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1 " If your Birthday is on Christmas day and you're not Jesus, you should start telling people your birthday is on June 9 or something. Just read up on the traits of a Gemini. Suddenly you're a multitasker who loves the color yellow. Because not only do you get stuck with them combo gift, you get the combo song. " We wish you a merry Christmas - and happy birthday, Terry - we wish you a merry Christmas - happy birthday, Terry - we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Ye - Birthday, Terry! "
2 " From the beginning, when something was wrong I've been saying: 'Dilly-ding, dilly-dong, wake up, wake up!' So on Christmas Day I bought for all the players and all the staff a little bell. It was just a joke. "
3 " On Christmas morning when the beach is calling and the family’s gathering and the presents are a mystery (or definitely feels book-shaped anyway), and after the splendour and celebration of Christmas Eve, we don’t want Christmas Day to be an anticlimax. We’ve gifted our Oxfam goats or geese and bought our CWS calendars, and what we’d like, on Christmas Day, what we really want, is for things to be—perfect. Just like the old days. Something new, but also something familiar.And that’s what’s so wonderful about the Christmas story, and why preachers penning their reflections approach with trepidation but also with joy: at Christmas, the news is all good. "
― Bronwyn Angela White , Something new to say (words of spirit and faith #2)
4 " To escape the throngs, we decided to see the new Neil Degrasse Tyson planetarium show, Dark Universe. It costs more than two movie tickets and is less than thirty minutes long, but still I want to go back and see it again, preferably as soon as possible. It was more visually stunning than any Hollywood special effect I’d ever seen, making our smallness as individuals both staggering and - strangely - rather comforting. Only five percent of the universe consists of ordinary matter, Neil tells us. That includes all matter - you, and me, and the body of Michael Brown, and Mork’s rainbow suspenders, and the letters I wrote all summer, and the air conditioner I put out on the curb on Christmas Day because I was tired of looking at it and being reminded of the person who had installed it, and my sad dying computer that sounds like a swarm of bees when it gets too hot, and the fields of Point Reyes, and this year’s blossoms which are dust now, and the drafts of my book, and Israeli tanks, and the untaxed cigarettes that Eric Garner sold, and my father’s ill-fitting leg brace that did not accomplish what he’d hoped for in terms of restoring mobility, and the Denver airport, and haunting sperm whales that sleep vertically, and the water they sleep in, and Mars and Jupiter and all of the stars we see and all of the ones we don’t. That’s all regular matter, just five percent. A quarter is “dark matter,” which is invisible and detectable only by gravitational pull, and a whopping 70 percent of the universe is made up of “dark energy,” described as a cosmic antigravity, as yet totally unknowable. It’s basically all mystery out there - all of it, with just this one sliver of knowable, livable, finite light and life. And did I mention the effects were really cool? After seeing something like that it’s hard to stay mad at anyone, even yourself. "
― Summer Brennan
5 " I am here because I worked too hard and too long not to be here. But although I told the university that I would walk across the stage to take my diploma, I won’t. At age fifty-seven, I’m too damned old, and I’d look ridiculous in this crowd. From where I’m standing in the back of the hall, I can see that I am at least two decades older than most of the parents of these kids in their black caps and gowns. So I’ll graduate with this class, but I won’t walk across the stage and collect my diploma with them; I’ll have the school send it to my house. I only want to hear my name called. I’ll imagine what the rest would have been like. When you’ve had a life like mine, you learn to do that, to imagine the good things. The ceremony is about to begin. It’s a warm June day and a hallway of glass doors leading to the parking lot are open, the dignitaries march onto the stage, a janitor slams the doors shut, one after the other. That banging sound. It’s Christmas Day 1961 and three Waterbury cops are throwing their bulk against our sorely overmatched front door. They are wearing their long woolen blue coats and white gloves and they swear at the cold. They’ve finally come for us, in the dead of night, to take us away, just as our mother said they would. "
― John William Tuohy , No Time to Say Goodbye: A Memoir of a Life in Foster Care.
6 " Let's end by pointing out all the positive ways you can scare yourself and feel alive. You can tell someone you love them first. You can try to speak only the truth for a whole week. You can jump out of an airplane or spend Christmas day all by your lonesome. You can help people who need help and fight real bad guys. You can dance fast or take an improv class or do one of those Ironman things. Adventure and danger can be good for your heart and soul. "
― Amy Poehler
7 " She said being human is being a young child on Christmas Day who receives an absolutely magnificent castle. And there is a perfect photograph of this castle on the box and you want more than anything to play with the castle and the knights and the princesses because it looks like such a perfectly human world, but the only problem is that the castle isn’t built. It’s in tiny intricate pieces, and although there’s a book of instructions you don’t understand it. And nor can your parents or Aunt Sylvie. So you are just left, crying at the ideal castle on the box which no one would ever be able to build "
8 " From the Bridge”Celebrating “La Navidad Cubana”Before the fall of Batista, Cuba was considered to be a staunch Catholic Nation. As in other Christian countries, Christmas was considered a religious holiday. In 1962, a few years after the revolution, Cuba became an atheist country by government decree. Then In 1969, Fidel Castro thinking that Christmas was interfering with the production of sugar cane, totally removed the holiday from the official calendar. Of course Christmas was still celebrated by Cubans in exile, many of whom live in South Florida and Union City, NJ. However it was still was celebrated clandestinely in a subdued way on the island. It was said, if it is to believed, that part of the reason for this was due to the fact that Christmas trees do not grow in Cuba. Now that Christianity and Christmas have both been reestablished by the government, primarily due to the Pope’s visits to Cuba, Christmas as a holiday has been reinstated.Many Christmas traditions have been lost over the past five decades and are still not observed in Cuba, although the Cuban Christmas feast is highlighted by a festive “Pig Roast,” called the “Cena de Navidad” or Christmas dinner. Where possible, the dinner includes Roast Pork done on a spit, beans, plantains, rice and “mojo” which is a type of marinade with onions, garlic, and sour orange. Being a special event, some Cubans delight in serving the roasted pork, in fancier ways than others. Desserts like sweet potatos, “turrones” or nougats, “buñuelos” or fritters, as well as readily available tropical fruits and nuts hazelnuts, guava and coconuts, are very common at most Christmas dinners. Beverages such as the “Mojito” a drink made of rum, sugar cane juice, lime, carbonated water and mint, is the main alcoholic drink for the evening, although traditionally the Christmas dinner should be concluded by drinking wine. This grand Christmas dinner is considered a special annual occasion, for families and friends to join together. Following this glorious meal, many Cubans will attend Misa de Gallo or mass of the rooster, which is held in most Catholic churches at midnight. The real reason for Christmas in Cuba, as elsewhere, is to celebrate the birth of Christ. Churches and some Cuban families once again, display manger scenes. Traditionally, children receive presents from the Three Wise Men and not from Santa Claus or the parents. Epiphany or “Three King’s Day,” falls on January 6th. Christmas in Cuba has become more festive but is not yet the same as it used to be. Although Christmas day is again considered a legal holiday in Cuba, children still have to attend school on this holiday and stores, restaurants and markets stay open for regular business. Christmas trees and decorations are usually only displayed at upscale hotels and resorts. "
― Hank Bracker
9 " Allow Christmas day to blossom in the bosom of your own inner joy & happiness. "
― Eleesha , The Soulful Pathway to Christmas: Discover how to unlock your inner power to have a wonderful Christmas
10 " 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. "
11 " 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. "
― Robert Lynd
12 " Don’t spoil Christmas Day by anticipating how it will be. Let is unfold as it does, and be grateful for whatever comes. "
― Toni Sorenson
13 " It was Christmas Day and Danny the Car Wiper hit the street junksick and broke after seventy-two hours in the precinct jail. It was a clear bright day, but there was warmth in the sun. Danny shivered with an inner cold. He turned up the collar of his worn, greasy black overcoat. This beat benny wouldn't pawn for a deuce, he thought. "
― William S. Burroughs , Interzone
14 " I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth good-will to men! "
15 " It's a sad commentary on our time - to use a phrase much favored by my late father - that people increasingly celebrate Christmas Day by going to the movies. "
16 " Things change; your priorities change in life. So I'd never think of riding 100 miles on Christmas Day now, because I've got two kids, and it's selfish. "
17 " Felixstowe, the United Kingdom's largest port, stops work only for Christmas Day and for crane-toppling Force 9 gales. "
18 " My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing. "
19 " May I share with you my earliest memory of a political row? It was with my mother, about the Queen - classic Freudian stuff, shrinks would say. I was eight, and refusing to watch the Queen's Christmas Day broadcast. "
20 " Did you know that Christmas Day is absolutely the best day to fly? It is. No crowded airports and crowded planes. I always flew to Australia. That's what Christmas was for me - a plane journey to the next tournament. "