Thursday Thirteen #42: Some of my favorite Christmas quotes

Thursday Thirteen

These are by no means all of my favorite quotes about Christmas, nor are they in any kind of order. These are the first 13 to hit my fancy:

1. It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air. ~W.T. Ellis

2. 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 of 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.
- George Mathhew Adams

3. It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, "God Bless Us, Every One!
- Charles Dickens

4. The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfuly wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.
--O. Henry

5. "The only blind person at Christmastime is he who has not Christmas in his heart."
--Helen Keller

6. "Do give books - religious or otherwise - for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal."
--Lenore Hershey

7. Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.
~ Ruth Carter Stapleton

8. Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it "white".
~ Bing Crosby

9. Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world - stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.
--Henry van Dyke

10. I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the word seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.
~ Taylor Caldwell

11. Christmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.
--Dr. Seuss

12. "Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space."
--Dave Barry

13. "The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other"
--Johnny Carson