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"Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart."
"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." "So remember while December Brings the only Christmas day, In the year let there be Christmas In the things you do and say." "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." "Don't expect too much of Christmas Day. You can't crowd into it any arrears of unselfishness and kindliness that may have accrued during the past twelve months." "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." "A woman spent all Christmas Day in a telephone box without ringing anyone. If someone comes to phone, she leaves the box, then resumes her place afterwards. No one calls her either, but from a window in the street, someone watched her all day, no doubt since they had nothing better to do. The Christmas syndrome." "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, "There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child." Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us... a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird... a social being... capable of actual affection... nuzzling its young with almost human- like compassion. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family... "The earth has grown old with its burden of care But at Christmas it always is young, The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair And its soul full of music breaks the air, When the song of angels is sung." "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." "Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through." "Christmas is not a date. It is a state of mind." "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." "Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'." "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." "At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. ... We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices." "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."" "A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!"" "A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. "Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"" "Once upon a time"-- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve"-- old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house." ""Somehow he [Tim] 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 for them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see."" "It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air." "Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling." "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 fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: "Why this is Christmas Day!"" "The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other." "Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit." "Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart." "A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together." "Call a truce, then, to our labors -- let us feast with friends and neighbors, and be merry as the custom of our caste; for if ''faint and forced the laughter,'' and if sadness follow after, we are richer by one mocking Christmas past." "I was Christmas shopping and ran into a guy on the street. I noticed his watch and said that it runs slow. He said, "So does the guy I stole it from." "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." "A Christmas candle is a lovely thing; It makes no noise at all, But softly gives itself away; While quite unselfish, it grows small." "I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, and wild and sweet The word repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" "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." "Were it not for the shepherds, there would have been no reception. And were it not for a group of stargazers, there would have been no gifts." "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." "Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love." "I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas "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." "This is Christmas: not the tinsel, not the giving and receiving, not even the carols, but the humble heart that receives anew the wondrous gift, the Christ."
"Please to put a nickel, please to put a dime. How petitions trickle in at Christmas time!" "I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month." "This is the month, and this the happy morn, wherein the Son of heaven's eternal King, of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born, our great redemption from above did bring." "Let Christmas not become a thing Merely of merchant's trafficking, Of tinsel, bell and holly wreath And surface pleasure, but beneath The childish glamour, let us find Nourishment for heart and mind. Let us follow kinder ways Through our teeming human maze, And help the age of peace to come." "Christmas begins about the first of December with an office party and ends when you finally realize what you spent, around April fifteenth of the next year." "Christmas is not just a day, an event to be observed and speedily forgotten. It is a spirit which should permeate every part of our lives." "You know you're getting old, when Santa starts looking younger." Even before Christmas has said Hello, it's saying 'Buy Buy' "Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful." "Christmas is not in tinsel and lights and outward show. The secret lies in an inner glow. It's lighting a fire inside the heart. Good will and joy a vital part. It's higher thought and a greater plan. It's glorious dream in the soul of man." "The one thing women don't want to find in their stockings on Christmas morning is their husband." "It is not even the beginning of Christmas unless it is Christmas in the heart." "Christmas, my child, is love in action. ... Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas." "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." "Love came down at Christmas; Love all lovely, love divine; Love was born at Christmas, Stars and angels gave the sign." "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." "Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone." "God walked down the stairs of heaven with a Baby in His arms." "Let us keep Christmas beautiful Without a thought of greed, That it might live forevermore To fill our every need, That it shall not be just a day, But last a lifetime through, The miracle of Christmastime That brings God close to you." "'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale; 'twas Christmas told the merriest tale; a Christmas gambol oft could cheer the poor man's heart through half the year." "He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree." "Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most." "Christmas ... is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart..." "I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph." "Christ was born in the first century, yet he belongs to all centuries. He was born a Jew, yet He belongs to all races. He was born in Bethlehem, yet He belongs to all countries." "What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus? Claustrophobic." "So stick up ivy and the bays, and then restore the heathen ways, green will remind you of the Spring, though this great day denies the thing, and mortifies the earth, and all, but your wild revels, and loose hall." "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." "'Tis blessed to bestow, and yet, Could we bestow the gifts we get, And keep the ones we give away, How happy were our Christmas day!" "From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it." "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 is the season when people run out of money before they run out of friends." "This Advent we look to the Wise Men to teach us where to focus our attention. We set our sights on things above, where God is. We draw closer to Jesus... When our Advent journey ends, and we reach the place where Jesus resides in Bethlehem, may we, like the Wise Men, fall on our knees and adore him as our true and only King."
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The Rev. Charles P. Henderson is a Presbyterian minister and is the author of God and Science (John Knox Press, 1986). Charles also tracks the boundry between the virtual and the real at his blog: Next World Design, focusing on the mediation of art, science and spirituality in the metaverse. For more information about Charles Henderson. |
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