Christmas Journey Quotes

Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is believing you're worthy of the trip.

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Dance. Dance for the joy and breath of childhood. Dance for all children, including that child who is still somewhere entombed beneath the responsibility and skepticism of adulthood. Embrace the moment before it escapes from our grasp. For the only promise of childhood, of any childhood, is that it will someday end. And in the end, we must ask ourselves what we have given our children to take its place. And is it enough?

In my country childhood, we had many Christmas traditions: the fun and adventure of cutting down a tree from our ranch, hilarious Christmas programs at the church and school, and fun-filled caroling around our small town. Our family dominated this holiday’s focus.

As I prepared for Christmas one year, a thought came to me: “Why a baby?” It rolled around and around for days. I don’t just accept the pat story I’ve heard year after year. I like to go deeper—see it from a different perspective.

It's my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less where they're going. For them it's the journey itself and the people they meet along the way. You see, at every stop this train makes, a little bit of America, a little bit of your country, gets on and says hello.

I knew it was cold, but singing familiar Christmas songs and the fellowship warmed me through and through—until we stopped in front of a bank and saw the temperature on its marquee: six degrees below zero!

We love those whom we serve (p. 26)

My love for Christmas Eve goes way back to those big gatherings at my grandparents’ house, the focus on Santa Claus and childhood joy. As the years unfolded, I've moved to and visited different cities during the holidays, so my celebration of Christmas Eve took on multiple denominational tones and the focus became the Christ child.

One true king knew when to step aside and give up the reins of power—to remove his crown and relinquish his kingdom—all for the sake of glimpsing, just once in a lifetime, the face of a holy child. He was the Fourth to follow the Star. His gift was a secret. The rest of his journey is unknown.

It's not getting from A to B. It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between...This train is alive with things that should be seen and heard. It's a living, breathing something -- you just have to want to learn its rhythm.

I have always thought of Christmas time as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

God is Santa Claus for Grown-Ups.

As a child, we sang those precious songs at church and school. At home, we sang along with the singers on the Lawrence Welk Christmas show, and there used to be so many Christmas specials—Andy Williams and Perry Como. I loved the bouncing ball on the Mitch Miller sing-along show. And of course, we watched “The Ed Sullivan Show” weekly and loved his Christmas special. I never grew tired of them.

the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

With some stories, you really can't rush things. And it's often best just to sit back and enjoy the journey for what it is.

If everyone could feel as I felt at that moment, dressed in my preppy sweater and McGregor coat and about to set out on a little journey with my Bambi-eyed girlfriend on Christmas Eve, all conflicts in the world would vanish. Mellow smiles would rule the earth.

To enjoy the journey is to give until the stretch is a sacrifice. The question always is: what is it in life that will pull you out of your seat to be brave, risk and serve?

On his back, Robert must have had time to see something beautiful, and not just the ugliness of a city street at the end of life. Even with the tremendous pain in his badly gutted belly he would have looked up beyond the fire escapes and the windows with their glittery trees and television glows, to the sky about the rooftops. A sky shimmery with the possibilities of the death; lights exaggerated, the heavens peeled back- a swirling haze of nebulae and comets - in some distant place, intimations of the new beginning into which he would soon journey

Life is full of running. The key to a life lived or an existence tolerated is held in the single decision as to the direction in which we will run.

Life is something like innumerable layers, leaving us wrongly assuming that the first or even the second layer is the essence of the thing.

If we wish to identify the truly great things in life, we can identify them by the fact that no matter how much we are exposed to them or how often we’re privileged to engage them, they remain great despite what our perception of them might do to them.

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" Fred, A Christmas Carol.

You can not have peace with just feelings. It comes only about by prayer and being on the journey. Like the wise men, find your peace this Christmas.

There are those critical crossroads when we find ourselves standing facing certain surrender only being certain that we must refuse such a surrender.

If we stand for nothing we will likely become nothing and subsequently achieve nothing, for nothing can only breed more of itself.

Indeed, there is a deep melding of our humanity around a shared experience, and in that melding we find profound comfort knowing that we are not alone in the experience of it.

Any road not informed by the past will certainly be an uncertain one.

It is foolishness to think that you can leave a place your heart never left.

Some things will always and forever defy the denial that we take up to slay them.

With the Lord, the journey was the destination. Every morning, every night, every step in between was a walk of faith. Otherwise there would be no need for a relationship with Jesus. The

Sometimes things call out to us and we know them with total certainty. Yet, the certainty eludes us and we’re left with the angst of the unknown regarding something that, in fact, we know.

But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?" "It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness! ...I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!

Sometimes life puts us in places that we had never could have envisioned even in our most inventive moments. And when we arrive in those unexpected places, we have to squint through the windows of our souls and wipe clean the eyes of our hearts, for in our blinding routines and mediocre plots we had not anticipated the need of doing so.

I sometimes doubt whether even the friends whose kind thoughts turned downwards me that evening from the distant South and West could realize how cheerful is the recollection of the Christmas spent in the solitude and cold of the desert.

There are good wake-ups, like when you drift out of sleep slow and easy and wake up curled up all warm with your cat. There's waking up on Christmas and waking up on your birthday and waking up to the smell of bacon cooking. All good wake-ups.

Men will always be at battle,” the little girl said with an uncanny maturity. With her stride unbroken, she continued “Whether that battle is on a battlefield like this one, or on the most difficult battlefield of the heart and mind. It really doesn’t matter all that much, men will battle.

It’s been my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less where they’re going. For them it’s the journey itself and the people they meet along the way. You see, at every stop this train makes, a little bit of America, a little bit of your country, gets on and says hello. That’s why trains are so popular at Christmas. People get on to meet their country over the holidays. They’re looking for some friendship, a warm body to talk to. People don’t rush on a train, because that’s not what trains are for. How do you put a dollar value on that? What accounting line does that go on?

Yes, there are times when the world turns upside down, logic becomes subject to the muse of reckless interpretation, truth becomes the bed-child of selfish goals, and people are off on a wild course that bludgeons everyone they once loved or anyone who gets in the way of what they now purport to love.

Sometimes life abruptly opens up in ways so vast that it engulfs all of our constructs and theories and beliefs in the swiftness of that single moment. At times such as these, life does nothing less than demand a brutally exacting reconstruction of everything that we’ve expended the raw essence of our lives constructing.

If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art are perhaps a little to blame, for in them we find at work the same process of simplification or selection as in the imagination. Artistic accounts include severe abbreviations of what reality will force upon us. A travel book may tell us, for example, that the narrator journeyed through the afternoon to reach the hill town of X and after a night in its medieval monastery awoke to a misty dawn. But we never simply 'journey through an afternoon'. We sit in a train. Lunch digests awkwardly within us. The seat cloth is grey. We look out the window at a field. We look back inside. A drum of anxieties resolves in our consciousness. We notice a luggage label affixed to a suitcase in a rack above the seats opposite. We tap a finger on the window ledge. A broken nail on an index finger catches a thread. It starts to rain. A drop wends a muddy path down the dust-coated window. We wonder where our ticket might be. We look back at the field. It continues to rain. At last, the train starts to move. It passes an iron bridge, after which it inexplicably stops. A fly lands on the window And still we may have reached the end only of the first minute of a comprehensive account of the events lurking within the deceptive sentence 'He journeyed through the afternoon'. A storyteller who provides us with such a profusion of details would rapidly grow maddening. Unfortunately, life itself often subscribes to this mode of storytelling, wearking us out with repetitions, misleading emphases[,] and inconsequential plot lines. It insists on showing us Burdak Electronics, the safety handle in the car, a stray dog, a Christmas card[,] and a fly that lands first on the rim and then the centre of a laden ashtray. Which explains the curious phenomenon whereby valuable elements may be easier to experience in art and in anticipation than in reality. The anticipatory and artistic imaginations omit and compress; they cut away the periods of boredom and direct our attention to critical moments, and thus, without either lying or embellishing, they lend to life a vividness and a coherence that it may lack in the distracting woolliness of the present.

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging ti it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Somewhere beyond the Christmas hustle and bustle, there lies a child in a manger; somewhere beyond the noise, there is a Silent Night.

Your inner joy will journey alongside you - supported within the company of your Soul.

as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Hope crushed is never hope killed.

A horizon on the road of hope is nothing more than a starting point for the next horizon.

Hope is born in simple places to simple hearts that have enough space for a miracle to happen.

The apparent reality is that life never quite permits us the certainty that we impose upon it.

One of the greatest goals of all is to recognize the commonality of the grand that only appears uncommon because it is missed by the ignorance of our souls turned sour.

It is the spirit which heals the transgressor, and that is in essence what matters.

Sometimes it seems that a photo is anything but still. Sometimes photos seem to have a voice; to be alive in the stillness of their own image.

I feel like the journey of the past ten, twelve years was leading me to this moment. Being worthy of you.

When he was a kid, Roger thought Thanksgiving was the best possible holiday. It didn’t involve lies or home invasion like Christmas;

Maybe the impossible was not based on how life actually worked, but on how we constricted life through our bluntly stunted vision and all the other abhorrent things that we did to keep it safe.

one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Sometimes in life we need to sit with things for a minute, maybe on the fringe of things, not only to savor the wealth of the moment, but take a moment to figure out how to respectfully engage it.

Just like our story, the original Christmas tales were stories of searching, not so much for the lost, as for the familiar. Mary and Joseph sought in Bethlehem- the home of their familial ancestry- a place to start their own family; the three kings from the East journeyed beneath the sentinel star to find the King of Kings; and the shepherds sought a child in a place most familiar to them: a manger.

If we make the holidays about parties and presents alone, we’ll miss Jesus on His birthday. Let’s celebrate Christmas the way Jesus would want us to: by putting people first and being generous with our love.

Following World War II, trials against War Crimes took place in Nuremberg, Germany, commencing in 1945. But before the famous Nuremberg Trials even started, a stealthy purveyor of Nazi atrocities managed to escape the hands of justice by disguising himself as a woman and setting sail across the Atlantic. His masquerade only became known to authorities when a Philadelphia resident, an Italian-American dressmaker, journeying home from the War himself, recognized the criminal of insidious deeds, while traveling on board the same vessel. Luigi D’Alonzo was an instant hero among the passengers and crew alike. But his luck was about to change.

men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

At times, life vast beyond our understanding careens and then collides headlong with the scrawny limitations of our understanding in an all-out brawl that will dictate whether we stay stunted or whether we rise liberated.

when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it, can be apart from that—as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

It is true that when we seek great things we most often never find them, for we have created a sense of what great things look like, what the nature of them is, and in what manner they should arrive. And what we discover is that we are typically wrong on all accounts.

The sure path to tomorrow was plotted in a manger and paved on a cross. And although this sturdy byway is mine for the taking, I have incessantly chosen lesser paths. And maybe it is time to realize that Christmas is a promise that I can walk through the world and never get lost in the woods.

Preparing to leave had been arduous, but it was nothing compared to the journey once it had started. Traveling with men, in the winter, was hard. Traveling with women was difficult, but trekking through the winter mountains with females who had never journeyed anywhere was straining Ranulf's every last nerve.

Sometimes we find that responsibly discerning something from a distance is nothing more than cowardice creating an excuse to keep our distance from that which we fear. And when that’s the case, life will shut down our discernment so that we are left with no option but to engage what we would otherwise run from.

Not everyone requires, nor seeks, the stimulus of the recurring image. They are content to be without directions. But for those of us who are branded by this particular mark, at least we know where we're going. We are going, as it were, on a series of seasonal journeys, the climax of which is simply returning home.

A SAVIOR IS BORN Psalm 8:9 (ESV) O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!   REFLECTION On this night, shepherds were doing what they always did, keeping an eye on Bethlehem’s sheep through the night. But everything was about to change, as heaven opened and the angel of the Lord appeared to them and declared that Jesus had been born nearby. What irony. The sheep these shepherds were raising would be sacrificed just a few miles down the road on Jerusalem’s altar. Yet the shepherds themselves could not enter the temple to worship even if they wanted to. Because of their profession, they were ceremonially unclean. They were outcasts in the very worship that their hands made possible. Yet, God chose the shepherds to receive the greatest news ever heard. God came to them because He knew the shepherds couldn’t make it to church. What does that say about the Gospel? What does it say about you? This magnificent night says that grace meets you where you are, and saves you while you cannot do a thing to save yourself. Tonight, celebrate that Christ has come. Not to a mansion, but a manger. Not to the high and mighty, but to the guys on the lowest rung of the spiritual ladder. And celebrate that God’s grace finds you wherever you are this Christmas and shows you the way upwards to the arms of Almighty God. MEDITATION FOR CHRISTMAS EVE

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

Like a great waterwheel, the liturgical year goes on relentlessly irrigating our souls, softening the ground of our hearts, nourishing the soil of our lives until the seed of the Word of God itself begins to grow in us, comes to fruit in us, ripens in us the spiritual journey of a lifetime. So goes the liturgical year through all the days of our lives. /it concentrates us on the two great poles of the faith - the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth. But as Christmas and Easter trace the life of Jesus for us from beginning to end, the liturgical year does even more: it also challenges our own life and vision and sense of meaning. Both a guide to greater spiritual maturity and a path to a deepened spiritual life, the liturgical year leads us through all the great questions of faith as it goes. It rehearses the dimensions of life over and over for us all the years of our days. It leads us back again and again to reflect on the great moments of the life of Jesus and so to apply them to our own ... As the liturgical year goes on every day of our lives, every season of every year, tracing the steps of Jesus from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, so does our own life move back and forth between our own beginnings and endings, between our own struggles and triumphs, between the rush of acclamation and the crush of abandonment. It is the link between Jesus and me, between this life and the next, between me and the world around me, that is the gift of the liturgical year. The meaning and message of the liturgical year is the bedrock on which we strike our own life's direction. Rooted in the Resurrection promise of the liturgical year, whatever the weight of our own pressures, we maintain the course. We trust in the future we cannot see and do only know because we have celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus year after year. In His life we rest our own. ― Joan D. Chittister, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life - The Ancient Practices Series

long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

.....I'm certain I asked for a cowboy one December past-- For I wanted the excitement of pioneers to last; I ached to sing with a fiddle, speak with a drawl and twang; I surely requested John Wayne to be part of my gang. Of course I dreamed of a cowboy in those Yuletides of yore-- For I wanted that ace, that corral fighter, that scout roar; I ached for the authentic frontier hero of the West; I surely requested the sacred battleground's finest. I did pray Santa'd give me a cowboy some time ago-- For I wanted a legend in denim wrangler for beau; I ached to be rounded up safely by my saddled knight; I surely requested I be prospected, mined, settled right... -----excerpted from the poem 'A Cowboy For Christmas' in the book FROM GUAM TO CROWN CITY CORONADO (THANKS TO HERMANN, MISSOURI): A JOURNEY IN POESY, by Mariecor Ruediger

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew: “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

I have spent the months since Rick’s death inside a bubble of grief and fear. But in these last eleven days, as I venture outside that protective cocoon, I have met such a hodgepodge of wonderful people: Goodwill Charles, the soldier at Ponderosa, Neal’s wife with the poinsettias, and now the MasterCard lady—every one of them teachers on this new journey I am traveling. They are experts in the art of moving on, forgiving mistakes, and celebrating memories even if they hurt. I still have so much to learn.

I picked up the phone, 'Hello?' 'Merry Christmas!' said Mom and Dad. ... 'I love you too' I replied. I hung up the phone. My students were gaping at me. Two girls in the back row brushed away tears and hugged each other. Parents and children rarely said those three words in China. They knew their parents loved them, but they knew from their actions, not because they had ever been told. The students had studied and heard about the importance of family at Christmas, but with that telephone call they saw it for themselves.

The next day—Christmas Eve—Musk called in reinforcements. Ross Nordeen drove from San Francisco. He stopped at the Apple Store in Union Square and spent $2,000 to buy out the entire stock of AirTags so the servers could be tracked on their journey, and then stopped at Home Depot, where he spent $2,500 on wrenches, bolt-cutters, headlamps, and the tools needed to unscrew the seismic bolts. Steve Davis got someone from The Boring Company to procure a semi truck and line up moving vans. Other enlistees arrived from SpaceX.

I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come around - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything brings belonging to it can be apart from that- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

That interminable journey, with its stations full of people and the vendors of trinkets and sweets, made me think of some lines from a Mexican in the twentieth, Ramón López Velarde: My country: your house is still so vast that the train going by seems like a Christmas box from a toyshop. The strangeness of India brought to mind that other strangeness: my own country. I had just written The Labyrinth of Solitude, an attempt to answer the question that Mexico asked me; now India was asking another question, one that was far more vast and enigmatic.

After the Christmas and New Year of 1944 my mother and I returned to Strausberg, but the area was full of people evacuated from Berlin due to mass bombings on the capital by the RAF. These had started, in a small way, on 25 August, 1940, and had continued through 1941 and 1942. However, by November, 1943, these air attacks were major, involving mass bomber streams of more than 800 aircraft. I used to stand outside the front of our house and look at the sky, watching the silver bombers turning over Strausberg and heading in the direction of Berlin. Many were shot down, some near us in the fields around Strausberg.

What were you going to make for Christmas dinner?” one of my older children asked in a very reasonable tone. I cleared my throat, but couldn’t speak. There was no real explanation for my behavior. I’d been so intent on getting through this first Christmas without David. I’d found new rituals to replace the old, wrapped gifts, and even made cutout sugar cookies. I’d modified Christmas in order to endure it. What I hadn’t done was plan on or prepare a Christmas meal. Everyone was looking at me expectantly by this point, including my sweet, hungry grandchildren. “I forgot all about Christmas dinner,” I finally admitted. No one batted an eye.

Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

There then followed a period of disturbance and danger. There were many lords in this land who longed to be king, and who were prepared to do battle for the crown of England. So Merlin visited the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘Call together all the nobles and knights of the realm to London, reverend sir,’ he said to him. ‘Tell them to assemble in the city by Christmas Day, on pain of excommunication. They will witness a miracle, I assure you of that. The king of the universe will on that day declare who is to be king of the realm.’ So the archbishop sent his summons, and the magnates set out for the city in the hope that they might see their new sovereign. They prayed and confessed themselves on their journey, so that they might be all the more pure.

On a Parisienne’s Bookshelf THERE ARE MANY BOOKS ON A PARISIENNE’S BOOKSHELF: The books you so often claim you’ve read that you actually believe you have. The books you read in school from which you remember only the main character’s name. The art books your parents give you each Christmas so you can get some “culture”. The art books that you bought yourself and which you really love. The books that you’ve been promising yourself you’ll read next summer … for the past ten years. The books you bought only because you liked the title. The books that you think makes you cool. The books you read over and over again, and that evolve along with your life. The books that remind you of someone you loved. The books you keep for your children, just in case you ever have any. The books whose first ten pages you’ve read so many times you know them by heart. The books you own simply because you must and, taken together, form intangible proof that you are well read. AND THEN THERE ARE THE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ, LOVED, AND WHICH ARE A PART OF YOUR IDENTITY: The Stranger, Albert Camus The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq Belle du Seigneur, Albert Cohen Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert L'Écume des jours, Boris Vian Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline À la recherche du temps perdu, Marcel Proust “How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits” By Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas

No one is completely defined by their knowledge or what they've accomplished. At the end of each of our lives, if you ask the people who knew us what they'll miss the most, it'll be the small ways we loved the people around us. It'll be the memories we made and the big mess-ups we walked through together. It will be our kindness, not our qualifications, that outlast us. It will be the time we unsuccessfully tried to wrap a puppy up for Christmas, not the perfect vacation we planned or the raise we got. It will be the fire we started by mistake in the house while trying to make indoor s'mores during a storm. We won't be missed because of the lectures we gave or arguments we won. We'll be missed because someone will want to call us to share a joy from the day and remember we're no longer there to share the celebration.

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

The best part of waking up to a Christmas morning is perhaps to know that it's just a few more days to another year, to another whole new year of hopes and surprises, expectations and learnings, to a bunch of mad happy days and a dozen of grey days with despair and gloom but above all days to know Life, some more of our Soul, days to be Human and mortal in our very bones. Just like the first ray of Sunshine always finds us out of the darkest hour, Christmas literally shows us how even the coldest and darkest of nights be alive in spirit, breathing through love and light, breathing in more of Life to the days to come, and even when we don't know what might unfold in the days to come, we wish each other a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, because Hope is the cup that fills our Christmas morning the most. And as we keep walking along this wondrous day and this beautiful journey of Life, may we keep reminding our mind what our Heart already knows as the anchoring truth of Hope, Life is full of little pleasures.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel “T hey shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us)” (Matthew 1:23 ESV). This is perhaps our oldest Christmas carol. Historians say its roots go back to the 8th century. In its earliest form, it was a “plain song” or a chant and the monks sang it a cappella. It was sung or chanted in Latin during the seven days leading up to Christmas. Translated into English by John Mason Neale in 1851, we sing it to the tune “Veni, Emmanuel,” a 15th-century melody. Many churches sing it early in the Advent season because of its plaintive tone of expectant waiting. Traditionally Advent centers on the Old Testament preparation for the coming of the Messiah who will establish his kingdom on the earth. When the words form a prayer that Christ will come and “ransom captive Israel,” we ought to remember the long years of Babylonian captivity. Each verse of this carol features a different Old Testament name or title of the coming Messiah: “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” “O come, Thou Wisdom from on high.” “O come, Thou Rod of Jesse.” “O come, Thou Day-spring.” “O come, Thou Key of David.” “O come, Thou Lord of Might.” “O come, Desire of Nations.” This carol assumes a high level of biblical literacy. That fact might argue against singing it today because so many churchgoers don’t have any idea what “Day-spring” means or they think Jesse refers to a wrestler or maybe to a reality TV star. But that argument works both ways. We ought to sing this carol and we ought to use it as a teaching tool. Sing it—and explain it! We can see the Jewish roots of this carol in the refrain: Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel. But Israel’s Messiah is also our Savior and Lord. What Israel was waiting for turns out to be the long-expected Jesus. So this carol rightly belongs to us as well. The first verse suggests the longing of the Jewish people waiting for Messiah to come: O come, O come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appears The second verse pictures Christ redeeming us from hell and death: O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny From depths of Hell Thy people save And give them victory o’er the grave This verse reminds us only Christ can take us home to heaven: O come, Thou Key of David, come, And open wide our heavenly home; Make safe the way that leads on high, And close the path to misery. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel. Let’s listen as Selah captures the Jewish flavor of this carol. Lord, we pray today for all those lost in the darkness of sin. We pray for those who feel there is no hope. May the light of Jesus shine in their hearts today. Amen.

I had to pull columnist George Will out of a baseball game—like yanking Hemingway out of a bar—to correct one misattributed quote, and berate blogger Josh Rogin for recording a public talk between Jeffrey Goldberg and me in a synagogue, on Yom Kippur. Most miffing was the book This Town, a pillorying of well-connected Washingtonians by The New York Times’s Mark Leibovich. The only thing worse than being mentioned in Mark’s bestselling book was not being mentioned in it. I merited much of a paragraph relating how, at the Christmas party of media grandees Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, I “hovered dangerously over the buffet table, eyeing a massive Christmas ham.” But Nathan Guttman, a reporter for The Jewish Daily Forward, changed the word “eyeing” to “reaching for,” insinuating that I ate the ham. Ironically, the embassy employed Nathan’s caterer wife to cook gala kosher dinners. George Will graciously corrected the quote and Josh Rogin apologized. The Jewish Daily Forward printed a full retraction. Yet, in the new media age, old stories never vanish. A day after the Forward’s faux pas, I received several angry phone calls from around the United States. “You should be ashamed of yourself!” they remonstrated. “The Israeli ambassador eating trief? In public? On Christmas?” I tried to defend myself—“I didn’t eat it, I eyed it”—but fruitlessly. Those calls reminded me that, more complex than many of the issues I faced in the press, and often more explosive, was the minefield of American Jewry.

I'm sorry this trip has been so difficult." "It could be worse.We could be enduring Father Morrell's celebration of the Eucharist." Bronwyn's jaw dropped and she turned in his arms to see if Ranulf was serious. He was. Ranulf framed her face in his hands and placed a soft kiss on her lips. He then stepped aside and pulled his tunic over his head. Seeing her still stunned, sea blue eyes follow his movements, he said, "Don't look at me that way. The aggravating priest confronted me when you were packing, telling me that I was damning all of our souls by taking you away on such an auspicious day." Bronwyn bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing. "Father Morrell's just concerned. He believes that all should be given Holy Communion at least once a year and-" "He has chosen the last Sunday of the Twelfthtide to be that day. I understand. But just as I told him, I've missed so many of what he considers critical celebrations in my lifetime, another won't matter. And since you've attended almost every one, forgoing one or two this year is just as trivial." Bronwyn took a deep breath, exhaled, and followed his lead, freeing the restraints of her bliaut. "I've married a heathen." Helping her pull the thick material over her head, Ranulf agreed, "I think that is exactly what Father Morrell concluded as well." Free from the bulky winter garment, Bronwyn felt a surge of arousal and twisted around to kiss him full on the lips. "Then maybe I'll just have to reform you." "Sounds tempting," Ranulf murmured against her lips, "but what if it is I who corrupt you?" he asked as he slowly edged her shift up over her hips, breast, and then head. Bronwyn smiled and twined her arms around his neck.She felt no awkwardness for her lack of clothing.She had nothing to hide from this man.He thought her perfect. "You've already tried." "And it's working.Just who is seducing whom, angel?" "Oh,I am definitely seducing you, my lord." Tomorrow she would ask him about his reasons for their impromptu journey south. She suddenly had other plans.

You have no idea how well you are doing,” John complimented me just a few minutes after he mentioned the Christmas card. What did that mean: That I was doing well? That I’d come to a family gathering? That I’d remembered to bring food? That I was dressed, and my hair combed? That I was wearing shoes? I wasn’t sure, but maybe just making an appearance at a family event meant I was handling things well.