The Christmas Spirit

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

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. -Charles Dickens

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace. -Agnes M. Pharo

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home! -Charles Dickens

The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas. -W. C. Jones

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

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

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. -Joan Winmill Brown

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever. -Bess Streeter Aldrich

Christmas ... is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart. -Freya Stark

From Home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another. The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other. -Emily Matthews

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

The merry family gatherings-- The old, the very young; The strangely lovely way they Harmonize in carols sung. For Christmas is tradition time-- Traditions that recall The precious memories down the years, The sameness of them all. -Helen Lowrie Marshall