Christmas Thoughts

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

A good conscience is continual Christmas.
Benjamin Franklin

Some say, that ever gainst that season comes, Wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. 

William Shakespeare

Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling, and the honest interchange of affection- ate attachment, which abound at this season of the year? A Christmas family-party! We know nothing in nature more delightful! There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten...Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other, but have been withheld by false notions of pride and self-dignity, are again reunited, and all is kind- ness and benevolence! Would that Christmas lasted the whole year through (as it ought), and that the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature, were never called into action among those to whom they should ever be strangers.
Charles Dickens

O little town of Bethlehem! How still we see thee lie; Above thy deep and dreamless sleep The silent stars go by; Yet in the dark streets shineth The everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee to-night. 
Phillips Brooks 

Not believe in Santa Claus? You might as well not believe in fairies...No Santa Claus! Thank God, he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. 
Francis Pharcellus Church 

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! 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Never deny the babies their Christmas! It is the shining seal set upon a year of happiness. Let them believe in Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas, or Kris Kringle, or whatever name the jolly Dutch saint bears in your religion. 
Marion Harland 

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 take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays - let them overtake me unex- pectedly - waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: "Why, this is Christmas Day! 
Davis Grayson