There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.

—Bill McKibben

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

—Helen Steiner Rice

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

 —Ebeneezer Scrooge

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

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

Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you ... to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old ... Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world ... stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death... Then you can keep Christmas! But you can never keep it alone.

—Henry van Dyke

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

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

Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmastime 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