“Christmas doesn't come from a store, maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more....”

― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas 

 “How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, His precepts!”

― Benjamin Franklin

 “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

― Charles Dickens

 “Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.”

― Laura Ingalls Wilder

 Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind. ”

― Mary Ellen Chase

 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

 “Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”

― Charles M. Schulz

 “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

 “A man wrapped up in himself always suffocates. But his loved ones will forever hold in their hearts the memory of that Christmas.”

― Benson Bruno

 “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ”

― Norman Vincent Peale

 “He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. ”

― Roy L. Smith

 “When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things - not the great occasions - give off the greatest glow of happiness.

”

― Bob Hope

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

― Hamilton Wright Mabie

 W. T. Ellis

It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.

 Alexander Smith

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.

 Richard Roberts, Contemporary Christ

It is not even the beginning of Christmas unless it is Christmas in the heart.

 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.

 Frank McKibben

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.

 Charles Dickens

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.

 Robert Lynd

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.

 Joan Winmill Brown

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.

 Charles Dickens

Time was with most of us, when Christmas Day, encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and everyone round the Christmas fire, and make the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete.

Carol Nelson

Christmas is a time when you get homesick -- even when you're home.

 Augusta E. Rundel

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 waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.  ~Norman Vincent Peale

 Christmas is a time when you get homesick - even when you're home.  ~Carol Nelson

 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

 
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

 The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:  the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.  ~Burton Hillis

 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

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.
~Walter Scott

 Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.  ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

 Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree.  In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.  ~Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas

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

 Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish.  Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself.  ~Francis C. Farley

 
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

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas;
Star and angels gave the sign.
~Christina Rossetti

 It is the most human and kindly of seasons, as fully penetrated and irradiated with the feeling of human brotherhood, which is the essential spirit of Christianity, as the month of June with sunshine and the balmy breath of roses.  ~George William Curtis

 Christmas in Bethlehem.  The ancient dream: a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, the incarnation of perfect love.  ~Lucinda Franks

 We hear the beating of wings over Bethlehem and a light that is not of the sun or of the stars shines in the midnight sky.  Let the beauty of the story take away all narrowness, all thought of formal creeds.  Let it be remembered as a story that has happened again and again, to men of many different races, that has been expressed through many religions, that has been called by many different names.  Time and space and language lay no limitations upon human brotherhood.  ~New York Times, 25 December 1937, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren, 1938, published by The H.W. Wilson Company, New York