bells ring out, the people kneel;
Up goes the man of God before the crowd;
With voice of honey and with eyes of steel
He drones your humble gospel to the proud.
Nobody listens. Less than the wind that blows
Are all your words to us you died to save.
O Prince of Peace! O Sharon's dewy Rose!
How mute you lie within your vaulted grave.
The stone the angel rolled away with tears
Is back upon your mouth these thousand years.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Isn't it funny that at Christmas something in you gets so lonely for -- I don't know what exactly, but it's something that you don't mind so much not having at other times.

- Kate L. Bosher

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

Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.

- Dale Evans

Remember this December, that love weighs more than gold!

- Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon

From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it.

- Katharine Whitehorn

Christmas! 'Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial fire of charity in the heart.

- Washington Irving

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

Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion.

- Ralph W. Sockman

Christmas is the one time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ.

- Bart Simpson

I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.

- Harlan Miller

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.

- Agnes M. Pharo

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

- Garrison Keillor

Let Us Keep Christmas
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
It's poignant meaning for the hearts of men.
Let us get back our childlike faith again.

- Grace Noll Crowell

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

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

Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.

- Kin Hubbard

Do give books -- religious or otherwise -- for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.

- Lenore Hershey

Before the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,
Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!

- Emily Dickinson

Somehow, not only for Christmas
???But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
???Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing
???The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
???Returns to you glad.

- John Greenleaf Whittier

There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.

I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression

- Erma Bombeck

Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven.

- W. C. Fields

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.

- Hamilton Wright Mabie

Santa Claus wears a Red Suit,
He must be a communist.
And a beard and long hair,
Must be a pacifist.
What's in that pipe that he's smoking?

"The Pause of Mr. Claus"

- Arlo Guthrie

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white man would be coming into my neighborhood after dark.

- Dick Gregory

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exists, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.

editorial in the New York Sun, 1897, responding to a letter from 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon

- Charles Dana

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

- Sir Walter Scott

Peace on earth will come to stay,
When we live Christmas every day.

- Helen Steiner Rice