Christmas Quotes

‘And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.’ – Jesus Christ

‘Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store.’ – Dr. Seuss

‘God is in the details.’ – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

‘T’was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’ – Clement Clarke Moore

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

‘I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up – they have no holidays.’ – Henny Youngman

‘Let’s be naughty and save Santa the trip.’ – Gary Allan

‘For it is in giving that we receive.’ – Francis of Assisi

‘The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.’ – George Carlin

‘God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it.’ – Pope Francis

‘One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.’ – Andy Rooney

‘A good conscience is a continual Christmas.’ – Benjamin Franklin

‘There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus the Christ. It is the time to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart – and our neighbors as ourselves.’ – Thomas S. Monson

‘Expectancy is the atmosphere for miracles.’ – Edwin Louis Cole

‘He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.’ – Roy L. Smith

‘That’s the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me.’ – Jerry Seinfeld

‘Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God’s perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to share it with others on Christmas and every other day of the year.’ – Joel Osteen

‘If you haven’t got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.’ – Bob Hope

‘I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.’ – Shirley Temple

‘What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.’ – Phyllis Diller

‘When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?’ – Gilbert K. Chesterton

‘Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling.’ – Edna Ferber

‘Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.’ – Calvin Coolidge

‘I think Christmas is about celebration and come on, on the inside everyone wants to dance.’ – TobyMac

‘Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.’ – Winston Churchill

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

‘It’s true, Christmas can feel like a lot of work, particularly for mothers. But when you look back on all the Christmases in your life, you’ll find you’ve created family traditions and lasting memories. Those memories, good and bad, are really what help to keep a family together over the long haul.’ – Caroline Kennedy

‘The supernatural birth of Christ, his miracles, his resurrection and ascension, remain eternal truths, whatever doubts may be cast on their reality as historical facts.’ – David Friedrich Strauss

‘Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.’ – Dale Evans

‘Don’t let the past steal your present. This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone.’ – Taylor Caldwell

‘Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.’ – Washington Irving

‘I don’t think Christmas is necessarily about things. It’s about being good to one another, it’s about the Christian ethic, it’s about kindness.’ – Carrie Fisher

‘I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.’ – Bernard Manning

‘Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it ‘white’.’ – Bing Crosby

‘The two most joyous times of the year are Christmas morning and the end of school.’ – Alice Cooper

‘The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time.’ – Pope Benedict XVI

‘Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.’ – T. S. Eliot

‘Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.’ – Johnny Carson

‘Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values.’ – Thomas S. Monson

‘A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.’ – Garrison Keillor

‘The earth has grown old with its burden of care, but at Christmas it always is young, the heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair, and its soul full of music breaks the air, when the song of angels is sung.’ – Phillips Brooks

‘Every year we celebrate the holy season of Advent, O God. Every year we pray those beautiful prayers of longing and waiting, and sing those lovely songs of hope and promise.’ – Karl Rahner

‘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

‘We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice.’ – Pope Paul VI

‘Being a traditionalist, I’m a rabid sucker for Christmas. In July, I’m already worried that there are only 146 shopping days left.’ – John Waters

‘The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.’ – Jay Leno

‘Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace.’ – Pope Francis

‘I love Christmas, not just because of the presents but because of all the decorations and lights and the warmth of the season.’ – Ashley Tisdale

‘I love singing Christmas carols. I know every harmony to every music-hall Christmas song.’ – Zooey Deschanel

‘Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.’ – Charles M. Schulz

‘As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.’ – Clement Clarke Moore

‘Every gift which is given, even though it be small, is in reality great, if it is given with affection.’ – Pindar

‘Now, the essence, the very spirit of Christmas is that we first make believe a thing is so, and lo, it presently turns out to be so.’ – Stephen Leacock

‘My brothers and sisters, true love is a reflection of the Savior’s love. In December of each year we call it the Christmas spirit. You can hear it. You can see it. You can feel it.’ – Thomas S. Monson

‘To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.’ – E. B. White

‘In our open society, we are inclined to give to the less fortunate for the pure goodness of giving. We open our home to those who are alone on this holiday to spread some warmth into the life of another.’ – Jeff Miller

‘The real evidence for Jesus and Christianity is in how Jesus and the Christianity based on him manifest themselves in the lives of practicing Christians.’ – Lionel Blue

‘Nothing says holidays, like a cheese log.’ – Ellen DeGeneres

‘Christmas… is not an external event at all, but a piece of one’s home that one carries in one’s heart.’ – Freya Stark

‘I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. I didn’t want to waste it so I just wrote ‘Jesus’ on it.’ – Demetri Martin

‘Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, the incarnation of perfect love.’ – Lucinda Franks

‘At Christmas play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year.’ – Thomas Tusser

‘Please to put a nickel, please to put a dime. How petitions trickle in at Christmas time!’ – Phyllis McGinley

‘Christmas is a stocking stuffed with sugary goodness.’ – Mo Rocca

‘Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas, and there’s no way I’d do anything to undermine that belief.’ – Carol Ann Duffy

‘There’s something about a Christmas sweater that will always make me laugh.’ – Kristen Wiig

”A Christmas Story’ has always meant a lot to me personally.’ – Peter Billingsley

‘Pets, like their owners, tend to expand a little over the Christmas period.’ – Frances Wright

‘There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.’ – Robert Staughton Lynd

‘Coming from Chicago, I like a white Christmas.’ – Dennis Franz

‘There are a lot of Grinches out there that would like nothing better than to take any references to religion out of the holiday season.’ – Ernest Istook

‘People say I don’t write books, I make Christmas presents.’ – Bryce Courtenay

‘I save every Christmas card. I keep them all.’ – Alison Sweeney

‘I’m sure most of us remember being a kid and you have all of this endless time where two weeks before Christmas feels like ten years. I used to go to bed to try and go to sleep to try and make it go faster.’ – Andrea Arnold

‘Faith is salted and peppered through everything at Christmas. And I love at least one night by the Christmas tree to sing and feel the quiet holiness of that time that’s set apart to celebrate love, friendship, and God’s gift of the Christ child.’ – Amy Grant

‘Christmas is a time of year that’s so romantic.’ – Katharine McPhee

‘The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother’s hand making sure I was settled in bed.’ – Paul Engle

‘Santa is our culture’s only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It’s a fact that most of the true believers are under eight years old, and that’s a pity.’ – Chris Van Allsburg

‘Christmas is, of course, the time to be home – in heart as well as body.’ – Garry Moore

‘I get a little behind during Lent, but it comes out even at Christmas.’ – Frank Butler

‘It is a fine seasoning for joy to think of those we love.’ – Moliere

‘Santa Claus has the right idea – visit people only once a year.’ – Victor Borge

‘The thing about Christmas is that it almost doesn’t matter what mood you’re in or what kind of a year you’ve had – it’s a fresh start.’ – Kelly Clarkson

‘Always be prepared if someone asks you what you want for Christmas. Give brand names, the store that sells the merchandise, and, if possible, exact model numbers so they can’t go wrong. Be the type who’s impossible to buy for, so they have to get what you want.’ – John Waters

‘During the first 13 centuries after the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, no one thought of setting up a creche to celebrate Christmas. The pre-eminent Christian holiday was Easter, not Christmas.’ – Nancy Pearcey

‘Finding the real joy of Christmas comes not in the hurrying and the scurrying to get more done, nor is it found in the purchasing of gifts. We find real joy when we make the Savior the focus of the season.’ – Thomas S. Monson

‘The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things.’ – Thomas S. Monson

‘My brothers and sisters, may the spirit of love which comes at Christmastime fill our homes and our lives and linger there long after the tree is down and the lights are put away for another year.’ – Thomas S. Monson

‘What will you and I give for Christmas this year? Let us in our lives give to our Lord and Savior the gift of gratitude by living His teachings and following in His footsteps.’ – Thomas S. Monson

‘Our children await Christmas presents like politicians getting in election returns: there’s the Uncle Fred precinct and the Aunt Ruth district still to come in.’ – Marcelene Cox

‘The best Christmas present I got from my husband was a week to do whatever I wanted.’ – Olivia Williams

‘Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion.’ – Ralph W. Sockman

‘Christmas is the day that holds all time together.’ – Alexander Smith

‘Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.’ – Dave Barry

‘Before we took down the tree each year, Dad would always say a prayer that we would be together the next Christmas. I cling to that prayer, which serves as a reminder that it’s important to be grateful in the present for the people you love because, well, you never know.’ – Catherine Hicks

‘At Christmas our house is like a Donnie and Marie Christmas Special.’ – Kevin Richardson

‘Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.’ – Mary Ellen Chase

‘At Christmas, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ makes me cry in exactly the same places every time, even though I know it’s coming.’ – Nicholas Lea

‘I love the excitement, the childlike spirit of innocence and just about everything that goes along with Christmas.’ – Hillary Scott

‘The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.’ – Charles Dudley Warner

‘Christmas is a tonic for our souls. It moves us to think of others rather than of ourselves. It directs our thoughts to giving.’ – B. C. Forbes

‘Christmas makes me happy no matter what time of year it comes around.’ – Bryan White

‘My Christmases have always just been very simple and about family.’ – Julie Roberts

‘I love giving gifts and I love receiving them. I really like giving little kids extravagant gifts. You see their little faces light up and they get excited. If it’s a really good gift, I love receiving it, like jewels, small islands.’ – Gina Gershon

‘It kills me when people talk about California hedonism. Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.’ – Joan Didion

‘Christmas gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect on the important things around us – a time when we can look back on the year that has passed and prepare for the year ahead.’ – David Cameron

‘I had eight brothers and sisters. Every Christmas my younger brother Bobby would wake up extra early and open everybody’s presents – everybody’s – so by the time the rest of us got up, all the gifts were shredded, ribbons off, torn open and thrown aside.’ – Tommy Hilfiger

‘As I lay so sick on my bed, from Christmas till March, I was always praying for poor ole master. ‘Pears like I didn’t do nothing but pray for ole master. ‘Oh, Lord, convert ole master;’ ‘Oh, dear Lord, change dat man’s heart, and make him a Christian.” – Harriet Tubman

‘I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.’ – Taylor Swift

‘No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do – eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other… and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!’ – Dolly Parton

‘Don’t send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals, when their cheery effect is needed.’ – P. J. O’Rourke

‘My favorite Christmas gift as a child was – I had a ninja turtle skateboard.’ – Danny Amendola

‘My grandmother and mother were from Italy, so I was raised Catholic. That kind of just meant going to church on Easter and Christmas. I saw a radical transformation in my family when they started going to a Christian church. I watched them fall in love with God.’ – Sonny Sandoval

‘I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against.’ – Ben Stein

‘It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.’ – Ronald Reagan

‘For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.’ – Queen Elizabeth II

‘I was nine or 10 years old and my father was sacked on Christmas Day. He was a manager, the results had not been good, he lost a game on December 22 or 23. On Christmas Day, the telephone rang and he was sacked in the middle of our lunch.’ – Jose Mourinho

‘My father was born on Christmas Day in 1934. He grew up in what is now part of North Korea. When the Korean War began, my father was 16, and he found passage on an American refugee ship,thinking he’d be gone for just a few days, but he never saw his mother or his sister again.’ – Min Jin Lee

‘I like to think I’m like the guy who goes to the office Christmas party Friday night, insults some people, but still has his job Monday morning.’ – Don Rickles

‘My mother was a professional sick person; she took a lot of pain pills. There are many people like that. It’s just how they are used to getting attention. I always remember she’s the daughter of alcoholics who’d leave her alone at Christmas time.’ – Jim Carrey

‘When my, British-Church of England mother married my, Canadian-Jewish Father, the deal was that she would embrace Judaism, but wouldn’t give up her Christmas tree. So, I grew up with Christmas every year. I loved it then and I love it now.’ – Hilary Farr

‘I’m going to take the kids away over Christmas but I don’t, I’ve written 14 musicals now, I don’t want to rush into doing something just for the sake of doing it. I want to do it when I find a story.’ – Andrew Lloyd Webber

‘There’s nothing better on Christmas morning than waking up to the smell of breakfast!’ – Rachel Hollis

‘Yep, I’m a geek. Ever since I got the Millennium Falcon for Christmas in 1978. And I still have it, in perfect condition, just without the box… but I still play with it!’ – Joseph Gatt

‘The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine.’ – James Irwin

‘There would be no Christmas if there was no Easter.’ – Gordon B. Hinckley

‘The term ‘natural resources’ confuses people. ‘Natural resources’ are not like a finite number of gifts under the Christmas tree. Nature is given, but resources are created.’ – Alex Tabarrok

‘When I cook for my family on Christmas, I make feijoada, a South American dish of roasted and smoked meats like ham, pork, beef, lamb, and bacon – all served with black beans and rice. It’s festive but different.’ – Maya Angelou

‘I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality – you’re told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things.’ – Richard Dawkins

‘I’m Jewish and my wife isn’t so right now we’re literally decorating a Christmas tree with Jewish stars draped around it.’ – Max Greenfield

‘I’ve been giving back since I was a teen, handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving and handing out toys at toys drives for Christmas. It’s very important to give back as a youth. It’s as simple as helping an old lady across the street or giving up your seat on the bus for someone who is pregnant.’ – Queen Latifah

‘According to an ancient Sardinian legend, the bodies of those who are born on Christmas Eve will never dissolve into dust but are preserved until the end of time.’ – Grazia Deledda

‘I owe my life to my father. I remember that my first Christmas present was a ball. In the district where we lived, there weren’t many kids who had one.’ – Sergio Aguero

‘I stone got crazy when I saw somebody run down them strings with a bottleneck. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and I said that I had to learn.’ – Muddy Waters

‘In London the day after Christmas (Boxing Day), it began to snow: my first snow in England. For five years, I had been tactfully asking, ‘Do you ever have snow at all?’ as I steeled myself to the six months of wet, tepid gray that make up an English winter. ‘Ooo, I do remember snow,’ was the usual reply, ‘when I were a lad.” – Sylvia Plath

‘I bought my mom a car for Christmas. I don’t even own my own car.’ – Perez Hilton

‘The truth is the Super Bowl long ago became more than just a football game. It’s part of our culture like turkey at Thanksgiving and lights at Christmas, and like those holidays beyond their meaning, a factor in our economy.’ – Bob Schieffer

‘I’ve always been shy, but I see that as a good thing because it kept me focused on music. When I was in seventh grade, I asked my parents for a mobile recording system for Christmas, and I got it. I didn’t come out of my room for years after that. I’d get invited to the movies and I’d say, ‘I’m gonna finish a couple of demos.” – Hunter Hayes

‘The Million Dollar Man was to professional wrestling what Ebenezer Scrooge is to Christmas. He was like a rich bully. He bullied everybody with his money, and his motto was ‘Everybody’s got a price.” – Ted DiBiase Sr.

‘I wanted an electric train for Christmas but I got the saxophone instead.’ – Clarence Clemons

‘When I was six years old, I fell in love with magic. For Christmas, I got a magic box and a very old book on card manipulation. Somehow, I was more interested in pure manipulation than in all the silly little tricks in the box.’ – Philippe Petit

‘Actually, my mother and Alfie came for three weeks’ Christmas vacation and stayed for 21 years. I guess my mother never went back because she was lonely.’ – Frank McCourt

‘Being half Jewish, we grew up with Christmas trees but had Jewish ornaments.’ – Gina Rodriguez

‘I built my church on Easter services, Christmas Eve services, and Norman Vincent Peale.’ – Robert H. Schuller

‘Christmas morning, I’m going to open presents with my kids. I’m going to take pictures of them opening the presents. Then I’m going to come to the Staples Center and get ready to work.’ – Kobe Bryant

‘Globalization has created this interlocking fragility. At no time in the history of the universe has the cancellation of a Christmas order in New York meant layoffs in China.’ – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

‘Ranking among the greatest Christmas movie classics, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ tells a beautiful story about the priceless value of relationships.’ – John C. Maxwell

‘My Christmas present to myself each year is to see how much air travel can open up the world and take me to places as far from sheltered California and Japan as possible.’ – Pico Iyer

‘I remember being led to a shed by my father for the unveiling of a beautiful bicycle, equipped with stabilizers, on Christmas Day. I must have been four or five and realized that this was my first ride into independence.’ – Alexander Gilkes

‘Every July, I look forward to taping a Christmas show – in July in Nashville. In 98-degree weather. I love it.’ – Larry the Cable Guy

‘My mom is a really good cook. I didn’t get the cooking gene, but she cooks this really amazing dinner every Christmas, and that’s always really fun.’ – Miranda Cosgrove

‘I loved raising my kids. I loved the process, the dirt of it, the tears of it, the frustration of it, Christmas, Easter, birthdays, growth charts, pediatrician appointments. I loved all of it.’ – Jane Elliot

‘My mother-in-law has come round to our house at Christmas seven years running. This year we’re having a change. We’re going to let her in.’ – Les Dawson

‘My favorite traditional Christmas movie that I like to watch is All Quiet on the Western Front. It’s just not December without that movie in my house.’ – Tom Hanks

‘I grew up on Section 8 housing, food stamps, welfare, and dealing with social services. I never had a Christmas. I never had a birthday.’ – Logic

‘Like the Earth, the Web is a less appealing place than it used to be. If I want attitude and arguing and meanness and profanity and wrong information screamed at me as gospel, I’ll get in a time machine and spend Christmas with my family in 1977.’ – J. R. Moehringer

‘There’s never really been a real hood Christmas movie.’ – Ice Cube

‘A lot of people influenced me as I was learning, but probably Bing Crosby was the most influential because I would hear his Christmas albums, which my parents played a lot.’ – Gordon Lightfoot

‘I grew up on a mountain in Tennessee, and my brothers and I love to go to The Mountain Opry when we are home. There is alway an abundance of laughter and joy, and anyone can get up on stage and dance and sing. My family also goes to a candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve. It’s such a wonderful way to spend the night before Christmas.’ – Rachel Boston

‘One of my favorite movies of all time is ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ which is a pretty interesting choice for a seasonal Christmas favorite, because it’s about a guy who wants to commit suicide and is presented with reasons not to.’ – Frank Darabont

‘There’s a little vanity chair that Charlie gave me the first Christmas we knew each other. I’ll not be parting with that, nor our bed – the four-poster – I’ll be needing that to die in.’ – Helen Hayes

‘I actually share her view and understand her frustration when any government attempts to ban secular symbols like Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or Christmas lights.’ – Steve Israel

‘A title means marketing. It means that company’s coming soon, and you’d better get out the Christmas lights so they don’t miss your house.’ – Caroline Leavitt

‘When we went to see the first rough cuts of ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence,’ I fell to the floor because my acting was so bad. I wrote music to compensate for my bad acting.’ – Ryuichi Sakamoto

‘It’s surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.’ – Christopher Hitchens

‘Christmas is far and away my favorite holiday. I love everything about it, from the event that inspired it, hoping for a white one, to wrapping presents. But mostly I love having family and friends gathered, and sharing traditions.’ – Ellen Hopkins

‘My family is Jamaican and Cuban, but we would go to see our Jamaican side every summer for three months and every Christmas. One of the things I used to love was climbing trees and picking ackee fruit for breakfast.’ – Karamo Brown

‘Every Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches.’ – Paul Engle

‘I love Halloween, trick or treating and decorating the house. And I love Thanksgiving, because of the football and the fall weather. And of course, I love Christmas – that’s my favorite of all!’ – Joe Nichols

‘As soon as I discovered PlayStation, I was throwing hints here and there to my dad – cutting out the clipping of a video game, cutting out the clippings of the PlayStation, leaving it on his dresser. I remember on Christmas morning, I unwrapped my gift, and sure enough, it was the PS2. I’ve been a PlayStation guy ever since.’ – Paul George

‘The loneliest ebb of my life came on that Christmas eve, only one day after my arrival in New York. The abyss of loneliness. I ate a solitary dinner in a small cafe, and the very food tasted bitter with my unshed tears. One doesn’t dare cry in America. It is unmanly here.’ – Rudolph Valentino

‘I didn’t know the full dimensions of forever, but I knew it was longer than waiting for Christmas to come.’ – Richard Brautigan

‘One of my first favorite books was ‘The 12 Days of Christmas,’ and I would just go up to people and say, ‘I can sing ‘The 12 Days of Christmas,’ and I would make them sit through me reciting it, and I’d go all the way, each time. I’ve always hooked into lyrics.’ – Lin-Manuel Miranda

‘Then, when I got in the military, I used to host – even in high school – I hosted the talent shows, and when I was in the military I would host all of our base Christmas parties and stuff.’ – Gary Owens

‘I was doing a tour of the ‘Batman’ live stage production, and I challenged the cast to join me to run. One time, we were running in Switzerland just before Christmas, and it was heavy snow. Another time, we were running down the Seine in Paris on Christmas Day, and we all had Santa hats on.’ – Sam Heughan

‘Pfft, I hate Christmas Day. It’s for children and families. Not for people like me.’ – Karl Lagerfeld

‘There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.’ – Erma Bombeck

‘Back when we was in school in Mississippi, we had Little Black Sambo. That’s what you learned: Anytime something was not good, or anytime something was bad in some kinda way, it had to be called black. Like, you had Black Monday, Black Friday, black sheep… Of course, everything else, all the good stuff, is white. White Christmas and such.’ – B. B. King

‘My first publication was a haiku in a children’s magazine when I was 9 years old. I received one dollar for it! I gave the check to my dad for Christmas, and he framed it and hung it over his desk.’ – Linda Sue Park

‘In ‘White Christmas,’ I wasn’t the main part.’ – Sadie Sink

‘Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.’ – Stephen Fry

‘Besides Christianity and specifically Catholicism being wonderful, Christmas is intrinsic to American culture and worth defending. Think of what happens at Christmas time. People play Mariah Carey Christmas songs… What else do you need in life?’ – Milo Yiannopoulos

‘I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.’ – William Tecumseh Sherman

‘My worst Christmas ever was in 1987 when Santa brought me and my sister a dose of chicken-pox. And my worst present ever was a Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner! I don’t like to sound ungrateful, but I do find vacuuming difficult to get excited about.’ – Sophia Di Martino

‘Don’t give me books for Christmas; I already have a book.’ – Jean Harlow

‘My grandmother did all the cooking at Christmas. We ate fattened chicken. We would feed it even more so it would be big and fat.’ – Alain Ducasse

‘I am a veteran of the War on Christmas. I am just emerging from a battlefield strewn with dead trees and torn shreds of brightly colored wrapping paper.’ – Henry Rollins

‘It’s always a wonderful time to be able to settle down by the fire, enjoy the Christmas tree and the decorations, and just spend time with the ones you love and surround yourself with the people that you don’t get to see enough throughout the year.’ – Jay DeMarcus

‘Working on ‘Nightmare Before Christmas,’ I had endless arguments, like the studio saying, ‘You can’t have a main character that’s got no eyeballs!’ ‘How is anybody going to feel for somebody with just eyesockets?’ You know? So, it’s those kind of things that really wear you down.’ – Tim Burton

‘Being a writer in Iceland, you get rewarded all the time: People really do read our books, and they have opinions; they love them, or they hate them. At the average Christmas party, people push politics and the Kardashians aside and discuss literature.’ – Hallgrimur Helgason

‘I just think Christmas is a time to embrace all the naughty little things.’ – Jade Thirlwall

‘I love Christmas. It is my favorite holiday of the year. I love being somewhere cold at Christmas so that there is snow.’ – Tate McRae

‘I’d have to say, for me, as a child, my favorite memories were always centered around Christmas time. It always seemed like no matter how much money my parents had or didn’t have, we got completely spoiled rotten. There were always presents under the tree, and we always did special things, like hide elves around the house.’ – Josie Bissett

‘I’m not a fan of musicals at all, but I do think ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ is a very good. I always thought ‘Walk the Line’ was very good, too. I was in ‘Nowhere Boy.’ I played Paul McCartney. That was kind of musical – we did songs in that.’ – Thomas Brodie-Sangster

‘Christmas always rustled. It rustled every time, mysteriously, with silver and gold paper, tissue paper and a rich abundance of shiny paper, decorating and hiding everything and giving a feeling of reckless extravagance.’ – Tove Jansson

‘For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival. I was convinced that the woods were calling me. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don’t live in the woods by myself by the time I’m 25, I have failed.’ – Chris Evans

‘I knew the training pitch better than anyone. When others went out clubbing, I went to sleep. When others had Christmas, I went out in the woods to run.’ – Pavel Nedved

‘I was one of those goofy kids whose year narrowed down to focus on Christmas from about September on. I guess I was like Ralphie in ‘A Christmas Story,’ in that I would get swept up into the anticipation of the holiday, watching the lights go up, hearing the songs in the stores, getting special Christmas issues of comics and all that.’ – Paul Dini

‘I got given a pair of Christmas socks with penguins on. They know you’re obviously not going to wear them. I think they do it just to annoy you, to be honest.’ – Jamie Vardy

”Joker’ was a violent, dark, and brutal book, so I wanted to do something a little less heavy. I played around with the idea of a children’s book, and that eventually became ‘Noel.’ And I just kept finding these parallels between things I could do with Batman and Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol.” – Lee Bermejo

‘I did Christmas plays at school, but they banned me because I was messing about. And I was like, ‘Ah, why?’ Because I was getting attention, everyone was laughing at me and I was loving it, I thought, ‘This feels good!” – Barry Keoghan

‘We always watch ‘The Polar Express.’ I love that movie; that’s a very, very nice Christmas tradition that we have.’ – Alice Merton

‘I read the Scriptures at the American Cathedral on Christmas and Easter; that’s it. It’s a task I love.’ – Olivia De Havilland

‘At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Christmas story. A young mother and a dutiful father with their baby were joined by poor shepherds and visitors from afar. They came with their gifts to worship the Christ child.’ – Queen Elizabeth II

‘My family background is Mexican, and I was born in Chicago. It’s pretty much family tradition every time we get together for Christmas and major holidays to sing. Our family time is centered around the food and a little bit of performing for one another.’ – Ailyn Perez

‘Classic Christmas cookies are really time-consuming. Instead, make a bar you can bake in a pan and just cut up, like a brownie or a blondie or a shortbread, which still has that Christmas vibe.’ – Zooey Deschanel

‘Christmas means a great deal to me. I was reared in a family that celebrated Christmas to some extent, but I married into a family that celebrated Christmas in a big way. And my wife always made a big thing of Christmas for the children. We have five children, and we had a terrific time at Christmas.’ – Billy Graham

‘We all need a big cushiony telly show to fall back on. Like the pair of slippers after you unexpectedly went Christmas shopping in your work shoes. Like the cup of tea when your deadlines are making you cry. Like the hug off someone who matters when it’s cold and you wanted to look nice, not warm.’ – Sarah Millican

‘Comic-Con is nerd Christmas. People go wanting to have fun.’ – Chris Hardwick

‘Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.’ – Wendy Cope

‘I do watch ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ with my children at Christmas, and I liked it long before it went into the public domain and became a cliche.’ – Edward Zwick

‘My parents were willing to let me follow my nose, do what I wanted to do, and they supported my interest by buying the books that I wanted for birthdays and Christmas, almost always poetry books.’ – Donald Hall

‘I think the most bonkers and tiring job I’ve ever had was in my teens where I worked in Woolworths in the Christmas period. That level of tired I’ve never really felt since.’ – Roisin Conaty

‘I was never funny. I’d be funny once a year at Christmas. I’d do impressions of how people talked and danced, but that stopped when I was about 11.’ – Carlos Mencia

‘A friend gave me a CD of the ‘Pathetique’ Symphony as a Christmas present. I went home, and I put on the CD expecting to listen to Tchaikovsky. But it started ‘ta ta ta taaa.’ It was too long for me. I didn’t understand it at first, but then I fell in love, in love, in love.’ – Gustavo Dudamel

‘Christmas is over and Business is Business.’ – Franklin Pierce Adams

‘I still get up every morning at 4 A.M. I write seven days a week, including Christmas. And I still face a blank page every morning, and my characters don’t really care how many books I’ve sold.’ – Dan Brown

‘I just think that it’s strong and it’s important that we recognize what the Christmas season is about; it’s about the birth of our Savior, and there’s a lot of pressure today to be politically correct, but people are realizing, too, that you have to be open to express your faith what you want believe.’ – Joel Osteen

‘For more than a decade, I led an organization that put on an elaborate Christmas program each December. It was a big production, with over 250 people participating in more than 20 performances. By the end of the season, everyone who participated was exhausted.’ – John C. Maxwell

‘I grew up in Morocco. I was born a Muslim, and, every year, I celebrated Christmas in a big white house in the country, halfway between Meknes and Fez.’ – Leila Slimani

‘Next to a circus there ain’t nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.’ – Kin Hubbard

”The war in Iraq – if Osama was a Christian – it’s the Christmas present he never would have expected.’ – Michael Scheuer

‘I was once part of a Christmas cabaret. I sang ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.’ I tap-danced. I had a ten-gallon hat. It was quite absurd.’ – Peter Dinklage

‘I’d just got back from filming my role as Flo in ‘Kidnap & Ransom’ when I got the news that Channel 4 had re-commissioned ‘Fresh Meat,’ so I think it was the first Christmas I could actually relax knowing that I had three months’ work sorted. As an actor, that’s always a good feeling.’ – Kimberley Nixon

‘On the plus side, leaving Leeds meant I have been able to spend a lot of time with the family, enjoying a very rare summer off and my first Christmas without work worries since I was a teenager. I was also able to accept an offer to work with BT Sport.’ – Neil Warnock

‘I’ve got my organic veg patch and fruit; we’re very garden-obsessed, my husband and I. He designed a garden for me for Christmas, so beautiful! Alasdhair’s very good at the proportion and ground work, and I come in and do the planting and the color scheme.’ – Stella McCartney

‘Religious symbols should be visible in public space, in a dignified and non-provocative manner. Christmas trees here, Jewish menorahs there and, further along, a minaret – these symbols represent human life in all its diversity.’ – Tariq Ramadan

‘Miramax seems to be showing the same faith in Roberto Benigni’s ‘Pinocchio’ that the Republican Party showed in Trent Lott; the live-action version of Carlo Collodi’s fairy tale about the wooden puppet whose only ambition was to be a real live boy was sneaked into theaters Christmas Day.’ – Elvis Mitchell

‘When I was a child, I always went to my grandmother’s house in Nuremberg for Christmas. My uncle would leave the room, saying he needed the toilet, and then he would reappear dressed as Santa Claus. I was really scared – I’d have to go and hide behind an armchair.’ – Juergen Teller

‘Christmas is the season I use to clock failure in life. It stops time, as it were, on the year – where you are in it, where you are in your travail unto the grave.’ – Padgett Powell

‘After an afternoon of interviewing Siri it turns out there are millions of questions that it can’t or won’t answer: How did you get my phone number? How many Siris are there? Did you have a Christmas party? Who is playing the tiny xylophone before and after each interaction? Are you spying on us, plotting the downfall of our species?’ – Sara Pascoe

‘I love Christmas. I’m really sentimental about it. My parents made it awesome for us, and we were allowed to be kids for a long time.’ – Michael Buble

‘Two decades later, Gary Jules sang ‘Mad World’ for the film ‘Donnie Darko’ and got the Christmas No 1 in 2003. That was probably the proudest moment of my career.’ – Roland Orzabal

‘I picked up the guitar at 12 yrs old – basically, my mother and father bought it for me for Christmas. I played one at my friend’s house; when I say played it, I just played around with it at my friend’s house. It just struck me as something I really wanted.’ – Greg Lake

‘On Christmas, my family and I see a movie and go out for Chinese food. We don’t celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense, in that we do not actually celebrate Christmas.’ – Eden Sher

‘Every Christmas Eve, the elves will come and give us a new pair of pajamas.’ – Sabrina Carpenter

‘My dad’s a firefighter, so I know what it’s like for policemen and firefighters to be on their own on Christmas Day.’ – J. J. Watt

‘Sometimes I wonder: What are the children thinking? And sometimes I wonder why the hell I’m not buying a tree like the other neighbors. After all, there is no mention in Christianity of Christmas trees, and even if there were – is there any good reason why I shouldn’t be buying some red stockings?’ – Sayed Kashua

‘I’m writing a book called ‘The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus’ about the maths of Christmas: how to set up a secret Santa so it’s totally fair; how to decorate your tree mathematically; how to win at Monopoly.’ – Hannah Fry

‘I can’t tell you how scary it can be walking onto a movie and suddenly joining this family, it’s like going to somebody else’s Christmas dinner, everyone knows everyone, and you’re there and you’re not quite sure what you’re supposed to be doing.’ – John Cleese

‘I grew up in Beijing and Beijing roast duck is my favorite. My mom makes it every year for Christmas Eve. How crispy the skin is is how good a duck restaurant is.’ – Lulu Wang

‘Despite the pain of his death, George is still very much alive in my memory today. A few years on from that tragic Christmas, I’ll sometimes catch myself thinking of our friendship and those years together as young kids in Wham!’ – Andrew Ridgeley

‘I don’t know of too many double Christmas albums, so it is something that’s new, and hopefully will be fun, and there’s plenty of stuff out there to cut.’ – Garth Brooks

‘I detest ‘Jingle Bells,’ ‘White Christmas,’ ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,’ and the obscene spending bonanza that nowadays seems to occupy not just December, but November and much of October, too.’ – Richard Dawkins

‘As a child, I was bonkers for Christmas. The entire month of December, I couldn’t sleep at night from anticipation.’ – Rosecrans Baldwin

‘It’s fun when you start a movie, because it’s kind of like you get to go Christmas shopping… you get to make your wish list and you start thinking about what each character needs.’ – Spike Jonze

‘Christmas can have a real melancholy aspect, ’cause it packages itself as this idea of perfect family cohesion and love, and you’re always going to come up short when you measure your personal life against the idealized personal lives that are constantly thrust in our faces, primarily by TV commercials.’ – Dan Savage

‘Us Filipinos love Christmas so much that we have the longest Christmas season in the world.’ – Catriona Gray

‘As Michael Scheuer, who ran the C.I.A.’s bin Laden unit until 1999, has pointed out, if bin Laden believed in Christmas, the Iraq war would be his perfect present from Santa Claus. The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan severely damaged bin Laden’s organization.’ – Peter Bergen

‘I can remember being at Sandringham, for the first time, at Christmas. And I was worried what to give the Queen as her Christmas present. I was thinking, ‘Gosh, what should I give her?’. I thought, ‘I’ll make her something.’ Which could have gone horribly wrong. But I decided to make my granny’s recipe of chutney.’ – Kate Middleton

‘I love ‘O Holy Night.’ On Christmas Eve, there’s a service at the church where I grew up, and at midnight, we would always sing, ‘O Holy Night’ with candles.’ – Rachel Boston

‘One Christmas, when Freddie and I were flatmates in Kensington, we were trying to cook Christmas dinner, but all we had was a packet of bread sauce that you make with water. We used to dream of a can of beans.’ – Roger Taylor

‘Is it possible Hanukkah doesn’t inspire folksy songs? Plot lines may be a part. The Christmas story has a lot of material to work with. There’s Jesus and his birth, the wise men, their gifts and tons of frankincense.’ – Matisyahu

‘As a very young man growing up in Texas, usually I got a shotgun or cowboy boots for Christmas.’ – Robert Wilson

‘We used to indulge hopelessly as a family at Christmas. When the children were little, I dressed up as Father Christmas. They knew it was a gag, but they loved it. I remember stealing into their bedrooms at 1 A.M. and filling the stockings up at the end of the bed.’ – Richard Attenborough

‘November is auspicious in so many parts of the country: the rice harvest is already in, the weather starts to cool, and the festive glow which precedes Christmas has began to brighten the landscape.’ – F. Sionil Jose

‘I don’t like to see Christmas trees torn down.’ – John Prine

‘But Tammy Faye calls me, and Ron Jeremy calls me, Erik Estrada sends me a Christmas card every year.’ – Trishelle Cannatella

‘We no longer sing and dance. We don’t know how to. Instead, we watch other people sing and dance on the television screen. Christmas, which was once a festival of active enjoyment, has turned into a binge of purely passive pleasures.’ – Tom Hodgkinson

‘I’m like everybody: I gain the Christmas 10 or so, and then I try to exercise more and dial it back.’ – Trisha Yearwood

‘As a youngster, when I was active in church, I had a lot of fun choosing and hanging massive stars and making the cribs. I was also very involved in the Christmas plays, though not as an actor, but I took joy in setting up the props.’ – Nivin Pauly

‘I have already done two Christmas films: ‘Elf’ and ‘Four Christmases.’ I guess I really am a sucker for Christmas. Both movies are really about the importance of family. I come from a brood of five kids, and it’s the one time of year we can all get together. It’s hands-down my favorite holiday.’ – Peter Billingsley

‘Like my dad, I have a Christmas party most years. I like to celebrate and see as many people as possible.’ – Lauren Graham

‘I’m so depressed. Christmas is the worst of all. Holidays are terrible, worse than Sundays. I get melancholia.’ – David O. Selznick

‘Christmas carols always brought tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own.’ – Ethel Merman

‘I asked for a horse for Christmas, and I got one! It’s an adult horse. I didn’t want a 5-year-old, which is a teenager for horses. It has a beautiful gait. It’s the Cadillac of horses.’ – Rick Harrison

‘I hate to say it, but Christmas as a kid was always a moneymaking venture for me. I played trumpet, and a friend of mine who played trombone and a guy who played tuba, every Christmas we’d go out for three or four days beforehand and play Christmas carols on our horns.’ – John Tesh

‘In the spring of 1994 I decided not to seek reelection to the Senate. I had made the decision 12 years earlier, Christmas Day of 1982, just after I had been first elected to a full term, that I would do the best I could for a limited time.’ – George J. Mitchell

‘At some point in your life, if you live in Venezuela, you come across or own a cuatro. Either at school, either at camp, either at a friend’s house, at a birthday or Christmas or bar mitzvah, you end up with a cuatro. It’s like a must.’ – Devendra Banhart

‘Christmas is a story that has both religious and pagan origins, and to ignore its power is to ignore the power of myth – those symbols and legends that help us to ground our lives.’ – Jay Parini

‘Fragrance is a very personal gift, and I think that’s why it makes a great Christmas gift. There’s a very distinct signature to it, so if you give it as a gift, I like to think that it’s from a person that thinks very highly of you.’ – Ryan Reynolds

‘I think that ‘Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance’ was mentally taxing, if only because I had to go to a Christmas party shortly after I had wrapped photography in Romania at two in the morning as the Ghost Rider. The invitation had a Christmas ornament on it with Ghost Rider’s face on it as a tree.’ – Nicolas Cage

‘A lot of Christmas episodes feel like stories in quotation marks. Uh, a homeless guy comes to live with them and they all learn a lesson. That didn’t come from an organic place.’ – Raphael Bob-Waksberg

‘I remember being banned from other houses as a younger child during the winter holiday season; I was the only one who didn’t believe in Santa Claus, and I was ruining everyone’s Christmas.’ – Jami Attenberg

‘On Christmas, when I was 13, my mom got me my first laptop. I downloaded it, FruityLoops, cause I had heard about it, and started messing around.’ – Metro Boomin

‘Country ham is baked whole, usually with a glaze, sometimes studded with cloves, and served as the centerpiece of Christmas and Easter feasts.’ – Kate Christensen

‘Tom Petty sent me this amazing 12-string Rickenbacker, and ‘Not for You’ was the first time I used it. It was like a Christmas present. One day, it just showed up at my door. I called him up and thanked him.’ – Mike McCready

‘Christians get trees. Jews get bushes. To stay in good standing with the Tribe, you’ve got to refer to a Christmas tree as a Hanukkah bush.’ – Alan Colmes

‘I loved rock and roll when that came in, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, all those great records. So I begged my mom and dad for a guitar, which eventually they did get me for Christmas, but it went out of tune very quickly, and it hurt my fingers.’ – Ian McLagan

‘I put the copy of ‘A Christmas Carol’ that my grandfather had first read to me 60 years ago on my desk, and I began to write. The result, for better or for worse, is the ‘Christmas Spirits.’ I plan to read it to my grandson.’ – Whitley Strieber

‘I absolutely adore Christmas.’ – Aurora

‘Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused – in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened – by the recurrence of Christmas.’ – Charles Dickens

‘Christmas 1972 was a lonely time for Kissinger, as well as for his boss, and a period of serious reflection. Kissinger was then a bachelor, enamored of the tall, elegant, but elusive WASP Nancy Maginnes, but still very much a bachelor – Washington’s most sought-after bachelor.’ – Alistair Horne

‘People just do not realise what a football life can be. Since 1968 I’ve never had more than a few weeks out of work, when I left Sheffield United and I have not had a Christmas.’ – Neil Warnock

‘I complained about the gimmicks. All the nonsense and garbage. After a while I just said I would not wrestle with the guys wearing masks, or guys that had some get-up on. It was demeaning. I refuse to go onto the mat against a Christmas tree.’ – Bruno Sammartino

‘It’s funny how we ‘do’ Christmas. Christmas is not something that we do, it is something that was done. It celebrates the long awaited arrival of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. We had nothing to do with it, but what we can do is praise God for the coming of the Lord, who washed away the sins of the world by dying on the cross.’ – Monica Johnson

‘Kind ‘Guardian’ readers have been forwarding me round robin Christmas newsletters for years now: lengthy missives full of perfect children, exotic holidays, talented pets and endless, tedious detail. The notes that accompanied them revealed they had inspired in the original recipients everything from mild irritation to absolute rage.’ – Simon Hoggart

‘No matter where I am in the world, I will always be back home for Christmas.’ – Malaika Arora Khan

‘Why is there an end of the year? Because the calendar imposes numerical order on time. There is a natural fitness in the celebration of the New Year, a holiday of numbers imposed on things, with lists, as well as with Advent calendars and songs like ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.” – Elif Batuman

‘My favorite part was when my grandfather and I would make a special trip to Firpo’s Bakery for red and green Christmas cookies and fruitcake studded with the sweetest cherries I’ve ever tasted. Usually Firpo’s was too expensive for our slim budget, but Christmas mornings they gave a discount to any children who came in.’ – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

‘I feel like I’ve been guarded since I was about three years old. I don’t know why. I come from such a huge family, so maybe it’s that. Maybe it comes from going to Christmas and having 30 people all in your face at once. I’ve always been a bit like, ‘Aaargh!” – Rooney Mara

‘When I was 12, all I wanted for Christmas was a trampoline or a four-wheeler. I ended up getting both presents for Christmas.’ – Chris Brown

‘I write in my house, at my desk, where I have Christmas lights strung over it to try and convince me that I’m having a good time. I can’t really write anywhere else.’ – Kate DiCamillo

‘I met fred rogers in 1998, when ‘Esquire’ assigned me a story about him for a special issue on American heroes. I last spoke with him on Christmas Day 2002, when I called him to talk about an argument I’d had with my cousin; he died two months later, on February 27, 2003.’ – Tom Junod

‘I said to my wife, Michele, ‘What would you like for Christmas? Anything you want, darling, anything in our means.’ She said she would like me to be the weight I was when we married. So I will not gorge myself.’ – Gyles Brandreth

‘The unfortunate thing about working for yourself is that you have the worst boss in the world. I work every day of the year except at Christmas, when I work a half day.’ – David Eddings

‘Nothing is as peaceful as when Christmas is over, when one has been forgiven for everything and can be normal again.’ – Tove Jansson

‘I think we’ve taken the meaning of Christmas out. People don’t stop and think about Jesus or the birth of Jesus. When they think of Christmas, they think of Santa Claus and – for the children, and they think of giving gifts and out-giving the next person of spending their time looking for the right thing for somebody who has everything.’ – Billy Graham

‘On Christmas morning, before we could open our Christmas presents, we would go to this stranger’s home and bring them presents. I remember helping clean the house up and putting up a tree. My father believed that you have a responsibility to look after everyone else.’ – George Clooney

‘If I’m ever stuck on the M25 – the ‘Road to Hell’ – I’ll wind the window down and start singing, ‘I’m driving home for Christmas’ at people in cars alongside. They love it. It’s like giving them a present.’ – Chris Rea

‘Celebrating Christmas without subscribing to Christianity is like watching the Super Bowl without watching a regular season game. Some people watch the Super Bowl for the commercials; others watch it for the halftime show.’ – Andrew Shaffer

‘We even had a different word for Christmas in my language, Bengali: Baradin, which literally meant ‘big day.” – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

‘Almost any American can connect on some level to a family background of having come across some ocean. They say, ‘My great-grandparents came from wherever… this is why we have this last name, why we do this thing at Christmas.’ All the details get watered down but don’t quite disappear.’ – Jhumpa Lahiri

‘Christmas is a season which almost all Christians observe in one way or another. Some keep it as a religious season. Some keep it as a holiday. But all over the world, wherever there are Christians, in one way or another Christmas is kept.’ – J. C. Ryle

‘In my adolescence, I think I felt very outcast; I felt lonely. I felt great loneliness, and sometimes I wouldn’t partake in Christmas, and I would go off and wander in the streets of Melbourne.’ – Michael Leunig

‘One thing I love about Christmas music is that it has a tradition of warmth.’ – Zooey Deschanel

‘Now I’m an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions.’ – Orson Welles

‘We play everybody’s Christmas records at our house, and sometimes you think, ‘I’m not gonna play my own record; I’d be embarrassed.’ But I’m gonna play our record this Christmas, because I love the songs!’ – Trisha Yearwood

‘Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.’ – Richard Lamm

‘From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it.’ – Katharine Whitehorn

‘Windows are as essential to office prestige as Christmas is to retailing.’ – Enid Nemy

‘I love Christmas. I really do love Christmas. I love being with my family and I love snow. I love the music and the lights and all of it.’ – Christina Applegate

‘Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want – and their kids pay for it.’ – Richard Lamm

‘Christmas is a holiday that persecutes the lonely, the frayed, and the rejected.’ – Jimmy Cannon

‘Come Christmas Eve, we usually go to my mom and dad’s. Everybody brings one gift and then we play that game when we all steal it from each other. Some are really cool, others are useful and some are a bit out there.’ – Amy Grant

‘I intend to keep writing Christmas songs. There’s still a lot more about Christmas that can be captured and feel like old-time Christmas. A lot of the traditions haven’t been explained in song.’ – Clint Black

‘No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace, is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.’ – Al Smith

‘Fantastic! Right in the middle of that long stretch between Christmas and Spring Break, your coats are getting dirty, everything’s dark, dingy – what a great time for a movie!’ – John Hughes

‘I got up one Christmas morning and we didn’t have nothing to eat. We didn’t have an apple, we didn’t have an orange, we didn’t have a cake, we didn’t have nothing.’ – Muddy Waters

‘I’ve been in elementary education for years and my belief is that Christmas pageants in schools are little more than conditioning kids for the Christian religion.’ – Jack Bowman

‘We never really had any kind of a Christmas. This is one part where my memory fails me completely.’ – Frank McCourt

‘It’s hard and sometimes it’s scary. It still amazes my mother. I went home for Christmas one year and there were fans all over the front lawn, hoping to see me.’ – Luke Perry

‘I think we felt the pressure more at first than this time around. But still you don’t want to let anyone down. I never even met Patrick until we had a Christmas party at Ian McKellen’s house on the first movie and then I didn’t see him again until the premiere.’ – Rebecca Romijn

‘In our racist, sexist society, Christmas is the 8 hours when we stop killing each other and gratutious over eating is encouraged so that the starving and other people in the world can die!’ – Lloyd Kaufman

‘On the whole, I prefer Christmas as an adult than I did as a child.’ – Nigella Lawson

‘I’d like to do a Christmas album. I’ve never done a Christmas album.’ – Tanya Tucker

‘Christmas albums are not something you do frequently.’ – Isaac Hanson

‘There are very few people who have done more than one Christmas album.’ – Isaac Hanson

‘We didn’t have a whole lot of money when I was growing up either. I would always ask for magic books or magic tricks for my birthday or for Christmas and the rest of the year I either had to mow lawns or find part time jobs to help supplement the cost of doing magic.’ – Lance Burton

‘I’ve also committed my time and resources to many local organizations like Christmas in April, Catholic Community Services, and Hudson County Meals on Wheels.’ – Vincent Frank

‘I made a Christmas album a couple of years ago and just put it out on my Web site. It kind of smacked of this flavor. All of the reviews said it was Western swing even when it was Christmas standards.’ – Suzy Bogguss

‘Whatever he does should be seen as working at the Presidency and if he goes to Colorado for Christmas, it should be for a minimum amount of time, the family tradition and family get-together aspect emphasized, and it be seen as a working vacation.’ – Robert Teeter

‘I think we need one recognized, respected public figure to make a tough, blunt statement on just what Reagan’s record is and what he might do to the country, let alone the Republican Party before Christmas.’ – Robert Teeter

‘So many people release albums before Christmas and they get lost in the Christmas rush.’ – Bonnie Tyler

‘I make personal appearances around the country. I’m starting a book tour now, and I may be coming to Toronto with the Learning Annex, which I’m doing all through the United States, so that may come up just before Christmas.’ – Burt Ward

‘The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.’ – Beth Henley

‘To understand this Christmas record, you have to understand our ministry.’ – John Tesh

‘Yeah, I started when I was 6 years old. My brother and sister would get all of these presents at Christmas time from the cast and crew of their show and I was jealous. So I decided that I had to become an actor.’ – Sara Gilbert

‘I don’t want to see people decorating a house or digging a garden. As for guys like Jonathan Ross, he got an award there last Christmas. What for? He doesn’t sing, dance or tell jokes, does he?’ – Ian St. John

‘South Park started as a little video Christmas card.’ – Joel Hodgson

‘From the time that I can remember, I worked to make money – either baby-sitting, or one year wrapping gifts at a department store at Christmas, so I could have my own money.’ – Christie Hefner

‘Even though we’re a week and a half away from Thanksgiving, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.’ – Richard Roeper

‘The truth is that our way of celebrating the Christmas season does spring from myriad cultures and sources, from St. Nicholas to Coca-Cola advertising campaigns.’ – Richard Roeper

‘I made a French film called ‘Merry Christmas’ which is a very European film. It’s a World War I piece.’ – Diane Kruger

‘It’s quite a famous story that takes place on Christmas Eve, and the Germans, French, and Scottish are trying to make peace one night and they bury their dead and they play football. I play a German opera singer, in German, which I never have so I am really excited about that.’ – Diane Kruger

‘We always had lutefisk for Christmas dinner, after which Dad read from the Norwegian Bible.’ – Peter Agre

‘Besides the two Christmas things, we’ve got a about a dozen new tracks we’re working on.’ – Chris Frantz

‘I have a musical called Goodbye and Good Luck, based on a Grace Paley short story. I also have King Island Christmas, and there are 20 different productions of it this year.’ – David Friedman

‘Orphans, dead parents, lonely children at Christmas, morose spoken word recordings, everything you love about the holidays. Move the turkey over so you can fit your head in the oven.’ – April Winchell

‘Christmas is the antithesis of Thanksgiving. Christmas is pretty much a man-made holiday.’ – John Clayton

‘The denominational world tries to pressure its members to focus on the birth of Christ, but in doing so layers of guilt are imposed, and competition gets complicated as one Christmas program tries to outdo the other.’ – John Clayton

‘If you want me to sing this Christmas song with the feeling and the meaning, you better see if you can locate that check.’ – Mahalia Jackson

‘My grandson sees me as Lois on TV every Christmas, and that scores me points.’ – Margot Kidder

‘I was thrilled one year when I was younger when not only did my brothers get hockey sticks for Christmas – but I did too!’ – Nancy Kerrigan

‘In 1934, the American Jewish charities offered to find homes for 300 German refugee children. We were on the SS Washington, bound for New York, Christmas 1934.’ – Jack Steinberger

‘I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn’t believe them.’ – Frances Farmer

‘My mother would give my brothers and me a pile of catalogues and let us pick what we wanted for Christmas.’ – Kary Mullis

‘Lately I did a film called All I Want for Christmas and it was well received. This gave me a new point of view and a new respect for my work as an actress.’ – Sarah Polley

‘If you pray enough for things, I am proof that they can happen. I feel like a kid on Christmas day now, every day. It’s something I have wanted for a long time and I am as happy as anyone to be here. It is great to be back at my first love.’ – Robbie Fowler

‘And of course there’s so much music in and around our family. I had a piano during Christmas because it’s obviously useful through the season. There are so many people, songwriters, who are around.’ – Ashley Judd

‘I think the people who are making Christmas-themed movies today feel that people are more cynical about Christmas. There’s more of an edge.’ – Leonard Maltin

‘A Christmas Carol is such a fool-proof story you can’t louse it up.’ – Leonard Maltin

‘Chum was a British boy’s weekly which, at the end of the year was bound into a single huge book; and the following Christmas parents bought it as Christmas presents for male children.’ – A. E. van Vogt

‘I was at the vice president’s Christmas party. I thought that his speech was spectacular, and I knew that it was a very emotional and difficult thing for him to do, but I admonished him for not waiting just one more stinking day.’ – Bradley Whitford

‘He put a ring in the toe of a stocking. On Christmas Eve, we opened our stockings and it was there at the bottom of the toe. Then he got down on his knees and he was shaking.’ – Kyra Sedgwick

‘Our whole family assembles in Chicago at Christmas and usually in Aspen in the summer.’ – James Cronin

‘When I was five my parents bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I quickly learned how to play it with my father’s guidance. Thereafter, my father regularly taught me all the good old fashioned songs.’ – Tony Visconti

‘Our last jam session was this past Christmas. Dad played his harmonica, mom sang in English and Italian, and I played guitar. I’m so happy that we could share that musical experience for one last time.’ – Tony Visconti

‘I never really did Christmas before. Christmas Day? I mean – what’s that? What’s it all about? I was always flying on Christmas Day.’ – Monica Seles

‘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.’ – Monica Seles

‘I got a guitar when I was about 14, for a Christmas present, and went from there.’ – Robin Trower

‘In fact, I was one of the few trusted people that Lucy allowed to play with their kids. I spent time at their summer home, rode horses at their ranch, and swam at their beach house. I even spent a Christmas with them at Palm Springs one year.’ – Keith Thibodeaux

‘Dad bought me a toy drum one Christmas, and I eventually destroyed it. I wanted a real drum and he bought me a snare drum. Dad continued to buy me one drum after the other.’ – Keith Thibodeaux

‘So when I was 13, I basically left home and never returned and lived at home again. I would come home for a week at Christmas and two weeks in the summer only.’ – Peter Jurasik

‘It will be a hard game if you think about winning a championship. We need to think about our own game at the moment and focus on getting good results especially over the Christmas period.’ – Dennis Bergkamp

‘I just travel all the time. And I was just looking at the schedules now and starting the first week of October I will be every weekend with somebody at tournaments through Christmas. So it gets very difficult to just go away and not do that.’ – Ivan Lendl

‘There’s been a concerted effort to steal Christmas.’ – Jerry Falwell

‘Time always seems long to the child who is waiting – for Christmas, for next summer, for becoming a grownup: long also when he surrenders his whole soul to each moment of a happy day.’ – Dag Hammarskjold

‘I grew up with the classics. My mom and I would sit and watch ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ and ‘White Christmas’ – those kind of movies.’ – Lucas Grabeel

‘The worst gift that I ever gave a girl was a suitcase for Christmas. As in, ‘I can’t think of anything to give you, but here’s a new suitcase.’ Afterward, I was like, ‘What were you thinking, idiot?” – Jensen Ackles

‘So we’re considering doing a new Christmas album, because there’s been Christmas episodes since then, and maybe finally do the version of ‘The Most Offensive Song Ever’ with lyrics intact.’ – Trey Parker

‘Christmas makes everything twice as sad.’ – Douglas Coupland

‘My mother, she had a very good attitude toward money. I’m very grateful for the fact that we had to learn to save. I used to get like 50 pence a week, and I’d save it for like five months. And then I’d spend it on Christmas presents. I’d save up like eight pounds. It’s nothing, but we did that.’ – Gemma Arterton

‘Now, a lot of what we are doing right now, quite frankly, is because of what happened on Christmas. Many of the things were kind of in the works. We were already planning, for example, the purchase and deployment of advanced imaging technology. You call them body scanners. We call them AITs (Advanced Imaging Technologies).’ – Janet Napolitano

‘Well, because I have twin seven-year-old boys, I enjoy the gift giving stuff a great deal. We do both Hanukkah and Christmas, so it is a costly, though extremely pleasing proposition.’ – Fred Melamed

‘I was talking to one of my aunties at Christmas and she said she didn’t think it was ever in my nature to go against the grain, that I was always a good boy. I think she was right – I did always want to be good.’ – James McAvoy

‘Godot is whatever it is in life that you are waiting for: ‘I’m waiting to win the lottery. I’m waiting to fall in love’. For me, as a child, it was Christmas. At least that eventually came.’ – Ian Mckellen

‘What I’m not saying is that all government spending is bad. It’s not – far, far from it, but there is no free lunch, as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.’ – Arthur Laffer

‘I remember wishing there was snow in L.A. And how jealous we used to get of those Christmas specials with kids playing in the snow.’ – Ice Cube

‘During the holidays, everyone needs a break from studying for exams and Christmas shopping. I wanted to put together a diverse tour that rocks in many musical directions but always points to Christ.’ – TobyMac

‘I’m not going to put out a Christmas CD until it’s coming out of me naturally.’ – TobyMac

‘I wouldn’t recommend young kids see ‘Speedway Junkie.’ It’s definitely an age-appropriate movie – dark and realistic and edgy. If young kids want to see me, go see the Christmas movie.’ – Jonathan Taylor Thomas

‘I love cooking during Christmas, all smells like the hot apple cider, the hot spiced wine.’ – Amy Smart

‘I’ve always loved Christmas and that’s not really gone away from me from being a child to now. It’s always a magical time and I’m unashamed in my love for Christmas.’ – Martin Freeman

‘My parents still treat Christmas like I’m thirteen years old.’ – Mike Shinoda

‘It was, you know, probably 80 degrees out in L.A., and my dad took me outside and there was snow. At the time, I thought, ‘Every kid doesn’t have snow in their backyard on Christmas?” – Tori Spelling

‘I’m well-travelled so I can see places coming up. I went to St. Croix in the West Indies at Christmas and it had been hit by a really bad tornado. Values there have gone down but I guarantee they will be up again in eight years. So I’ll get in now while it’s cheap as chips.’ – Mel B

‘Christmas is more stressful with present buying and making sure everyone gets included, but Thanksgiving is really not that. I don’t ever really get stressed out about the food.’ – Sandra Lee

‘I’ve also just finished filming the role of Robert Brown in ‘Just William,’ which is due to transmit on BBC One at Christmas.’ – Harry Melling

‘My family makes these vinegars – out of everything from grapes to peaches and cherries. We go through the whole process with the giant vat and drainer, label them, and give them as Christmas presents.’ – Mario Batali

‘You have to remind kids to stay connected to the meaning of Christmas. Sometimes it takes a little bit of effort, but it’s so worth it.’ – Caroline Kennedy

‘Every singer eventually gets around to a Christmas disc.’ – Renee Fleming

‘I might do ‘X Factor’ next year. It’s looking good that I won’t get the sack at Christmas.’ – Gary Barlow

‘I was a postman one Christmas and I developed a morbid fear of dogs.’ – Diane Abbott

”The Christmas Song,’ by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance; to me it just sounds like the holidays. I’ve never sung it, because Nat’s version is so perfect. I gotta leave it alone.’ – Harry Connick, Jr.

‘Making a Christmas album is looked upon by some people as the thing you do when you are heading towards retirement.’ – Annie Lennox

‘I remember a great America where we made everything. There was a time when the only thing you got from Japan was a really bad cheap transistor radio that some aunt gave you for Christmas.’ – Cher

‘You don’t want your jewelry to make you look fat. A lot of what’s out there now does – you just wind up looking like a Christmas tree.’ – Padma Lakshmi

‘Why not share with the world the way it is and tell them my feelings about my cat, and how I played with my kids, and how addicted to Christmas time I am, and the smell of pine needles and hearing my kids laugh.’ – Steven Tyler

‘Online, there’s no time. It’s always Christmas.’ – Lewis Black

‘When I was eight years old, I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror, practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going; there was no reason to quit.’ – Jeff Dunham

‘I’ve been playing on Christmas for the last 10, 11, 12 years. So just got to get up early with the babies, and give them their toys and try to get a nap in and just come to play.’ – Shaquille O’Neal

‘My parents were kind of over protective people. Me and my sister had to play in the backyard all the time. They bought us bikes for Christmas but wouldn’t let us ride in the street, we had to ride in the backyard. Another Christmas, my dad got me a basketball hoop and put it in the middle of the lawn! You can’t dribble on grass.’ – Jimmy Fallon

‘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.’ – Alastair Campbell

‘The whole point of me doing a Christmas record and what I centered it around was the song ‘Christmas with You’ from the point-of-view of the soldiers in Iraq.’ – Rick Springfield

‘Tax cuts should be for life, not just for Christmas.’ – George Osborne

‘My Christmas wish would be to have an entire week off. To spend it with my family and just curl up and watch Christmas movies when it’s snowing outside.’ – David Hasselhoff

‘I’m learning Spanish – I got Rosetta Stone for Christmas.’ – Karlie Kloss

‘The pattern of a newspaperman’s life is like the plot of ‘Black Beauty.’ Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus, sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner who drives him in spite of spavins and expects him to live on potato peelings.’ – A. J. Liebling

‘I remember driving to North Carolina when I was a little girl in a snowstorm to get down to my mom’s family in the Carolinas. There were chains on the car – it was the late sixties – and we were just singing in the car. Christmas carols.’ – Tori Amos

‘I beg people not to accept the seasonal ritual of well-timed charity on Christmas Eve. It’s blasphemy.’ – Jonathan Kozol

‘You know, I started my career in politics in 1967. I’m not new to this. I did not just fall off the Christmas tree. I understand the world is complex. I know that there are people out there who want to hurt other people.’ – Dennis Kucinich

‘It is never too late to get into tennis! While I started playing at the age of 8 when my parents gave me a tennis racquet for Christmas, tennis is a lifelong sport that can be enjoyed by people of almost any age. It’s also something you never forget once you learn.’ – Samantha Stosur

‘I’m over the moon to be involved in the ‘Doctor Who’ Christmas special. I can’t quite believe it as it’s a part of the family tradition at the Jenkins household. I heard the news that I got the role on my 30th birthday and it was the best birthday present ever.’ – Katherine Jenkins

‘Well, the album ‘Intuition’ is out and just went platinum officially. So I think to have the music doing what it’s doing right now, man, it’s the ultimate. Nobody is really selling records out there but we are at a million records and we dropped it at Christmas, so we are just trying to get that thing to like two million, you know.’ – Jamie Foxx

‘I’m bad on Valentine’s Day, but even worse on Christmas. I go shopping at nine o’clock on December 24th every year. Nobody else is there. I’m in Toys’R’Us all by myself. I get there five minutes before closing.’ – Jamie Foxx

‘I love all things Christmas.’ – Samantha Barks

‘I love Christmas. Frosty the Snowman, peace on Earth and mangers, Salvation Army bell ringers and reindeer, the movie ‘Meet Me in St. Louis,’ office parties and cookies.’ – Mo Rocca

‘I love the excess of Christmas. The shopping season that begins in September, the bad pop star recordings of Christmas carols, the decorations that don’t know when to come down.’ – Mo Rocca

‘One Christmas my father kept our tree up till March. He hated to see it go. I loved that.’ – Mo Rocca

‘A typical Christmas is me shucking oysters. I love them and I always get them in at Christmas.’ – Hugh Bonneville

‘The cheese board is my big treat at Christmas that I have to deny myself during the rest of year.’ – Johnny Vegas

‘Black Friday is not another bad hair day in Wall Street. It’s the term used by American retailers to describe the day after the Thanksgiving Holiday, seen as the semi-official start of Christmas shopping season.’ – Evan Davis

‘My father died when I was young and I was raised by my grandmother, Emma Klonjlaleh Brown. We could afford to eat chicken just once a year, on Christmas.’ – George Weah

‘My fondest memories are generally the day after Thanksgiving. I get the total decorating Christmas itch.’ – Katharine McPhee

‘When you have kids, you instantly feel that you do not want to do them wrong. Those dads that go off to Florida and start a new life, I couldn’t imagine that: seeing my kid once every Christmas, every three years. If I’m gone for six days it feels like too much.’ – Adam Carolla

‘Why not collect and clean chicken wishbones in the run-up to Christmas, spray them silver and use each to pinch together a white hem-stitch napkin?’ – Pippa Middleton

‘My mother accidentally gave me food poisoning. She fed me baby carrots for a snack before Christmas dinner – but they had expired in June! I threw up for the next 24 hours.’ – Busy Philipps

‘Music is my thing. It’s my thing; it’s what I love. It’s what I do. It’s football to me; it’s Christmas to me; religion to me; poetry to me.’ – Ryan Adams

‘You can’t allow the forces of political correction to shut you up. I mean, why are people afraid to say, ‘Merry Christmas?’ Give me a break. If people don’t like it, yeah, they can go do something else.’ – Ben Carson

‘I’ve taught fifth-year Christmas leavers last thing on a Friday afternoon. Basically, if you can face that you can face anything.’ – Johann Lamont

‘I was lucky enough to grow up in a home where I woke up Christmas morning and had toys. I know that’s not the case with all people and I don’t think kids should go without experiencing that sort of joy.’ – Lucy Hale

‘My favorite toy growing up was Polly Pocket. But one gift that I wanted though never received for Christmas was a pair of trampoline moon shoes. You strap them to your feet and they have springs on them, and you can just jump around!’ – Lucy Hale

‘A lot of sequins for New Year’s! Red, green, white – I fail at all of that because I’m always in black. But for Christmas, I do love wearing cute dresses with tights and a pair of boots.’ – Ashley Benson

‘I loved ‘White Christmas’ for the music aspect. I was into musical theater.’ – Lana Parrilla

‘People have nannies and big cars, and they want to go to Maui for Christmas. When there are those kind of stakes involved, people get ruthless.’ – Amy Sherman-Palladino

‘For me growing up, Christmas time was always the most fantastic, exciting time of year, and you’d stay up until three in the morning. You’d hear the parents wrapping in the other room but you knew that also, maybe, they were in collusion with Santa Claus.’ – Chris Pine

‘Yes, my first memory of singing, in general, was of a Christmas song. And then listening to Christmas music was really the first music I was ever connected to.’ – Christina Perri

‘It felt very natural to me to write a Christmas song, but at the same time I had to really put all sorts of pressure aside and just let the creativity flow and see what came out.’ – Christina Perri

‘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.’ – Meghan O’Rourke

‘It’s more like Christmas, you know, when you get a shot in that looks great and it’s exactly what you want. It’s a great feeling, and there’s nothing like it.’ – Zack Snyder

‘It can’t be overstated how wonderful it is not to have to audition any more. Any actor will tell you, it’s like Christmas.’ – Bill Nighy

‘Christmas in L.A. is weird. There’s no snow. It’s not even cold.’ – Ellie Goulding

‘I’m a disorganized mess. My purse is gross: I once found a shoulder pad, string cheese, and a Christmas ornament in it!’ – Hoda Kotb

‘Christmas lights may be the loneliest thing for me, especially if you mix them up with reindeers and sleighs. I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel I do not belong.’ – Mira Nair

‘It always depresses me when people moan about how commercial Christmas is. I love everything about it. The tradition of having this great big feast, slap bang in the middle of winter, is an essential thing to look forward to at the end of the year.’ – Richard E. Grant

‘Brits and Americans have hundreds of different phrases for the same thing. Luckily, it’s usually a source of amusement rather than frustration. A flashlight by any other name is still a torch. My personal favourite is ‘fairy lights,’ which we boringly refer to as ‘Christmas lights.” – Sloane Crosley

‘I used to know Jennifer Love Hewitt. We lived in the same apartment building when I was about… jeez, I guess it was when I was doing ‘Christmas Vacation’, so I was about 13 or 14.’ – Johnny Galecki

‘I started DJing, breakdancing and MCing in the ’70s and I got my record deal in 1979 with ‘Christmas Rap.” – Kurtis Blow

‘It may be a cliche, but it’s true – the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself.’ – Julie Burchill

‘One Christmas build-up tradition, however, has totally bypassed me – that of going up to town and ‘doing a show.” – Julie Burchill

‘Every Christmas now for years, I have found myself wondering about the point of the celebration. As the holiday has become more ecumenical and secular, it has lost much of the magic that I remember so fondly from childhood.’ – Whitley Strieber

‘For a Jewish guy, I’ve recorded a lot of Christmas albums.’ – Barry Manilow

‘First of all, I’ve been having a wonderful run of luck with cover albums, songs I didn’t write. I had five pop cover albums and two Christmas albums, and they were all very successful.’ – Barry Manilow

‘I’ve got some incredible fans actually – so loyal and they make me birthday cards and Christmas cards. I got this package of poems and artwork based around the songs. They’ve got this thing called ‘Floetry’ where they all have to put in artwork. They’ve set up their own competitions and stuff which is kind of amazing.’ – Florence Welch

‘It is always weird to be in the studio working on Christmas music in June and July, so we decorated the entire studio, we really did. We brought out lights, fake trees and decorated the place to get in the Christmas spirit. You’d leave the studio, and it’d be 100 degrees out in Nashville, but nonetheless, a great experience.’ – Dave Haywood

‘Most of the soap operas always use the Christmas special to kill huge quantities of their characters. So they have trams coming off their rails, or cars slamming into each other or burning buildings. It’s a general clean-out.’ – Julian Fellowes

‘We should celebrate Christmas throughout the year, but I believe the whole concept of giving was the basis of Christmas, that it was a charitable, you know, giving, and I think we got carried away with giving.’ – Victoria Osteen

‘In our racist, sexist society, Christmas is the eight hours when we stop killing each other and gratuitous overeating is encouraged so that the starving and other people in the world can die!’ – Lloyd Kaufman

‘I hate Christmas, really. I don’t really give presents away or expect any.’ – Joy Bryant

‘For Christmas I do gift bags for my friends and the cast, and I put ‘treat yo self’ key chains in there. And people send me pictures of ‘treat yo self’ all the time.’ – Retta

‘I’m a physicist, and we have something called Moore’s Law, which says computer power doubles every 18 months. So every Christmas, we more or less assume that our toys and appliances are more or less twice as powerful as the previous Christmas.’ – Michio Kaku

‘Throughout my teenage years, I read ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens every December. It was a story that never failed to excite me, for as well as being a Dickens enthusiast, I have always loved ghost stories.’ – John Boyne

‘My earliest, most impactful encounter with a book was when I was seven and awoke early on Christmas morning to find Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ in my stocking. I had never been so excited by the sight of a book – and have possibly never been since!’ – Sophie Kinsella

‘God seeks to influence humanity. This is at the heart of the Christmas story. It is the story of light coming into the darkness, of a Savior to show us the way, of light overcoming the darkness, of God’s work to save the world.’ – Adam Hamilton

‘I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound.’ – Johnny Marr

‘Christmas was always a big holiday in our family. Every Christmas Eve before we’d go to bed, my mom and dad would read to us two or three stories and they would always be ‘The Happy Prince,’ ‘The Gift of the Magi’ and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,’ and I would like to keep that alive.’ – Cameron Mathison

‘My first job, 9 years old, part-time, was selling Christmas cards door-to-door. Ten years old, my brother and I had paper routes. We delivered a morning paper called the ‘L.A. Examiner.’ Get up at 4 o’clock, fold your papers, deliver them and get ready for school.’ – John Paul DeJoria

‘My younger brother will remember that he received a transistor radio for Christmas. I took it apart and it never worked again.’ – Stephen Elop

‘I do love Christmas, although my wife puts me to shame. She is a huge Christmas fan, so we do love us some Christmas in our house.’ – Sebastian Arcelus

‘Isn’t that the great thing about Christmas? You get a lot of respite, time to recharge your batteries, time with family without too much else happening anywhere else in the world, time to focus on the people you love and the activities that you enjoy, time to exercise, to read.’ – Wayne Swan

”Make your plate look like a Christmas tree,’ I tell people, ‘mostly green with splashes of other bright colors.” – Victoria Moran

‘I like to spend Christmas with family and friends, pigging out, exchanging gifts and basically doing nothing.’ – George Kotsiopoulos

‘Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide.’ – Taiye Selasi

‘I grew up as a photo nut. Every Christmas I would get a new camera. It’s a huge part of my life.’ – Kevin Systrom

‘I got my first instrument for Christmas when I was three or four years old. My parents got me a mandolin because it was the only instrument that would fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into the drums when I was six, and then I started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.’ – Chord Overstreet

‘A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that’s where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed.’ – Paul Engle

‘All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm – hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut.’ – Paul Engle

‘I got this Christmas gift with the entire Beatles catalog. I had fun trying to duplicate what I was hearing on these records, only using the instruments I had at hand – an acoustic guitar, and that’s all. It was endlessly amusing to me to try to imitate John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s harmonies using the guitar.’ – M. Ward

‘I love all the gift guides that the magazines put out, whether it’s ‘InStyle’ doing Mother’s Day gifts or color guides, or the ‘O’ magazine Christmas guide.’ – Dylan Lauren

‘Without social networks, you’re not the coolest thing on the Christmas list, and you’re not getting any bite.’ – Joe Green

‘I’m totally the ‘decorate early, start listening to Christmas songs super early’ guy. I’ve just always been that way.’ – Drake Bell

‘I love the atmosphere at the mall – everything about Christmas. I don’t think anything specific gets me in the holiday spirit except for the holidays themselves.’ – Drake Bell

‘I have a love/hate relationship with Amy Grant, but I do go back to her Christmas albums once in a while. They’re dated and sentimental and the production is nearly unlistenable, but there’s something about her vocal performance that just feels really true. I would take her Christmas albums over Mariah Carey’s or Destiny’s Child’s any day.’ – Sufjan Stevens

‘I think I’m a lot like other moms out there who feel like if we don’t have the pecan pie we have every year, then it just won’t be Christmas.’ – Faith Hill

‘I grew up asking for everything under the sun for Christmas, but I knew I wasn’t going to get it all.’ – Faith Hill

‘We’re raising our girls to understand the real meaning of Christmas, and to know that it’s most important to have Christmas in your heart. We go to our local mall and donate toys, and we say prayers for all the people in the world who might not be as lucky as we are.’ – Faith Hill

‘I like, ‘I Believe In Father Christmas’ – that is one of my favorites it is a lovely composition; ‘Colder Than Winter’ as well. There are so many beautiful songs.’ – Sarah Brightman

”The Nightmare Before Christmas’ is my number one biggest influence artistically in every way.’ – Amy Lee

‘I used to have nightmares when I was a little kid that I woke up prematurely and opened all the Christmas presents. And then I would be so relieved when I woke up and I realized that I hadn’t done it.’ – Claire Danes

‘Christmas and the holidays are the season of giving. It’s a time when people are more kind and open-hearted.’ – Gisele Bundchen

‘Christmas comes during a season when the Earth is in its darkest time. It’s a holiday for the family and for everyone.’ – Melissa Etheridge

‘At the heart of every really good Christmas movie is the threat, I suppose, to Christmas. Something is wrong with Christmas, in all of these movies. In ‘The Polar Express,’ there’s a kid that doesn’t really believe, and that’s the threat to Christmas. In ‘Santa Claus: The Movie,’ jealousy and greed are threatening to overrun his Christmas.’ – James McAvoy

‘I love Christmas. I never used to. I didn’t hate it, but I could take it or leave it. But, as I got to the age of 25 or 26, Christmas became quite a big deal, and I love it now. I love the food, and I love sharing time with people.’ – James McAvoy

‘I don’t know if anybody’s ever ready for another award season. It’s kind of like Christmas.’ – James McAvoy

‘Having a birthday cake squashed into your face by young kids? Delicious. I always don a Santa suit at Christmas. Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence.’ – John Lydon

‘If you do good work, it tends to stick around. People still come up to me and say, ‘The Ref’ is my favorite Christmas movie.” – Denis Leary

‘The first music I was ever exposed to was Irish folk music, like the Clancy Brothers. My father plays that and Christmas songs.’ – Matt Dillon

‘I am one of those people who is not very patient in the makeup chair. I have been offered movies like ‘Planet of the Apes’ and stuff like ‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’ and I turned them down.’ – John C. Reilly

‘From a very young age, I liked to take apart things. All of my Christmas gifts would wind up in a million pieces. I actually recall taking apart my dad’s lawnmower three times to understand how combustible engines work.’ – Homaro Cantu

”A Christmas Story’ is my favorite Christmas movie.’ – Paul Pierce

‘In my experience, those who make the biggest fuss about not spending much at Christmas are generally the ones who buy what they want and eat where they want 12 months a year.’ – Julian Baggini

‘Christmas is a rare occasion when we are reminded that we have obligations to people we did not choose to be related to, and that love is not just a spontaneous feeling but something we sometimes really have to work at, with people we may not even much like.’ – Julian Baggini

‘Part of me wants to be married and have everybody around the table for Christmas. But when you’re married, your life becomes integrated solely with that person. There are too many characters running around inside me. Maybe they should all be married to somebody different.’ – Cindy Williams

‘When I was really young, I loved the movie ‘White Christmas’ – I still do – and I thought Rosemary Clooney was so pretty. When I was, like, nine, I would tell people, ‘You know who I kind of look like? Rosemary Clooney.” – Tina Fey

‘I hate feeling full, so Christmas is about the only time I really stuff myself.’ – Rupert Penry-Jones

‘We try to make the name longer and longer every year. First, it was ‘Larry the Cable Guy’s Christmas Spectacular.’ Then it was ‘It’s a Very Larry Christmas.’ Now it’s ‘Larry the Cable Guy’s Hula-palooza Christmas Luau.’ I’ll tell you what it is: It’s funny. That’s what it is. Who cares what the name of it is? It is a funny special.’ – Larry the Cable Guy

‘I think it’s important not to grow up too fast. I’m 26 now, and I still can’t wait for Christmas Day. The inner seven-year-old isn’t buried too deeply in me.’ – Laura Haddock

‘I want to go to Lapland and see Father Christmas, and now I’ve got a child, so I’ve got an excuse. Also, I’d like to go to South America especially as I’m now living in that part of the world, in L.A. now. And I must get down to Mexico.’ – Ashley Jensen

‘Even today, I am still very child-like while designing. It’s a bit like Christmas – each of your designs you create is like unravelling your presents.’ – Christian Louboutin

‘When I was in seventh grade, I asked my parents for a mobile recording system for Christmas, and I got it. I didn’t come out of my room for years after that. I’d get invited to the movies and I’d say, ‘I’m gonna finish a couple of demos.” – Hunter Hayes

‘My wife’s brother has a little house on a small island in the Baltic Sea, and we go there at Christmas. The 30-minute crossing from the mainland to this island is the most terrifying cruise you’ll ever take. They give you a barf bag when you walk on board.’ – Nick Frost

‘One Christmas I had no money, and so I went home and just, like, wrote a poem; I mean, I didn’t write them, but I just handed out poems as Christmas presents. Like, ‘Here’s a Pablo Neruda poem that really made me think of you.” – June Diane Raphael

‘I’m a strong nonbeliever in the Christmas letter where you don’t really read it because it’s just full of kind of meaningless information. It doesn’t really resonate to the person reading it, but it means so much to the person that wrote it.’ – B. D. Wong

‘I became hugely overweight and then hated myself because it was a form of self-abuse, something over which I had no control. I think the thing compulsive over-eaters want to achieve is that stuffed-full Christmas afternoon feeling.’ – Marcus Brigstocke

‘I would like to go back and spend a Christmas with my family and myself when I was five years old and just see what that dynamic would be like. Observe it. I think it would be a magical gift.’ – Sharon Lawrence

‘I really like the European carols, and I like that captivating sound that they have that isn’t usually in Christmas songs.’ – David Archuleta

‘My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.’ – Anne Lamott

‘I grew up playing games, and I remember Christmas 1981 when my dad got us an Intellivision, and we all sat around and played ‘Astrosmash’ for hours on end. It was a big part of my youth.’ – Roger Craig Smith

‘I stopped going to Kingdom Hall, the church, when I was 11 years old, so I was very young. They don’t celebrate birthdays, you get no Christmas, so it’s a very difficult religion for children to get into. And they do a lot of finger-pointing among the Jehovah’s Witnesses.’ – Ja Rule

‘I don’t go back home to Sardinia as much as I would like, just for Christmas and family events.’ – Caterina Murino

‘I watched a lot of movies when I was younger and I remember, when I was seven years old, I asked my parents if I could have an agent for Christmas.’ – Meaghan Rath

‘When you give up yourself, that’s when you will feel the true spirit of Christmas. And that’s giving that’s serving others and that’s when you feel fulfilled.’ – Joel Osteen

‘I like indoor Christmas trees. And I like people who decorate their homes with lights and all that crap. I think it’s a healthy outlet for them. If they weren’t covering their lawns with twinkling lights, they’d be doing something that was really, really creepy.’ – Lewis Black

‘I throw a Christmas party at my house. It’s not really a Christmas party, because I don’t want to call it a Christmas party. But let’s just say I put a lot of Christmas trees around the house, so it smells good.’ – Bill Murray

‘I love Christmas tree bulbs, and I started putting them in my paintings. You’ve got to plug this painting in, and it’s got a rig in the back, so that each one can be replaced if it burns out.’ – David Lynch

‘The vocal arrangements are a big part of the formula for a Bad Religion song – layered harmonies and background vocals. So when I start to describe the elements of Bad Religion’s sound, it starts to sound like a Christmas choir.’ – Greg Graffin

‘I write seven days a week, starting at 4 o’clock in the morning, including Christmas.’ – Dan Brown

‘Most Americans acquire dogs impulsively and for dubious reasons: as a Christmas gift for the kids. Because they saw one in a movie. To match the new living-room furniture. Because they moved to the suburbs and see a dog as part of the package.’ – Jon Katz

‘For Christmas every year, my mother used to give me those cheap little diaries that would tell your horoscope and provide a little blank slot for each day.’ – Patti Smith

‘Our many different cultures notwithstanding, there’s something about the holidays that makes the planet communal. Even nations that do not celebrate Christmas can’t help but be caught up in the collective spirit of their neighbors, as twinkling lights dot the landscape and carols fill the air. It’s an inspiring time of the year.’ – Marlo Thomas

‘I do have a family, and I do have friends, and so-called friends, and acquaintances, and many other people I see only around Christmas time. Maybe they could vouch for me. Maybe they could testify to my existence and save a part of me that thinks I’m no better than a bag of potato chips.’ – Macaulay Culkin

‘Atheists well understand that Christmas is the most visible display of religion in the world, and that any diminishment of it is a good thing to militant secularists.’ – Bill O’Reilly

‘No matter what else is going on, Christmas is my all-time favorite period in the year. It has a positive effect on me like very little else does, seasonally, that is.’ – Rush Limbaugh

‘I wanted to have more songs with religious backgrounds. The Christmas record has strong, traditional hymns, but it also has a song called ‘Christmas in Heaven’ about missing someone that you love that’s passed on, and wondering what’s going on up there on Christmas.’ – Scotty McCreery

‘I eat everything I want on Christmas day. I really don’t watch what I eat. It’s not like you have Christmas every day!’ – Adriana Lima

‘It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it.’ – Ben Stein

‘I don’t care why they love me, as long as they love me. I think people respect me because they feel like – I’m kind of like Christmas. I come back every year. You can’t get rid of me. I just keep coming back.’ – David Hasselhoff

‘The holidays are my favorite time of year! Christmas was always one of the biggest celebrations in Sweden, and I look forward to the festivities each year.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘The Swedish Christmas is definitely unique, even throughout Scandinavia. Like Christmas everywhere, it’s a very family-centered holiday.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘Tiny quails may not seem as impressive as a mammoth turkey, but there is something refreshing about a spread of individual birds on the Christmas table.’ – Yotam Ottolenghi

‘For those, like me, who can’t rely on being given a home smoker this Christmas, you can build your own approximation with just a roll of tin foil and a big wok or pan for which you have a lid.’ – Yotam Ottolenghi

‘Songs that aren’t even remotely connected to Christmas are now officially canonized Christmas tunes. ‘Frosty the Snowman,’ ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Winter Wonderland’ never mention anything religious but are still notches in Christmas’ belt of musical dominance.’ – Matisyahu

‘The real reason Jews don’t have more Hanukkah music is that, historically, American Jewish singer-songwriters were too busy making Christmas music. ‘White Christmas,’ ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,’ ‘Silver Bells’ and ‘The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting)’ were all written by Jews.’ – Matisyahu

‘The No. 1 best-selling Christmas album of all time is from Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, the Jewish smooth-jazz legend Kenny G. American Jews have always produced a lot of holiday music, just not Hanukkah music.’ – Matisyahu

”I am a bad mother.’ Every Christmas, this is what I think because the holiday season fills me with such anxiety. I’m sure that other mothers are happily baking cookies, decorating trees, and finding perfect gifts for everyone.’ – Tess Gerritsen

‘One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was the globe that I now keep right beside my desk.’ – Tess Gerritsen

‘I grew up poor, but I didn’t really know it because of amazing places like the Salvation Army where we got a lot of our Christmas presents from.’ – Trey Songz

‘I don’t think of Home Depot as romantic, but I do think the Christmas wonderland they put up during the holidays is magical. That is what Home Depot is to me, and that is the only romantic thing about it.’ – Betty Who

‘To me, the most important thing is to wear something that I love and feel comfortable in, and Christmas is a great opportunity to get one of my old favourites out.’ – Amber Le Bon

‘One of my favorite times of year is around Christmas when my entire family gets together and we make tamales together. It’s a full two-day event, and we create an assembly line. It’s awesome because everyone has his or her own part in making the dish. It’s so much fun.’ – Sabrina Bryan

‘Contemplating Christmas when you are isolated and far from home brings its own unique pain.’ – Amanda Lindhout

‘Christmas was the one time of year when my brothers surfaced at home, when my parents and grandparents congregated to eat my mother’s roast turkey.’ – Amanda Lindhout

‘For many of us, Christmas lunch is the most special meal of the year – and I certainly want nothing but the very best for this celebration.’ – Sheherazade Goldsmith

‘Farmers’ markets are one of my favourite sources for Christmas goodies.’ – Sheherazade Goldsmith

‘I like animals. I like people who like animals. I hate people who love animals to the point they lose their sense of reason. I’m talking the ‘my computer wallpaper is my dog,’ ‘I hang a Christmas stocking for my cat’ crowd.’ – John Ridley

‘Christmas cookies can’t help but be retro – they are memory first, sugar-flour-egg-redhot-gumdrop-sparkle reality second.’ – Dana Goodyear

‘There is a lot to celebrate about that little Babe who was laid in a manger. Christians celebrate Christmas because they are thankful for the promise of salvation, which was delivered in human flesh and named Jesus.’ – Monica Johnson

‘Christmas is a Christian holiday, and any self-respecting person of another religion should not celebrate a holiday that they don’t believe in. Clearly, Christ is in the name of the holiday, so there should be a belief in Him.’ – Monica Johnson

‘During the holiday season, Christmas specifically, it can be hard to be away from family and friends.’ – Monica Johnson

‘I’m not going to tell you to meditate on what Christmas really means and be thankful.’ – Monica Johnson

‘Giving is a really big thing around Christmas, as well it should be. Christmas is about giving, and it all stems from the greatest gift the world has ever received – the gift of Jesus Christ.’ – Monica Johnson

‘The word of God is very important to Christmas. For unto us a child was born, and we should be reminded of how Christ’s amazing journey came to be.’ – Monica Johnson

‘A Christian’s celebration of Christmas should be a lot different from that of nonbelievers.’ – Monica Johnson

‘There’s a lot of movies that aren’t all about Christmas, or where Christmas isn’t the focus, but have that spirit of Christmas in them. I love that sequence in ‘Auntie Mame,’ where she’s in the department store, sewing at Macy’s, and she doesn’t know how to do anything but fill out a form as ‘cash on delivery!” – Robert Osborne

‘I think ‘Elf’ is funny, with Will Ferrell. That’s a great Christmas movie.’ – Robert Osborne

‘We are each one on a road going toward home, but we’re not trying to get there for Christmas. We’re trying to get there for eternity. We want to arrive home safely to our loving Father in Heaven. He wants us to make it safely there, so He has sent a guiding light for us to follow: a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect example.’ – Margaret D. Nadauld

‘I worked every day – Christmas Eve, birthdays – trying to become a great basketball player. Everywhere I went, I had a basketball.’ – Harvey Mason, Jr.

‘I was 23 when I learned how to cook; I grew up around the same time. It was precisely then that Thanksgiving started to mean something more. Growing up, Christmas was always about me, and eventually you, when I finally started to enjoy the giving part. But Thanksgiving is always about us.’ – Rosecrans Baldwin

‘The Christmas story has such power and such appeal every year. There are other stories we get tired of. You think of your favorite movie; you don’t want to watch it 15 times.’ – Frederica Mathewes-Green

‘Somehow we just don’t make the same boisterous fun of Holy Week that we do of Christmas. No one plans to have a holly, jolly Easter.’ – Frederica Mathewes-Green

‘Easter may seem boring to children, and it is blessedly unencumbered by the silly fun that plagues Christmas. Yet it contains the one thing needful for every human life: the good news of Resurrection.’ – Frederica Mathewes-Green

‘My mom always makes the whole family pile into the car and drive around to look at the Christmas lights. My brother and I never want to do it, but my mom just loves it!’ – Debby Ryan

‘One of my favorite traditions is that my sisters and I, we all wear the same pajamas. I’ve even still got some from when I was 6. Also, I’ll always remember cooking together in the kitchen and that no matter how busy our schedules are, we are all together for Christmas.’ – Bailee Madison

‘When I was a child, I was living in the housing projects of Philadelphia. I didn’t even have a Christmas tree.’ – Bill Cosby

‘I like the idea of putting your Christmas wish list up and letting people share it.’ – Bill Gates

‘There’s always been something a little pathetic for me at the work parties I’ve attended, especially thinking back to the restaurants I worked in. I remember a Christmas party in which we all got free T-shirts with the restaurant on the front and our names on the back.’ – Said Sayrafiezadeh

‘Like my best friend, I asked for drums for Christmas, and got them. But when he moved on to guitar, I realized two things: (1) guitar is a much more expressive instrument, (2) way more girls pay attention to guitar players than to drummers.’ – Greg Iles

‘I was born with an extremely negative attitude. I was the kid who wouldn’t smile in Christmas photos, was a poor sport, and hated a lot of things. I eventually grew out of my negativity when I matured.’ – Colton Haynes

‘Adults are tempted to produce and perform Christmas for their kids and their families, and they arrive at Christmas Day weary and disillusioned.’ – Ann Voskamp

‘A simplified Christmas isn’t about circumstances as much as it is about focus.’ – Ann Voskamp

‘I think it’s kind of difficult to write a good Christmas song because you have a narrow framework of references that you have to work within, and at the same time you want to do something that’s personally original and hopefully somewhat unique.’ – John Oates

‘The Christmas genre is a field that’s been well-ploughed.’ – John Oates

‘Every year, like a good Catholic, I wait for Christmas. Putting up the lights, decorating the tree, making sweets and then unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning… it’s a tradition my family has followed since I was very little.’ – Malaika Arora Khan

‘For me, the spirit of Christmas means being happy and giving freely. It’s a tradition for all the kids in the family to help mom decorate the tree. Christmas is all about family, eating, drinking and making merry.’ – Malaika Arora Khan

‘Mom still has a huge, beautifully decorated Christmas tree. The whole family comes together after midnight mass and has the traditional plum cake and wine. We spend the night at mom’s home, and in the morning we wake up and open the presents. In the afternoon, we sit down to have a traditional Christmas lunch.’ – Malaika Arora Khan

‘Grief is a room without doors – but somehow, with its tinsel and cliches, Christmas finds a way in.’ – Simon Van Booy

‘I simply believe food is too good to throw away – and Christmas leftovers can be a gastronomic opportunity for the well-skilled kitchen forager. With a little imagination, there are a million ways to use up leftovers rather than bin them.’ – Tristram Stuart

‘Felixstowe, the United Kingdom’s largest port, stops work only for Christmas Day and for crane-toppling Force 9 gales.’ – Rose George

‘The way my family always did Christmas was on Christmas Eve, it wasn’t really centered around a dinner on Christmas Eve. It was more about keeping the kids calm. Sometime after dark is when we were going to open all the presents underneath the tree from Mom, Dad and the kids and everything – just the family presents was every Christmas Eve.’ – Blake Shelton

‘Back in 1960 at Christmas time, I did work loading and unloading boxcars for Railway Express. That was a kind of weight training that helped me. I weighed about 160 when I started. I began to gain weight and kept right on gaining until I reached 195 pounds.’ – Pete Rose

‘We go to Italy every winter, and my husband’s mother has a bingo party on Christmas. Every woman brings a dish: lentils, cavolo nero, tons of beans, polenta, every type of cheese, bruschetta, fresh vegetables, and local olive oil and wine.’ – Debi Mazar

‘I realised that you could easily turn any room into a cinema with a projector, so I went on and on at my parents for one. They eventually got me a projector for Christmas when I was ten, and I realised I’d made a ridiculous mistake – I’d forgotten to say ‘movie’ projector; I got a still one.’ – Kevin Brownlow

‘When I was eight, my mum found me humming to myself and scribbling on a scrap of paper. When she asked me what I was doing, I got shy. I was writing a Christmas song, and I had never shared my music with anyone before. Reluctantly, I sang it for her… and she loved it. Of course she did – she’s my mum.’ – Neil Jackson

‘I’m one of those people who had Christmas and my birthday always combined, and generally, my birthday was pretty much ignored. But my parents are always good about making some kind of special effort to make me feel like I also have a birthday that exists.’ – Noel Wells

‘As we give presents at Christmas, we need to recognize that sharing our time and ourselves is such an important part of giving.’ – Gordon B. Hinckley

‘You are not practicing Judaism if you celebrate Christmas.’ – Elliott Abrams

‘Fashion Week is like Christmas.’ – Brad Goreski

‘Some bands today have the experience of really working together and honing their craft. And other bands are very much like, ‘I just got a guitar for Christmas, let’s start a band.’ And you can hear the difference.’ – Robbie Robertson

‘I think that there are a lot of really beautiful Christmas carols, and then sometimes there are horrible renditions of them that are played to death in malls that make me sad. I try to avoid stores where they’re playing bad versions of Christmas songs on repeat.’ – Gillian Jacobs

‘With a track like ‘White Christmas,’ everybody has done that song in every format you can imagine, so I just looked at the chords at that particular song and what chords would make it work. That’s kind of quite a sad song, and I had this idea of someone singing it in the subway, someone who is homeless, old and sad.’ – Vince Clarke

‘I went on iTunes and looked at versions of Christmas songs. Everyone has done them!’ – Vince Clarke

‘Dickens was a part of how the whole celebration of Christmas as we know it today emerged during the 19th century.’ – Claire Tomalin

”A Christmas Carol’ has been described as the most perfect of Dickens’s works and as a quintessential heart-warming story, and it is certainly the most popular.’ – Claire Tomalin

‘Once you start a business, you have to grow it and grow with it – starting a business is not just for Christmas.’ – Natalie Massenet

‘The Christmas market at the Barcelona Cathedral sells all kinds of things for your Nativity scene. It will also give you a good idea of Catalan culture.’ – Jose Andres

‘I absolutely adore Agatha Christie; so much so that when I received a kitten for my Christmas present, I called her Agatha, and I already have a cat called Hercule!’ – Kimberley Nixon

‘I always liked it when people go back in time to discover things about themselves, like with ‘A Christmas Carol’ and you’re getting a tour of your life by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.’ – John Cusack

‘If you’re an English actor, and you’re asked to do an episode – especially the Christmas episode – of ‘Downton Abbey,’ you can’t turn it down. It’s like, ‘Of course!” – Janet Montgomery

‘Every day is like Halloween or Christmas eve for me. I go to bed, and I’m so excited to get back to work. I’m very lucky that I have a career like that ’cause not many people do.’ – Adam Green

‘I quickly discovered that trying to go play golf while living in Manhattan was about as easy as trying to grab a taxi while standing out in front of Saks Fifth Avenue in the freezing rain on the last shopping day before Christmas.’ – Dan Jenkins

‘At Christmas, it’s my siblings running around the house, we’re cooking, talking, laughing, loud and just crazy. It’s beautiful chaos.’ – Tika Sumpter

‘I used to sleep in the T-shirt I wore during the day and whatever ratty old gym shorts I could find on the floor. But one year for Christmas, someone gave me a very chic, comfortable pair of pajamas from Brooks Brothers, and I realized the error of my ways.’ – Derek Blasberg

‘It’s funny, I was talking to somebody who writes for a cop show, and he was saying how they aren’t allowed to acknowledge Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, just because it has to be able to play forever.’ – Hannah Simone

‘So many Christmas films either are twee, or try and go super edgy, then stick on something Christmassy at the end of the movie.’ – Peter Baynham

‘Christmas movies, it’s a hard thing to do. The danger is you just end up with a Hollywood star with a Santa beard. You risk it being fake and cheesy and not real.’ – Peter Baynham

‘My family always makes a huge deal out of Christmas.’ – Jenna Morasca

‘I love presents, But since I’ve gotten older, I haven’t really wanted anything. Christmas is about family.’ – Jacob Latimore

”White Christmas’ is one of my favorite movies, so I’ve always just had a love for that kind of golden era musical.’ – Jessie Mueller

‘Throughout my college years, I’d watch my sister squeal every Christmas as she unwrapped another ‘Buffy’ DVD set. I didn’t know much about the series, but I was filled with that obnoxious self-importance that comes from having decided to be an Academic Who Reads Serious Things.’ – Marie Rutkoski

‘My first real job, I sold Christmas trees when I was twelve for extra money. I did that until I was fifteen. Then I bagged groceries, and I worked at the first Borders ever in Tulsa, Oklahoma.’ – Bill Hader

‘One thing I hear a lot is, ‘Dude, my mom loves your record,’ or ‘I got it for my dad for Christmas.’ I’m essentially doing dad rock. Which is great, because I love Steely Dan, you know? Nothing wrong with dad rock!’ – Mac DeMarco

‘I got my first instrument at Christmas when I was three or four. My dad and mom got me a mandolin. It was the only instrument that fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into drums when I was six and then started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.’ – Chord Overstreet

‘When I grew up, we always had our chickens, and we ate our eggs, and we ate our chickens. The family always had a pig, and we would kill it at Christmas and eat it for three or four months afterwards.’ – Isabella Rossellini

‘I loved the first Christmas I had in England.’ – Blythe Danner

‘Halloween starts earlier and earlier, just like Christmas.’ – Robert Englund

‘I’d rather do community service than sit and write a load of Christmas cards.’ – Paul O’Grady

‘When ‘I’m Sorry’ came out and became such a huge hit, that made ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ start selling. Then that became a huge, huge hit.’ – Brenda Lee

‘The most classic French dessert around the holidays is the Christmas log, with butter cream. Two flavors. Chocolate and coconut. My first job in the kitchen when I was a boy was to make these Christmas logs.’ – Alain Ducasse

‘In France, Christmas is a family holiday. You stay home. New Year’s Eve is when you go out.’ – Alain Ducasse

‘I love ‘White Christmas.’ That’s one of my favorites just because I love the music. I love the story, Bing Crosby. It’s just one of my all time favorites. And it’s hard to have a Christmas without seeing a little bit of Jimmy Stewart and angels running around town.’ – Scott Bakula

‘Christmas really is about all the cliches: health, happiness and love. A future with my family is the important thing… to stay alive for them.’ – Sylvie Meis

‘I really want a Christmas in New York one year, when it’s snowing. Like, it’s Christmas morning, and you have a fight with someone, and you run down the street, and it’s snowing, and you can’t find them.’ – Courtney Barnett

‘Our family’s special holiday tradition is going over to my grandparent’s house on Christmas morning. My grandma cooks a big breakfast, and I love hearing her tell old funny stories.’ – Caroline Sunshine

‘I’ve got more than 600 pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses, from 1950s originals to newer models. I have them on the wall like opticians do so I can pick out a pair that goes with my outfit. I had around 30 pairs, then my husband Rainer started getting them for me as birthday and Christmas gifts.’ – Suzi Quatro

‘I read everything. I’ll read a John Grisham novel, I’ll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I’ll just read some Mary Oliver – this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.’ – Jessye Norman

‘On the morning, Daddy and I get up at six o’clock because Christmas trees must be bought in the dark. We walk to the other end of town, as the big harbour is just the right setting for buying a Christmas tree. We spend hours choosing, looking at every branch suspiciously. It’s always cold.’ – Tove Jansson

‘Mummy weighed sweets and nuts so that everyone would get exactly the same amount. During the year, everything is measured roughly, but at Christmas, it has to be absolutely fair. That’s why it’s such a strenuous time.’ – Tove Jansson

‘My parents got me a $25 Kent steel-string acoustic guitar when I was around 12. The following Christmas, my parents bought me a Conora electric guitar. It looked almost like a Gretsch. It cost $59, and my mom still has it.’ – Alex Lifeson

‘My father used to always give me a basketball, a skate board, and a bike every Christmas. That’s all I wanted every year.’ – Amar’e Stoudemire

‘There’s a little Christmas in all of us, I guess. Even in me.’ – Leon Redbone

‘Lyndon B. Johnson thought he’d have the boys home from Vietnam by Christmas – for four Christmases in a row (he never shifted course, and lost his presidency for it).’ – Rick Perlstein

‘I don’t like most Christmas movies. They’re pretty bad, though they seem to make tons of money anyway. Like this movie ‘Elf,’ I got the script for that, and I turned it down right away. Against my wife’s better judgment.’ – Terry Zwigoff

‘The last Christmas movie I really liked was ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ probably. It’s sort of a schmaltzy movie, but it’s not without its dark moments. It still gets to me every year.’ – Terry Zwigoff

‘If you had a Ministry box set under your Christmas tree, wrapped in paper, ‘From Beer to Eternity’ is the bow that goes around the present, you know what I mean?’ – Al Jourgensen

‘I worked for a big department store, and strangely, on my first day, they put me in charge of Christmas wrapping. I didn’t know how to wrap a present and make it not look like it fell off a truck.’ – Joel Edgerton

‘One lived in the impression that nobody could ever compete with the ‘Nutcracker’ or ‘A Christmas Carol.” – Gian Carlo Menotti

‘I have a good house for hosting, so we had the barbecues, and some of the guys over for Thanksgiving, even Christmas.’ – Logan Mankins

‘I’ve not cooked Christmas dinner since 1982.’ – Lesley Nicol

‘Christmas for me is all about spending time with my family. I cherish any chance we have to spend all day together making gingerbread houses, baking cookies, or sitting around and watching movies.’ – Blake Lively

‘The smell of pine needles, spruce and the smell of a Christmas tree – those to me, are the scents of the holidays.’ – Blake Lively

‘You know how on Christmas day, the day feels different, even if you’re just sitting in your chair waiting for your girlfriend to put her face on and you haven’t even started any of the festivities yet, the day still feels different. The electrons are fatter and pushier.’ – Bill Callahan

‘I’ve played D&D for years. I’m a comic book guy. Comic-Con in San Diego is nerd Christmas for me.’ – Brian Posehn

‘I love spending time with my family and friends during the holidays, and my favorite holiday tradition would be the pozole that my mom makes almost every Christmas. It’s the best!’ – Becky G

‘My favorite holiday memory was sitting at home all day in my pajamas during winter break for school watching a bunch of old Christmas movies like ‘Jack Frost’ and ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ with my siblings and parents.’ – Becky G

‘Once I found out that I was playing ‘Deathlok,’ I unearthed my old comic book collection. I was going home for Christmas, and I have a collection of thousands of comics. I was surprised to see that 90% of them were Marvel. So, I wanted to go through my collection and start there.’ – J. August Richards

‘Everyone knows that there are some odors that send you directly back to memories of your childhood – odors from Christmas time and so forth.’ – May-Britt Moser

‘I love snow; I love building snowman. The only thing I don’t like is the cold – so if we could have a hot Christmas, that would be amazing.’ – Ella Henderson

‘The earliest you can play Christmas music is on Thanksgiving.’ – Tinashe

”A Christmas Carol’ is an extravagantly symbolic thing – as rich in symbols as Christmas pudding is rich in raisins.’ – Michel Faber

‘I spent 250 to 300 days of every year on the road. But in the end, I felt something was missing. I needed to be anchored so I could concentrate, so in 2000, I established a new methodology – the one I use today. I spent the week in my office and travelled every weekend, even at Christmas.’ – Hans-Ulrich Obrist

‘I love the smell of a real Christmas tree – also, my mum’s Christmas pudding with brandy sauce.’ – Mallory Jansen

‘My dad likes to recite the story of ‘Pablo the Donkey’ before dinner to teach us the real meaning of Christmas. Every year, it’s the same; every year, we cringe!’ – Mallory Jansen

‘I’ve never had a cold Christmas, as I always spend it back home in Australia.’ – Mallory Jansen

‘I would like to spend Christmas in different countries all over the world. I love seeing how different cultures celebrate the holidays in their own unique ways.’ – Mallory Jansen

‘I couldn’t live on the singing at first, so I worked as a cleaner, in a launderette, in a garage, face painting and doing the windows of shops at Christmas, ’cause I had been to art college.’ – Imelda May

‘My grade 3 teacher put on a kids’ Christmas concert, and I played the kazoo, so my mother bought me a trumpet. I took lessons for eight years, was in the Kitsilano Boys Band, and I played in the Vancouver Junior Symphony for two years.’ – Jim Pattison

‘I grew up in a reform Jewish family in St. Louis. Our idea of Judaism was no bar mitzvahs and a Christmas tree that had a skirt at the bottom embroidered with the names of my grandparents.’ – Danny Meyer

‘My garden in England is full of eating-out places, for heat waves, warm September evenings, or lunch on a frosty Christmas morning.’ – Mary Quant

‘My Barbies were usually naked. Once, I took their heads off, cut their hair, drew on their short, spiky hair with some markers, then stuck the heads on Christmas lights. Every year, we’d string our tree with those Barbie heads. It looked demonic. My parents were so cool – they saw it as a form of self-expression.’ – Jessica Biel

‘I started with the Target Company in 1993 when their Christmas theme that year was ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ and they reunited the actors who played the Bailey kids. So we went all over and really had a blast getting the love from all of the fans and thought, ‘Whoopty-doo, there’s something going on here.” – Karolyn Grimes

‘My family know not to get me any tech for Christmas. I can never get it to work, and it all becomes very tearful and pressurised.’ – Peter Capaldi

‘We don’t consider the Wizard of Oz or Father Christmas to be too old. They’re still magical characters, and the fact they’ve been around the block only adds to their magic.’ – Peter Capaldi

‘All punk rockers hate Christmas.’ – Rhys Ifans

‘My father died when I was really young, on Christmas Day.’ – David Ayer

‘I get very unsettled by the mess of Christmas. I find the decorations a little bit hard, as my desire for everything to match is never fully satisfied.’ – Jade Jagger

‘It’s easy to write a short story and frighten people for five pages, but to work at length, when you do it as in ‘The Turn Of The Screw’ or ‘A Christmas Carol,’ it’s different; you have to build it and build it.’ – Susan Hill

‘I don’t know if that’s a year’s bad luck, or if that’s how it works. But stealing a Christmas tree – that can’t be a good thing, karma-wise.’ – Adrian McKinty

‘My father Bill had a problem with Christmas. Although he appears in old photographs to possess a whippy, muscular frame, he was actually a frail man and usually managed to cause some kind of drama just before the festivities began.’ – Christopher Fowler

‘If I’m getting on an airplane or anywhere, really, I have a lunch box and stuff. It’s a running joke with my friends and family – everyone gives me lunch boxes for Christmas.’ – Nikki Reed

‘I remember when I was working at Sprint, I’d work on my birthday, New Year’s Day, and even Christmas Eve. I’m just used to working on my birthday, so I’ll be celebrating it afterward.’ – Prince Royce

‘As I remember my grandfather and those Christmas mornings he gave for a little girl’s pleasure, I know that often a big life starts with doing small things.’ – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

‘I was a little punk rocker and was pregnant with Sarah when I went to university. I had her in the Christmas holidays of the first term. It was 1979, and UCL was very proud of its reputation as a liberal university, so they were very helpful.’ – Alison Owen

‘I cut ‘Diamond in My Crown’ in my home in Georgia, because I wanted to use an old 1848 pump organ that my mother-in-law had gotten for Emory for Christmas one year. His mother would be proud to know that pump organ was made use of.’ – Patty Loveless

‘At Christmas time, I spent an extortionate amount of money on Buzz Lightyear toys, baby clothes, Disney cars and the like.’ – Russell Tovey

‘The only time I even entertain the tiniest element of religion is for Christmas carols.’ – Ian Watson

‘It’s bad enough being conned into singing an anti-war message by John Lennon when you think you’re just wishing everyone a merry Christmas.’ – Ian Watson

‘Most of us remember Nat King Cole as a vocalist. His warm, grainy baritone is still so closely identified with such familiar ballads as ‘Stardust’ and ‘The Christmas Song’ that it’s hard to imagine anyone else performing them.’ – Terry Teachout

‘I love ‘Call the Midwife’; it’s an absolute gem of a programme. Filming the Christmas special and then the second series felt like going back to a boarding school that you really love and is full of friends.’ – Helen George

‘Accounts of eating Christmas sweet potatoes baked in ashes and jackrabbit stewed with white flour dumplings are testaments to pioneer resilience and pleasure – and they help inspire my own best scratch cooking.’ – Isabel Gillies

‘We have a host of English teachers in the family. My mum is an English teacher, and so are my dad, my aunt and my uncle. I have grown up with family writing competitions, and I can’t remember a birthday or Christmas present that didn’t include books.’ – Alexandra Adornetto

‘The sight of people sleeping on the streets hits us hardest around Christmas and New Year. We see them camped out alone on the freezing concrete, and we think, with a rush of guilt, about heading home to our families and our soft beds.’ – John Niven

”A Tuna Christmas’ is the second in a series of plays created by Joe Sears and Jaston Williams featuring the fictional town of Greater Tuna, the third-smallest town in Texas. What makes these plays so hysterically funny is the accurate portrayal of small-town life in the Lone Star State.’ – Lori Wilde

‘On Christmas Eve, we have a duck or roast pork with caramelised potatoes, braised red cabbage and gravy. For dessert, we have ris a l’amande, a rice pudding, and whoever gets the whole almond in it wins an extra present. Then we dance around the tree and sing carols.’ – Birgitte Hjort Sorensen

‘New Year’s Eve to Valentine’s Day is our peak season, and in many ways, Valentine’s Day is our Christmas. Everybody in the world makes the same three New Year’s resolutions: health, career and money, and love.’ – Sam Yagan

‘When it comes to referring to Dickens’s life, performing plays with your nine children for friends and family during Christmas is Dickensian.’ – Matthew Pearl

‘Sometime in the early Seventies, gender-free toys were briefly a popular idea. So at Christmas on the California beach in 1972, we downplayed the dolls with frilly dresses and loaded up Santa’s sack with toy trucks and earth movers for our three daughters.’ – Tom Brokaw

‘I still have the Triumph Palm Beach I was given for Christmas when I was 11. By today’s standards, it is heavy and slow, but was my pride and joy at the time.’ – Jeremy Corbyn

‘Before Christmas, I host a party for our kids and all their friends. We love to make a mess while decorating gingerbread houses.’ – Kourtney Kardashian

‘My parents got me a sewing machine for Christmas during my senior year of high school. I made three pieces of clothing and had a fashion show at the end of the year, where we had to wear the clothes that we made. I took it to a whole new level; I made all my friends clothes.’ – Kourtney Kardashian

‘I associate the truest spirit of Christmas with certain years when I had to spend it at my parents’ house as an adult who had, presumably, escaped.’ – Padgett Powell

‘At every Christmas, I fail to remember the daughters’ shoe sizes, and they are not growing, but grown. After ostensible hard thought about who needs what, I have failed to give good gifts; I have failed to receive good gifts.’ – Padgett Powell

‘Some people are born for Halloween, and some are just counting the days until Christmas.’ – Stephen Graham Jones

‘What I found out on Christmas Day 1984, through biochemical evidence, was that telomeres could be lengthened by the enzyme we called telomerase, which keeps the telomeres from wearing down. After I found that out, I went home and put on Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA,’ which was just out, and I danced and danced and danced.’ – Carol W. Greider

‘When I was 11, I made truffle risotto for my family for Christmas dinner.’ – Gigi Hadid

‘Back in the 1950s and ’60s, J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ – starring Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard – was regularly aired on network television during the Christmas season. I must have seen it four or five times and remember, in particular, Ritchard’s gloriously camp interpretation of Captain Hook.’ – Michael Dirda

‘My urge at Christmas time or Hanukkah-time or Kwanzaa-time is that people go to bookstores: that they walk around bookstores and look at the shelves. Go to look for authors that they’ve loved in the past and see what else those authors have written.’ – Michael Dirda

‘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.’ – Michael Dirda

‘Halloween isn’t the only time for ghosts and ghost stories. In Victorian Britain, spooky winter’s tales were part of the Christmas season, often told after dinner, over port or coffee.’ – Michael Dirda

‘Deep in my cortex, the year is divided into reading seasons. The period from mid-October to Christmas, for instance, is ‘ghost story’ time, while Jane Austen and P. G. Wodehouse pretty much own April and May.’ – Michael Dirda

‘For me, the two weeks between Christmas and Twelfth Night have come to be reserved for desultory reading. The pressure of the holiday is over, the weather outside is frightful, there are lots of leftovers to munch on, vacation hours are being used up.’ – Michael Dirda

‘Neither my mom nor my dad ever bought me any comic books. Certainly not for Christmas. I suspect that doing so would have violated the Parents’ Code.’ – Michael Dirda

‘At the age of 12, my parents gave me a chemistry set for Christmas, and experimentation soon became a consuming passion in my life.’ – John Vane

‘I asked for a guitar when I was 8 years old for Christmas. I have no idea why. I never had any guitar heroes. I still don’t. But there must have been something in me because I’ve been playing for 30 years.’ – Jamie Lawson

‘On Christmas morning, we always make breakfast, and everyone eats before we open any presents. I make muffins and homemade applesauce, which I don’t think anyone likes as much as I do… I just love the way it makes the house smell!’ – Laura Leighton

‘After church on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, my family would go chop down our Christmas tree. Once it was home and placed in its stand, Mom and I would painstakingly decorate our tree. It took hours to place the tinsel, string the lights, find the perfect spot for my favorite macaroni and felt ornaments from kindergarten.’ – Molly O’Keefe

‘I had always sung in choirs. Even when it was something to be laughed at or made fun of, you know, in school. And I was always the kid who was picked at the Christmas concert to sing the solo, you know, while the other kids snickered in the front few rows.’ – Scott Weiland

‘I love Christmas. Christmas is family time.’ – Brody Jenner

‘I love Christmas. I’m totally the ‘decorate early, start listening to Christmas songs super-early’ guy.’ – Drake Bell

”Bond’ was like Christmas: can’t wait for it to come around. Being in the films brought me to a global audience, and I have had the opportunity to meet incredible people.’ – Colin Salmon

‘When I met Letterman, he told me he thought ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ was the greatest Christmas song he ever heard, and he wanted me to be on his show to sing it.’ – Darlene Love

‘I’m not romantic, and I don’t like Christmas.’ – Paula Hawkins

‘People think it’s terribly sad to spend Christmas alone, but it’s no sadder, really, than spending any other day alone, is it?’ – Paula Hawkins

‘I gave a Christmas party last year – well, two Christmases ago – where I did a Sam Cooke show. I didn’t perform as R. Kelly. I performed the Sam Cooke show from 1964, when he performed at the Copacabana.’ – R. Kelly

‘The joy of Christmas causes hundreds of radio stations around the country to play Christmas music all day, and people will exchange millions of gifts to remember the first gift of Christmas, the infant Jesus.’ – James Lankford

‘As we see thousands of public and private Christmas trees and nativity displays around the country, they remind us again of the powerful American value built into our Constitution: our freedom of religion.’ – James Lankford

‘For the millions of Americans, like my family, who believe that there is a creator God who can be known personally, Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’ offer of love and forgiveness for all people.’ – James Lankford

‘Christmas is a great time to recommit to each other and our communities.’ – James Lankford

‘Spanish Explorers celebrated Christmas in 1539 in the area we now know as the State of Florida.’ – James Lankford

‘The fact is, we need markers in life, whether we subscribe to a religion or not. And the major holidays, such as Christmas, serve to remind us of the turning world.’ – Jay Parini

‘The whole Christmas story was probably a later addition to the gospel narratives, presented only by the authors of Matthew and Luke. Mark and John seem never to have heard of the manger in Bethlehem, the Massacre of the Innocents, the hovering star, the three wise men, and so forth.’ – Jay Parini

‘Christmas is, for those who wish to follow the way of Jesus, an invitation to accept into our comfortable and safe lives those who come to us from far away, who seem ragged, marginal, in transition.’ – Jay Parini

‘I would literally sit at home and have my friends take pictures of me on my little Canon camera that my mom gave me for Christmas.’ – Kendall Jenner

‘The tradition of putting candles on Christmas trees actually began in Germany. The person who came up with the idea is thought to have been Martin Luther, father of the Reformation.’ – Christopher Buckley

‘Christmas is a bridge. We need bridges as the river of time flows past. Today’s Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday.’ – Gladys Taber

‘The first story I can remember writing, that I truly set down on paper, was a Christmas story that I wrote when I was ten years old.’ – Greg Rucka

‘I’m still a Chicagoan in the fact that I can’t do Christmas with sand and palm trees. It just doesn’t compute – it’s not Christmas unless your face hurts when you step outside.’ – Johnny Galecki

‘Every product you have ever loved was a compromise from the ideal vision of its creators to the realities of shipping on time, on budget, and on price point. Anyone who has ever manufactured a physical product that had to be on the shelves for Christmas shopping knows how painful these choices can be.’ – Jay Samit

‘I would work until I got stuck, and I would put it down and pick up something else. I might be able to take a 20-minute nap and get to work again. That way, I was able to work about 10 hours a day… It was important to me to work every day. I managed to work on Christmas day, just to be able to say I worked 365 days a year.’ – Donald Hall

‘Britain’s passion for Christmas and huge white weddings dates from Victorian times – both were low-key celebrations before Victoria and her PR machine.’ – Kate Williams

‘In Denmark, the annual Christmas party is probably the most important cultural institution in the country.’ – Joshua Oppenheimer

”Use Somebody’ I posted – it was the end of 2009, around Christmas. That was my first video.’ – Megan Nicole

‘When I first started shooting ‘Sharpe,’ back in the early 1990s, I’d kiss my two elder daughters goodbye at the end of August – Evie wasn’t even born then – and I wouldn’t see them again until Christmas. That was tough. They were hard times.’ – Sean Bean

‘I have to confess that I’ve never been a great fan of Christmas or, as it’s known in our house, The Monster That Ate the Last Third of the Year. It’s mostly the rampant consumerism I object to, but I’m also a little wary of the annual crop of new Christmas stories and sometimes wonder why anyone bothers.’ – Tony Bradman

‘To me, it remains incomprehensible that a people who can design the Porsche 911 and sleek, white ice trains, who created the Bauhaus and speak at least three languages at birth, want to own twee Christmas figurines painted in gaudy colours, dress up in Bavarian lederhosen, and eat Haribo gummy bears.’ – Rory MacLean

‘Throughout history, Hanukkah was a relatively minor festival, but it’s become very popular in America due to its proximity to Christmas.’ – Gil Marks

‘The family is the focal point of our existence. And up until Jane and Lucy’s death, there were always 16 of us together for Christmas.’ – Richard Attenborough

‘Halloween is bigger than Christmas in America. I’ve experienced it in New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C., and if you’re in the right neighbourhood, every house is decorated with spooky ghosts, spider webs, and jack-o-lanterns.’ – Rhys Darby

‘The most challenging roles were Disney’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Mars Needs Moms’ because they were both motion capture, so there was a lot of physical work involved.’ – Raymond Ochoa

‘When I was five years old, my parents gave me a drum set for Christmas. My mom played the piano, and Dad played the saxophone badly. But that Christmas morning, I remember we all played together, and I thought it was the greatest day ever.’ – Garry Marshall

‘The ebulliently sharp mind of ‘White Christmas’ director Walter Bobbie made me tremble and strive in the same breath. The deceptively ‘simple’ dialogue of David Ives, asking every actor to just. say. it. Float it on the breeze; it doesn’t need ‘explanation,’ just energy and truth.’ – David Ogden Stiers

‘I like day-after-Christmas omelets, day-after Christmas pizzas… Or you take croissant rolls, put gravy on top, turkey, mashed potatoes, cheese, more gravy. That sounds good!’ – Eric Stonestreet

‘The only thing I liked about Christmas as a kid was the gifts; otherwise, it just seemed like a stressful time.’ – Lake Bell

‘I’ve got a quad copter on my Christmas list, as I suspect quite a few people do.’ – Blake Farenthold

”El Gordo’ is the name given to the oldest lottery jackpot in the world – and the richest. Held every year in Madrid on December 22, the Christmas Lottery culminates with the picking of the El Gordo number, the Fat One, which, for many, has become the true Christmas miracle in Spain.’ – Michael Paterniti

‘My early business ventures included growing Christmas trees and breeding birds.’ – Richard Branson

‘I do enjoy doing pantomime at Christmas. If I didn’t do it, I’d feel as though I was missing something.’ – Kenny Baker

‘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.’ – Bradley Wiggins

‘I turned the Gloucester Christmas lights on and our local Newent lights on, so everyone recognises me now. It is a completely different life for me.’ – Charlotte Dujardin

‘I think Father Christmas is real because the belief is real. The belief becomes the reality.’ – Matt Haig

‘I don’t have a real recipe with measurements for my chicken stew. I just kind of make it up as I go. I made it for the first time one Christmas when I came home from college. It’s guaranteed to cure a cold.’ – John Legend

‘Making your Christmas cake in September is perfect, as too fresh a cake crumbles when cut.’ – Mary Berry

‘I am a bit of a mother hen at Christmas! I always prepare in advance. It is the only way; otherwise, it can be really daunting.’ – Mary Berry

‘My son is a tree surgeon and gets me a lovely tree. I like to put it up early, as I can’t wait for Christmas. We dress it with decorations that have been in the family for years.’ – Mary Berry

‘At school, I’d be the dude singing to the girls, always up in the auditorium, in the lunch room singing Christmas carols, in the halls between class. I was always singing, and same thing with my grandfather. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree; you know how that goes.’ – Desiigner

‘I always go to my mom’s house for Christmas.’ – Brantley Gilbert

‘I love giving gifts. It’s almost like I don’t open my gifts until, like, three days after Christmas ’cause I want to give everyone else their presents.’ – Mariah Carey

‘Christmas is always the most fun. I start looking forward to Christmas before it’s even summertime.’ – Mariah Carey

‘Everybody loves a good Christmas song if you do it right.’ – Sabrina Carpenter

‘We got to the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, at the end of a poor year for this country. We had Vietnam. We had civil unrest. We had the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. But we went around the moon and saw the far side for the first time. A script writer couldn’t have done a better job of raising people’s hope.’ – Jim Lovell

‘Comparing ‘Christmas Vacation’ to ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ is the silliest thing. That film starred the greatest movie actor of all time, and the idea that our movie could ever be connected in some fashion to something so brilliant and beautiful always made feel like, ‘That’s all they had to write about?” – Chevy Chase

‘Frank Capra’s grandson was a second Assistant Director on ‘Christmas Vacation.” – Chevy Chase

‘When you spend such a large portion of your life working – and it’s not fun, and you’re worried about getting sued or fired for saying the wrong thing or for acting crazy at a work party – then what has work done to America? That’s the impetus to have a huge office Christmas party.’ – T. J. Miller

‘Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye played my parents so well that I really thought I was in my living room at Christmas. My mother couldn’t have been played more correctly.’ – Frank Abagnale

‘When I was a child in England before the war, Christmas pudding always contained at least one shiny new sixpence, and it was considered a sign of great good luck for the new year to find one in your helping of the pudding.’ – Michael Korda

‘I always wanted to write for children. When I was growing up, we were really poor. My mother had left, and it was all a mess. So I lived in my head a lot, and I would get lots of books for Christmas – from librarians and teachers – and they just fed my imagination.’ – Jewell Parker Rhodes

‘There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.’ – Pope Benedict XVI

‘I had a great AP U.S. History teacher in Pittsburgh. We still exchange Christmas cards. She was the first teacher who said I was a good writer – and I’d never heard that before. And so I remember that, and I remember that level of loving the material and really loving writing about it.’ – Nathaniel Philbrick

‘For many years, I’ve wanted to do one, and I’ve always mentioned it to the chieftains, and they would say things like, ‘Oh well. Christmas albums don’t sell,’ and things like that. But that’s not the point. Christmas albums are important. The music is important. The season is important.’ – Aretha Franklin

‘Christmas is relentless. It’s around the clock. I sit with my little ones in front of the TV screen, and we watch movie after movie after movie.’ – Sayed Kashua

‘December used to be very difficult for me. For many years, I fought the transition to the new year, was generally exhausted at the end of the year, and just wanted to hide. I described myself as a ‘cranky Jewish kid who felt left out by Christmas.” – Brad Feld

‘Growing up in Northern California, I’ve only seen snow at Christmas maybe twice in my life! I was always jealous of my cousins on the East Coast with their white Christmases.’ – Guy Fieri

‘I do get approached every day by people who say, ‘Why don’t you make more movies?’ I don’t really miss it when I get to go and watch my daughter in the Christmas pageant.’ – Nia Vardalos

‘I grew up believing in Santa Claus, and we still treat our house at Christmas with a huge reverence for that belief – even though our children are 19 through 23.’ – Mary Steenburgen

‘Seeing the actual ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’, I absolutely loved it. It became one of my favourite films. It was a real Christmas classic, and it was one of the most popular films ever in British history.’ – Will Poulter

‘I started wearing Ugg when I was, like, 13 or 14, in high school, and my mom got me a pair for Christmas one year.’ – Tom Brady

‘I’ve been in Chicago for every Christmas of my life.’ – Jane Lynch

‘When I was a kid, we would get McDonalds on Christmas Eve, and that was a big deal because the closest one to the south side of Chicago was a 35 minute drive away. I remember opening the bag and smelling those fries, and even now when I smell them, it reminds me of Christmas Eve.’ – Jane Lynch

‘In the minds of a Liberal, someone who isn’t Christian might be offended if we say Merry Christmas to them, so we shouldn’t say Merry Christmas to anyone. The logic is bizarre!’ – Milo Yiannopoulos

‘Leftists wage the war on Christmas using their traditional methods – government fiat and the court system. They never win voting, and they certainly don’t win in the free market, so they bravely fight their battles through big government.’ – Milo Yiannopoulos

‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ is a national treasure because it delivers beautifully the central miracle of Christmas: Emmanuel – God With Us. From the wood of the manger to the wood of the cross.’ – Don Willett

‘I didn’t feel the need to rebel as a teenager. From age nine to 16, I went to school in Montreux in Switzerland, and it was heaven. I went to England for the Easter holidays, Cyprus for Christmas and summer holidays, and I was delighted to have that independence.’ – Angela Bowie

‘My little brother and grandma told me I could sing. I used to sing in church, too. Not like in the choir or anything, but for people around the church… on the church bus going home and Christmas plays.’ – Bryson Tiller

‘Christmas music is usually more concentrated pop music in a way. It’s meant to make us feel good, and it’s meant to make us like we belong somewhere.’ – Jens Lekman

‘We have 40 people over for Thanksgiving, 30 people for Easter lunch, 35 people on Christmas Eve. People tend to expect to spend their holidays with us, which is lovely and an expectation I carry with pride.’ – Sonya Walger

‘I had written a book that dealt with really serious issues. Was anybody going to want to read a Christmas love story from me?’ – Jay Asher

‘I’m a big hit at parties. Friends ask me to sing B-I-N-G-O all the time. I’m thinking, you know, of maybe putting out a Christmas album or something.’ – Paula Pell

‘I used to sing in church, too. Not like in the choir or anything, but for people around the church… on the church bus going home and Christmas plays.’ – Bryson Tiller

‘Some of my favorite records growing up were Christmas albums. The ones I liked best were the albums that you could listen to from start to finish. You could put them on while you’re decorating the tree or driving around looking at Christmas lights.’ – Chris Young

‘I feel like I’ve got a pretty relatively extensive Christmas sweatshirt collection.’ – Kyle Mooney

‘I started making music… I guess I was 12, and I started playing ‘Guitar Hero.’ And you know, it got to a point where on expert, you can only exceed to a certain point. And so, you know, I was like, ‘Let’s play real guitar. Let’s not waste more time.’ So, I got my mom, I told her to buy me a guitar for Christmas, and I started making music then.’ – Post Malone

‘When I was five years old, I auditioned for the role of ‘Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.” – Zach Anner

‘My grandmother was a church organist, but we only went on Easter and Christmas Eve sometimes.’ – Zach Anner

‘Every Christmas, all I ever wanted was Playskool instruments. It was my entire life. And then by the time I was 6 or 7 years old, it became, ‘Now I’m going to force my entire family to watch me perform all these rock songs.” – Andy Biersack

‘I’d love to have a Christmas classic under my belt. It’s hard to write a Christmas song.’ – Patty Smyth

‘The best thing about doing those Hallmark movies is my dad loves them. My dad watches all of those Christmas movies, not just ones I’m in. He watches them all, so the first one I did, it was like my Christmas present to my dad.’ – Eric Johnson

‘My most memorable meal was with my parents at Joel Robuchon’s Restaurant Jamin in Paris. It was Christmas 1982, and the flavors – from cauliflower and caviar to crab and tomato – astounded me. It was the first time I remember thinking that I would like to really learn how to cook.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘I grew up with three little brothers. Every Christmas, we’d have piles of toy trucks and Lincoln Logs and G.I. Joes under the tree. Those were for them. For me? My No. 1 favorite present of all time: books. Two or three tall stacks of wonderful stories that I could lose myself in for weeks.’ – Karen Robards

‘For Christmas 1999, my husband surprised me with a trip to Disney World. Along with our boys, we were standing on the roof of the Contemporary Hotel at midnight on New Year’s Eve 2000 watching fireworks explode over every amusement park in Orlando. It was a magical way to celebrate the millennial, and a never-to-be-forgotten Christmas present.’ – Karen Robards

‘The year I turned 16, I spent the weeks before Christmas dropping hints to my parents about how much I wanted – no, needed – my own transportation.’ – Karen Robards

‘In 1988, Christmas, that was my last performance because I moved to Hawaii to raise my son.’ – Charo

‘We only open a couple of presents on Christmas morning; we’re all about the stockings – we even get them for the dogs!’ – Darcey Bussell

‘I tend to think of Pluto and its moons as presents sitting under a Christmas tree. They’re wrapped, and from Earth all we can do is look at the boxes to see whether they’re light or heavy, to see if something maybe jiggles a bit inside. We’re seeing intriguing things, but we really don’t know what’s in there.’ – Alan Stern

‘I love Christmas. I love the music… I love everything about Christmas. I’m a big fan.’ – Darius Rucker

‘The ‘Story of Silent Night’, which was given to me one Christmas when I was six – it was the story of a down and out composer who had no ideas left, and it was Christmas, and he came up with the hymn ‘Silent Night.” – Adriana Trigiani

‘I know ‘Hallelujah’ isn’t actually a Christmas song, but it has that cozy, haunting vibe that sounds like a winter’s night and belongs by a fire.’ – Bonnie McKee

‘The eight years of war since 9/11 had meant several Christmases away from home for most of these men. For soldiers at war, there’s comforting continuity in the traditions and inevitability of Christmas.’ – Stanley A. McChrystal

‘In terms of the first Christmas when I met everybody, I went over to Nick’s grandfather’s house where they were having the big Christmas dinner, and they have this tradition of this thing called oyster stew.’ – Megan Mullally

‘My mom loved my Christmas music, so I did an awful lot of it!’ – Johnny Mathis

‘For me, hearing my voice is sometimes a little nauseating, especially at Christmas.’ – Johnny Mathis

‘My mom and dad always tried to make Christmas special for us. We were poor, but it’s funny because we had no idea.’ – Johnny Mathis

‘I always felt like what I was doing wasn’t selling toys; I was making a happy sound at Christmas. When people hear something so familiar, it brings them back to a special place, and that’s been meaningful for me.’ – Johnny Mathis

‘Christmas is never going to go away, and it’s always going to be there. And there’s always room for one more Christmas song, I think.’ – Johnny Mathis

‘My parents were over the moon when I had some success with Christmas songs because that was the time of the year that meant so much to them. They were able to see their loved ones, and it was great to hear their son’s voice on the radio while they visited.’ – Johnny Mathis

‘Very early on in life, I decided the hell with it: material things weren’t for me. Christmas would come, and other kids would have all these presents, and it wouldn’t bother me a bit.’ – James A. Michener

‘There I am, watching Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of my favourite actors in the world, walk into the room dressed up as Father Christmas, being hilarious, and I’m suddenly thinking, ‘Where am I?” – Tom Sturridge

‘I got a .30-30 for Christmas in the seventh grade. It wasn’t what I asked for, by the way.’ – Matt Bomer

‘I was supposed to be working on ‘The Weekenders,’ but I was blocked. I got this crazy idea that I would make Christmas stockings out of blankets.’ – Mary Kay Andrews

‘For a writer, capturing that elusive Christmas morning magic can be deeply problematic.’ – Mary Kay Andrews

‘I am Jewish, but I love Christmas, as most Jews with any taste do, because Hanukkah is lame.’ – Billy Eichner

‘Amy Poehler and I once ambushed people and made them sing Christmas carols with us.’ – Billy Eichner

‘Christmas coming means one thing for comedians: office party gigs!’ – Katherine Ryan

‘That is what Christmas should be about, I think – togetherness and playfulness. It’s like a game.’ – Billy Howle

‘One Christmas, Dennis Dermody, the movie critic of ‘Paper,’ gave me ‘Rock Hudson: A Gathering of Friends,’ the master invitation list from Rock Hudson’s memorial service. It’s so great. Everyone’s in it, with personal addresses all bound into a book. Someone else once gave me Ike Turner’s will. I get great stuff.’ – John Waters

‘Christmas brings us great music: Everything from Handel’s ‘Messiah’ to ‘White Christmas,’ to ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” – Alan Colmes

‘Growing up, my earliest memories are listening to Sinatra Christmas albums.’ – Brendon Urie

‘When I first came out, holidays were hard. I reached a point where I didn’t go home anymore. I constructed my own, kind of like, family group around Christmas.’ – Dee Rees

‘I love what they do with ‘Doctor Who,’ where they have the series, and then they do a big Christmas movie special.’ – Dean Devlin

‘There are three things that I’m addicted to when it comes to entertainment. In no particular order, One, I’m addicted to the cheer moment. ‘Librarians’ has plenty of them. Next, I feel that life is hard, and I want my entertainment fun, and ‘Librarians’ is fun as a Christmas party. And third, I like to be moved.’ – Dean Devlin

‘Nature was developed to resist the onslaughts of capitalism, but it’s really not a very good defense – rather like resisting a steamroller with a Christmas tree ornament.’ – Timothy Morton

‘When I was a kid, I really wanted a metal detector for Christmas, convinced I was going to find buried treasure and could retire at 12. Santa Claus brought me one, but sadly, that treasure was never realized. It’s amazing how many bottle caps you have to dig up. But to be honest, that dream is still alive.’ – Peter Billingsley

‘It’s a rare film that has staying power. ‘A Christmas Story’ is not just a funny movie but something that connects with people.’ – Peter Billingsley

”A Christmas Story’ has become such a special part of the holiday season for so many families.’ – Peter Billingsley

‘When I first heard ‘A Christmas Story, the musical,’ I thought, Oh, that could be really good. It just felt like it fit. Some films lend themselves well to other formats, some don’t, but there are so many fantasy sequences in the film, and Ralphie’s such a dreamer as a character, I thought they could really lend themselves to being set pieces.’ – Peter Billingsley

‘When you’re involved in those big-budget movies, there’s a lot of hype: ‘Oh this is gonna be a big hit!’ And ‘A Christmas Story’ wasn’t. It came and went and was a big disappointment at the box office.’ – Peter Billingsley

‘I’m literally obsessed with Christmas, and it’s been my dream ever since I was a little girl to make a Christmas album.’ – Ally Brooke

‘I love the royal family. I even got up in the middle of the night to watch Kate and William’s wedding. And I never miss the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day. I feel it’s my duty as an English-born woman to watch.’ – Lily Collins

‘When I was a kid and Christmas was coming up, my dad would ask me what I wanted, and I always said a motorbike. I kept asking for one, and he said it was too dangerous and bought me a go-kart instead.’ – Lewis Hamilton

‘I celebrate Christmas with wilful glee.’ – Robert Rinder

‘You can separate the church and state all you like, but Christmas is inescapable, and it’s marvellous, and it’s not going away.’ – Robert Rinder

‘No matter how excluded you have become from Christmas, it is a genuinely inclusive matter; frankly, you are conscripted into it.’ – Robert Rinder

‘I drew a lot. I always had sketchbooks. My parents were really great about any gift-giving holiday – birthdays, Hanukkah, Christmas – it was always art supplies for my brother and I.’ – Abbi Jacobson

‘Christmas Day itself hasn’t always been great. My parents went abroad when I was very young, and I went to boarding school. We had a few Christmases before that – I remember a big sack of presents and Mummy cooking goose.’ – Anne Reid

‘My favourite time of year is two weeks before Christmas when everybody’s up for it – you’re having lunches with people, drinking Cosmopolitans, and getting ready for something exciting!’ – Anne Reid

‘I’m in an age bracket now where I can play the father of an adult daughter whose going through her life issues, and she’ll come to me for advice while I’m wearing my Christmas sweater and swirling a cup of hot cocoa.’ – Doug Jones

‘From the time the kids were in upper grade school and middle school, we took trips over the Christmas break to nature-focused places, such as the Okefenokee Swamp and Cumberland Island in Georgia; Costa Rica; Maho Bay campground in St. John, Virgin Islands; the llanos of Venezuela; the southern coast and highlands of Belize.’ – Henry Paulson

‘My parents made a great sacrifice to make sure that we had something wonderful at Christmas, and through the help of the state and others, we were able to have a good meal.’ – Jesse White

‘I was a public aid recipient for about nine years as a kid, and this time of year was always tough sledding, so I just committed myself to doing something good for someone at Thanksgiving, and especially Christmas.’ – Jesse White

‘When you travel on Christmas, for you as the traveler – whether you’re in 1A or 39D – there is a mental state that you have to put yourself in: that you’re traveling at the busiest time of the year, and you’re going to take whatever comes your way.’ – Richard Quest

‘I have always wanted to do a Christmas album and covers.’ – Jessica Sanchez

‘Christmas is my favorite holiday because you spend time with family. I love the decorations, the music, and buying gifts for people. Everything about Christmas is the best.’ – Jessica Sanchez

‘I spent pretty much all my wages from ‘No Country For Old Men’ on a pair of cowboy boots. They’re ridiculous. It’s like wearing two Christmas trees on my legs.’ – Kelly Macdonald

‘Traditions are always puzzling to those who don’t share them. I’m Jewish, so the idea of a ‘perfect family Christmas’ is foreign to me.’ – Naomi Alderman

‘Teachers complain a lot about how tough their job is. But, you know, the day begins in most schools at nine o’clock, ends at 3.30 P.M. They have six weeks’ holiday during the summer, two weeks’ holiday at Easter and at Christmas. Yes, they don’t just work when they’re at school, but even so, compared to a lot of other jobs, it’s not that tough.’ – Toby Young

‘As much as I liked the build-up to Christmas, the week after always socked me with the blues.’ – Paul Dini

‘I did ‘Christmas Carol’ off and on through my teenage years, so I always had that dialect and that sound in my ear, which was so helpful. It became second nature.’ – Dan Amboyer

‘When I was young, we always went to our posh cousins at Christmas. My dad made sure we had new shoes and clean clothes – he was really proud – and that’s why I felt different from everyone living around me. We had the first television on the estate, the first fridge.’ – John Rocha

‘One thing I’ve always loved and rated me dad for is that, because of him, I’ve never seen the Queen’s Christmas speech.’ – Ian Brown

‘I’m Jewish, so I don’t really do Christmas gifts, and Hanukkah is not as big a deal as gifts are concerned, so I never actually give gifts.’ – Leandra Medine

‘We used to listen to Lionel Barrymore do ‘A Christmas Carol’ on the radio long ago, and I like Reginald Owen, who played Scrooge in the first treatment for the screen. But my favorite Scrooge was Alastair Sim. He was enchanting, an absolutely beautiful performance.’ – Christopher Plummer

‘I was practically raised with Christmas music.’ – Brian Stokes Mitchell

‘At our house, we’d always open presents with our Christmas records playing. ‘Little Drummer Boy’ was one of my favorites when I was a kid because it was about a kid.’ – Brian Stokes Mitchell

‘Like with me, like around ’97, for Christmas my parents bought me an MPC 2000 sampler and a little eight-track cassette recorder. And I started sampling records and, you know, producing hip-hop beats. And it got to the point where I realized – I innately realized that the music I liked the most was made by people that played instruments.’ – Adrian Younge

‘I kind of have a uniform for office parties and Christmas parties. What I do is put on a basic tuxedo shirt with a solid navy or black tie, a tweed jacket, a red pocket square, and some sort of fancy shoe or velvet slipper.’ – Michael Bastian

‘I’ve always loved watches. It’s been the one thing that I’ve asked for, whether it was every Christmas or a birthday.’ – Yara Shahidi

‘Christmas is always a great time because I get to be around family and spend time with my brother, nieces, and nephews, so that’s what I plan to do. It’s great to disconnect from everything.’ – Karen Civil

‘I was in ‘Christmas with the Crawfords’ with Joey Arias. I did that for six years, so I have a holiday show mentality a little bit.’ – Chris March

‘What I love about Christmas music is it stays around every year and comes back.’ – India Arie

‘Fans talk to me about how ‘Country Christmas’ has become a holiday tradition for them and that they all watch to start their holiday season. To be a part of people’s holiday traditions is a real joy.’ – Jennifer Nettles

‘Truthfully, my childhood was so fun. Everything was new, and everything was like Christmas because we were just from this small town, and my sister had amazing success. It was so amazing to see my sister reach such heights.’ – Jamie Lynn Spears

‘I had a Commodore, and then I remember getting a Nintendo for Christmas and it being a total game-changer. And the hours that I would spend playing the video game and trying to convince my mother that it was improving my hand-eye coordination. It was a worthy use of time. It made my hand-eye coordination better!’ – Lee Pace

‘My son was 8 or 9, and he really wanted a gun. It was Christmas, and I said to my husband, ‘It’s time for a gun.” – Wendy Long

”A Christmas Carol’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ are movies we love with magic in them.’ – Marc Platt

‘One of the secrets of ‘A Christmas Story’ is that it’s a relatable story. They feel like our family.’ – Marc Platt

‘The theme of ‘A Christmas Story’ is that you can count on Christmas – that everybody has a Christmas story. Everybody has that time in the holiday season that they remember.’ – Marc Platt

‘What makes ‘A Christmas Story’ universal, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, is that you recognize that family… It’s ultimately about a family being glued together for the holiday season.’ – Marc Platt

‘For much of my adult life, I believed, inaccurately, that I knew the story of Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ – that I remembered it from childhood.’ – Elif Batuman

‘At the beginning of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ Scrooge embodies one of the central tenets of depression: that one has always been this way – and always will be.’ – Elif Batuman

‘Now that I’m an adult and have a big say in what we eat on Christmas Day, turkey doesn’t even make it on to the starting grid for consideration. It isn’t just my least favourite meat; it’s my least favourite protein.’ – John Lanchester

‘I love London in the rare parts of the year when it’s quiet, and no time is more reliably quiet than the week between Christmas and New Year.’ – John Lanchester

‘I think ‘Scrooge’ is the best of the Christmas stories. Every child warms to it because it’s about one man’s transformation. It’s saying that it’s never too late to change, and that’s a good feeling to have at Christmas.’ – Leslie Bricusse

‘Christmas is a time for slipping into familiar patterns.’ – David Hepworth

‘When I was 14, 15, 16, I was wearing ‘Edward Scissorhands’ and ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ stuff. I saw ‘Sleepy Hollow’ a dozen times.’ – Kate Leth

‘I’m a huge ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ fan, but that was also Henry Selick. I’m a really big fan of ‘Sleepy Hollow.’ I love ‘Big Fish,’ too, which is a bit different. There’s a really cool era of early-Burton stuff like ‘Ed Wood’ that I’m a big fan of.’ – Kate Leth

‘I did a Christmas movie where I played Mrs. Claus because my children’s favorite movie of all time was a Christmas movie that my father did in which he played Santa, and I was like, ‘How often do they make a movie about Mrs. Claus?’ and, ‘My kids will love this.” – Mira Sorvino

‘It’s not exactly calm at Christmas. It’s a bit like the Simpsons appearing in a pasta advert – lots of bickering, crazy pets, and plenty of tomato sauce!’ – Sophia Di Martino

‘The crown of lamb has always been a quintessential Christmas dish, and growing up in India, we would read about lamb when learning about the holiday.’ – Maneet Chauhan

‘Christmas and Thanksgiving are the two days of the year where we know the spurs are going to stay off the boots because the family doesn’t have to work. It’s such a nice – and rare – treat!’ – Ree Drummond

‘Saying that you spend Christmas alone is, to most middle-class Americans, akin to confessing a terminal illness.’ – Michelle Dean

‘I could be imagining it, but I believe myself to have exchanged sly, understanding nods with other people I see attending movies alone on Christmas Day.’ – Michelle Dean

‘Christmas in the Buckley household is hilarious – at the family dinner, we all have to do a song, no matter if you can sing in tune.’ – Jessie Buckley

‘Over the years, I’ve heard pop artists do some Christmas songs, and I haven’t fully cared for them. They weren’t the traditional Christmas music that I was raised on and love. Thinking of that, I wanted to make my songs mimic the classic Christmas songs.’ – Colbie Caillat

‘Every Christmas, I cook an elaborate Mexican dinner.’ – Rumaan Alam

‘I love Halloween. I love Thanksgiving. I love Christmas. I love New Year’s.’ – Madelaine Petsch

‘One Christmas, I wrote a nativity play. But nobody turned up on the day of the performance apart from my brother and my cousins, so I just read the whole script onstage and made my brother pretend to be one of the animals at the inn.’ – Jorja Smith

‘Indeed, the Royal Family still retain the German custom – introduced by Prince Albert – of opening their presents on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas morning.’ – Ingrid Seward

‘As a child, I saw my mother prepare for Christmas every year, and it never occurred to me that labor was involved. I thought it was my mother’s joy and privilege to hang tinsel on the tree strand by strand, to make sure that every room in the house had a touch of Christmas, down to the Santa-themed rug and hand towels in the bathroom.’ – Elizabeth Berg

‘My mom used to keep all her Christmas cards in a basket bedecked with red ribbon, and I loved to look at them all and read all the letters.’ – Elizabeth Berg

‘I really love what Chuck Berry did with Christmas music, and also the Rat Pack Christmas stuff, which I listened to all through my childhood.’ – Grace Potter

‘I love making savory stratas for Christmas morning. I get excited about it. It’s a polenta strata with homemade bread, with a billion eggs and Parmesan cheese. I’ll drizzle truffle oil over the whole thing, which will just destroy people. It’s amazing.’ – Grace Potter

‘From the leg lamp to Ralphie’s tongue getting stuck on a frozen pole to that BB-gun incident, ‘A Christmas Story’ has left its mark on all our brains, so much so that it sometimes feels like this story is our own.’ – Phoebe Robinson

‘I came out to my dad in Christmas of ’94.’ – Wilson Cruz

‘I keep saying this – and I keep putting it off because I get busy – but I keep saying one year I’m gonna tape our Thanksgiving dinner or, like, our Christmas dinner and maybe put it on my website just for people to see how funny it really is, how much fun it really, really is.’ – Tony Rock

‘When we made ‘Life in a Day,’ we asked people around the globe to record their lives on a single ordinary day. When we were cutting that film, we talked about what it might be like if we chose a day that already had significance to people. The result is ‘Christmas in a Day.” – Kevin Macdonald

‘I understand Christmas, and I understand Easter. But Halloween is one of those things where, if you don’t grow with it? The French, they tried Halloween for a few years, and I think they’re dropping it.’ – Jacques Torres

‘Christmas is the biggest holiday in numbers – in terms of gross amounts – because you have one and a half to two months.’ – Jacques Torres

‘My family, as you can probably guess, was more into Christmas cookies and not so much the fruitcake.’ – Christina Tosi

‘I make a huge batch of cinnamon buns on Christmas Eve and bake them off early Christmas morning.’ – Christina Tosi

‘The coolest Christmas present I’ve ever received is probably socks. My grandma always gets me socks – every year – and that’s something that I’ve probably never bought for myself. If Christmas wasn’t around and my grandma didn’t get me socks, I wouldn’t own any, probably.’ – Luke Combs

‘I write songs all the time. Sometimes they’re just weird songs I sing while changing a baby, or songs about annoying things that I sing to myself, or to friends while sitting at a bar, or about Christmas or New York.’ – James Murphy

‘I’m the youngest of three boys, and my oldest brother was super into Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and played guitar. I wanted to be like him, so I asked for a guitar of my own for Christmas in ’93.’ – Kyle Mooney

‘Everyone should see ‘A Nightmare Before Christmas,’ hear ‘London Calling,’ and read ‘Great Expectations.” – Brian Fallon

‘We grew up probably having as hard a life as anybody. A lot of times, we didn’t have any food on the table. At Christmas, everybody else would always get something nice, but we’d get one T-shirt or one shirt… So I want to take care of Mom and Dad… and I’m having a damn good time doing it.’ – Jim Kelly

‘Most people think to make green bean casserole around Thanksgiving and Christmas, but honestly, I make this dish more during the summer, when green beans can be found fresh at the market. I think it is the perfect meal when served with crusty bread, a bountiful salad, and a cup or two of wine.’ – Damaris Phillips

‘I love that Christmas lasts for so long. And I love that everybody still believes that magic is going to happen. It’s a chance to be reminded that being with people is the most important thing.’ – Damaris Phillips

‘I bought my wife Leighanne a silver BMW Z8 sports car one Christmas and tied it up with a big red bow in the driveway of our house.’ – Brian Littrell

‘I think my ideal Christmas would be to hang out with my mates.’ – Jodie Whittaker

‘Christmas sits like a black hole on the calendar. Just try scheduling a meeting at work the month of December.’ – Andrew Shaffer

‘I know CEOs, and they get sick when they have to lay people off, especially around Christmas.’ – Mark Goulston

‘The worst gift I have ever gotten on Christmas is going to see Tim Allen in ‘The Santa Clause.” – John Gourley

‘I did so many acting jobs for nothing. I was in a play that opened on Christmas Eve above a police precinct on 54th Street. Three people showed up. One of them was an agent. It was my first agent.’ – Bobby Cannavale

‘I once did a gig at an office Christmas party in the showroom floor of a friend’s father’s home appliance shop in the suburbs of Melbourne. It was to a much older crowd. Without a microphone. Or a stage. With the queue for the buffet behind me.’ – Ronny Chieng

‘Christmas is cheery for some people and depressing for others.’ – Mark Kozelek

‘Untangling Christmas lights is the true tragedy of ‘Stranger Things.” – David Harbour

‘I think Christmas, for me, has always been about family, as cliche as that sounds.’ – Jay DeMarcus

‘Christmas Day is a big day for NBA basketball.’ – Jeff Van Gundy

‘I actually feel sorry for people who have nothing to do on Christmas Day other than watch an NBA game.’ – Stan Van Gundy

‘Christmas to me, obviously, basketball is very important to me, but there are some days of the year where it’s got to take a back seat to something.’ – Stan Van Gundy

‘The league has been good to all of us in terms of what we get out of all these TV contracts and everything, so it would be a little disingenuous to complain too much. But if I had my way, we’d take a five-day break at Christmas. I mean it.’ – Stan Van Gundy

‘The window in which it’s acceptable to listen to Ella Fitzgerald’s 1960 record ‘Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas’ is short, so I keep it in heavy rotation throughout the festive season.’ – Sally Rooney

‘You know what I love the smell of? Christmas trees and pine. I always have a pine candle even if it’s not Christmas.’ – Brooklyn Decker

‘I train every day but Christmas. I’m not the guy who gets a contract signed and then trains for a fight. I’m at practice every single day, whether I’ve got a match or not.’ – Chael Sonnen

‘I love the holidays – any holiday – but Christmas has always been sort of special because I grew up reading Charles Dickens.’ – Matthew Gray Gubler

‘If I had a modelling job and then it became a poster, it meant that my kids and I could have turkey for Christmas dinner. Otherwise, we had chicken.’ – Maye Musk

‘I love the English league. I think it’s the best in the world, but I have a problem with Christmas and New Year’s Day because you have to play.’ – Carlos Tevez

‘I would say ‘Gremlins,’ ‘Die Hard,’ and ‘Black Christmas’ are all pretty good Christmas movies that aren’t really about Christmas.’ – James Roday

‘The Christmas tree goes up on December 1. I love it.’ – Richard E. Grant

‘My parents are both from Belfast. I have an Irish passport and a British passport, and I go back every summer and every Christmas, and sometimes I pop over during the year to say hi, and, of course, celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.’ – Stella Maxwell

‘It’s very difficult in England because the season is very long and hard compared to other places. There’s not a lot of recovery time at all, not even a break at Christmas. You just have to do your best and get on with it.’ – David Silva

‘There were very few British black women on TV or in music when I was a teenager; when you’re growing up, you need someone you can identify with. I remember at Christmas being bought a doll that didn’t look anything like me, so I threw it away.’ – Alesha Dixon

‘Mama, you know, poor baby, she’d had her family all finished: four daughters and a couple of sons, and suddenly, I arrived in her midlife on Christmas Eve 1922.’ – Ava Gardner

‘Halloween is my favorite holiday. It’s like my Christmas.’ – Tech N9ne

‘Seeing lights being put up along the street and these colored lanterns called parols being put up at people’s houses makes Christmas in Philippines magical.’ – Catriona Gray

‘I am a romantic. I want to cry when I throw out my Christmas tree, and I have a lot of feelings about magic and fantasy.’ – Sondra Locke

‘I love Christmas movies.’ – Rachel Boston

‘I grew up drinking eggnog and watching ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ every Christmas with my family.’ – Rachel Boston

‘I put up my Christmas tree entirely too early. I’m one of those people.’ – Rachel Boston

‘I had a year-round Christmas tree with nothing but colored vinyl 45s hanging on it, like, old Elvis records and stuff.’ – John Prine

‘From me growing up with a large family and everybody singing around the Christmas tree, it was a wonderful, wonderful upbringing.’ – Engelbert Humperdinck

”Driving Home For Christmas’ is just a great Christmas song because people are in their cars and driving home.’ – Engelbert Humperdinck

‘I remember my first Christmas with Leeds, training Christmas Day. I wasn’t old enough to drive yet – so I had to get picked up and taken in!’ – James Milner

‘One of the things that Marjorie has done has given me the joy of family. It’s a joy I never really knew. I spent a long time being lonely and hiding, and now, at Christmas, there’s this huge family. That’s something that’s very new to me. And very special.’ – Joe Walsh

‘I hope maybe I’ll be in a Christmas movie that becomes part of someone’s holiday tradition.’ – Lacey Chabert

‘We always do a white elephant gift exchange on Christmas Eve, but my mom always gets really nice gifts for it. And we hang out in our PJs on Christmas Day.’ – Lacey Chabert

‘Christmas is my favorite time of the year.’ – Lacey Chabert

‘Even though I’m in this big, crazy business, I’m still just myself. I still celebrate Christmas; I still live at home.’ – Darci Lynne Farmer

‘We always go to downtown Oklahoma City to look at all the Christmas lights that have been put up… We go to the Christmas Eve service at church, and we always beg my parents to open a present – just one present – on Christmas Eve. We get them to cave.’ – Darci Lynne Farmer

‘We filmed part of it here at the Alex Theatre in Los Angeles, and then we filmed the other part of it in Oklahoma because that’s where I live. It’s called ‘Darci Lynne: My Hometown Christmas.’ We wanted to incorporate that I celebrate Christmas just like any other kid.’ – Darci Lynne Farmer

‘I’d never intended to write a Christmas hit – I was a serious musician!’ – Chris Rea

‘My daughter is 15. None of her friends know who the hell Chris Rea is, but they know that song – as soon as it comes on, they start singing it. I’ve played with everyone from Status Quo to Talk Talk, but nothing impresses them as much as the fact that I play on ‘Driving Home for Christmas.” – Chris Rea

‘Opening presents at midnight on Christmas Eve – midnight! As soon as it turns to Christmas Day, we’re opening those gifts.’ – Frankie Grande

‘Just recently, I thought about how maybe I should have kept using the synthesisers more after ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence’; then, I would have been a more unique soundtrack composer than I am now. It could have been my signature. But then, probably, Bertolucci would not have offered me to compose for his films.’ – Ryuichi Sakamoto

‘I make a mean Irish soda bread every Christmas and give it out to friends and family.’ – Matt Walsh

‘I think if you buy the ‘Christmas Queens 2′ album, there will be songs you love and songs you hate, just like every other album.’ – Michelle Visage

‘The best Christmas that l had was probably when I got my Xbox. When I first got an Xbox, it was, like, the very first Xbox when it came out.’ – Denzel Curry

‘I’ve always been the one who is more enthusiastic about Christmas than my family. I regress to a child state, chanting carols.’ – Christine and the Queens

‘I was always the kid who wanted Christmas to not come, because I realized at a pretty early age that no matter what you got, there’s always a little bit of a letdown. It’s like, ‘Oh, gee, I wanted two ponies, not one.” – Vince Gilligan

‘Christmas time… is about bringing everyone together.’ – Orianthi

‘I used to do Christmas tours every year.’ – Jeffrey Osborne

‘Every St. Patrick’s Day in my hometown is such a huge thing. You know, it was like Christmas, but in green.’ – J. Courtney Sullivan

‘I knew that my dollhouse was a toy, but in a way, it seemed more like a portal to adulthood. I didn’t play with it the way I might with my Barbie dream house. Instead, I furnished it. I kept it pristine. I decorated the house for each season. I had jack-o’-lanterns in the fall and a Christmas tree with working lights in the winter.’ – J. Courtney Sullivan

‘I feel like a lot of like the old-timey Christmas songs, the classics, a lot of it is very vocal. A lot of harmonies and, like, crooners, it puts you in that holiday spirit, I feel like.’ – Kirstin Maldonado

‘I love singing our Christmas songs every chance we get. It’s really cute.’ – Kirstin Maldonado

‘I think a capella and Christmas music just go really well together.’ – Kirstin Maldonado

‘Honestly, the most excited I’ve ever been for Christmas is when I get a big fluffy blanket.’ – Kirstin Maldonado

‘Swedes celebrate Christmas Eve. Every Sunday leading up to Christmas, we light a candle, then make gingerbread and saffron buns.’ – Mabel

‘Eventually, my dad bought me a guitar for Christmas, and then I just went from there, man. I bought a drum kit a few years later and bought a bass, started producing, started singing.’ – Tom Walker

‘I remember going to church at home on Christmas in 2016, and people wanted to take my photo. When I’m home in Maryland, I don’t leave the house. That’s a weird feeling.’ – Maggie Rogers

‘Belgium’s 1986 team is like the Christmas movie that they bring out every single year. That World Cup is something we get to see and hear about all the time. It is part of our general education in Belgium.’ – Vincent Kompany

‘The ultimate gathering when I was younger would be an over-the-top Christmas party. Now, ugh, it’s so sad… as I’m getting older, I kind of look forward to more intimate, really nice dinners.’ – Haylie Duff