Famous Christmas Quotes

Then came the healing time, hearts started to shine, soul felt so fine, oh what a freeing time it was.

Theophilus Hopkins was a moderately famous man. You can look him up in the 1860 Britannica. There are three full columns about his corals and his corallines, his anemones and starfish. It does not have anything very useful about the man. It does not tell you what he was like. You can read it three times over and never guess that he had any particular attitude to Christmas pudding.

The Bumpuses were so low down on the evolutionary totem pole that they weren't even included in Darwin's famous family tree. They had inbred and ingrown and finally emerged from the Kentucky hills like some remnant of Attila the Hung's barbarian horde. Flick said that they had webbed feet and only three toes. It might have been true.

You have a famous relative. Family tradition has it we descend from St. Nicholas.” “Santa Claus? I thought he was make-believe.” “He is, but the person Santa Claus is based on is real. St. Nicholas of Myra was a fourth-century bishop—and a fine human being. He served in Turkey.

The War Department in Washington briefly weighed more ambitious schemes to relieve the Americans on a large scale before it was too late. But by Christmas of 1941, Washington had already come to regard Bataan as a lost cause. President Roosevelt had decided to concentrate American resources primarily in the European theater rather than attempt to fight an all-out war on two distant fronts. At odds with the emerging master strategy for winning the war, the remote outpost of Bataan lay doomed. By late December, President Roosevelt and War Secretary Henry Stimson had confided to Winston Churchill that they had regrettably written off the Philippines. In a particularly chilly phrase that was later to become famous, Stimson had remarked, 'There are times when men have to die.

I don’t mean I’d mind being rich and famous. That’s very much on my schedule, and someday I’ll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I’d like to have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Christmas; Be the Light for those who stand in the Dark.

I was really in Italy. Not Maya Angelou, the person of pretensions and ambitions, but me, Marguerite Johnson, who had read about Verona and the sad lovers while growing up in a dusty Southern village poorer and more tragic than the historic town in which I now stood. I was so excited at the incredible turn of events which had brought me from a past of rejection, of slammed doors and blind alleys, of dead-end streets and culs-de-sac, into the bright sun of Italy, into a town made famous by one of the world’s greatest writers. I

Open your heart - stay in silence & let it be christmas, every day, in your life.

She made Christmas disappear. We never had a tree again. The famous synthetic tree, to avoid

Paul said to his Ephesian readers, discouraged because of his imprisonment, “My suffering is for your glory.” Why? Because that is how it works. Suffering and glory are closely linked. Suffering glorifies God to the universe and eventually even achieves a glory for us. And do you know why suffering and glory are so tied to each other? It is because of Jesus. Philippians 2 tells us Jesus laid aside his glory. Why? Charles Wesley’s famous Christmas carol tells you. Mild he lays his glory by; born that men no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give them second birth. Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it. He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach. And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast away from God. He took that so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great. A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond. And the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous. Jesus Christ suffered, not so that we would never suffer but so that when we suffer we would be like him. His suffering led to glory. And you can see it in Paul. Paul is happy to be in prison because “my sufferings are for your glory,” he says. He is like Jesus now. Because that is how Jesus did it. And if you know that that glory is coming, you can handle suffering, too.

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.

The Army of Eisenhower’s day valued understatement. With rare exceptions generals did not decorate themselves like Christmas trees. Action spoke for itself. Nothing did that more eloquently than the simple soldier’s funeral of the nation’s thirty-fourth president. On April 2, 1969, in Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower was laid to rest in the presence of his family. He was buried in a government-issue, eighty-dollar pine coffin, wearing his famous Ike jacket with no medals or decorations other than his insignia of rank.

It's just past eight and I'm feeling young and reckless. The ribbon on my wrist says "Do not open before Christmas." Only liars, but we're the best. Only good for the latest trends. Only good cuz you can have almost famous friends, besides we've got such good fashion sense.

Mentally subtract positive events. To take the hurt out of a regret, try a mental trick made famous in the 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life. On Christmas Eve, George Bailey stands on the brink of suicide when he’s visited by Clarence, an angel who shows George what life in Bedford Falls would be like had he never been born. Clarence’s technique is called “mentally subtracting positive events.

The now-famous yearly Candlebrow Conferences, like the institution itself, were subsidized out of the vast fortune of Mr. Gideon Candlebrow of Grossdale, Illinois, who had made his bundle back during the great Lard Scandal of the '80s, in which, before Congress put an end to the practice, countless adulterated tons of that comestible were exported to Great Britain, compromising further an already debased national cuisine, giving rise throughout the island, for example, to a Christmas-pudding controversy over which to this day families remain divided, often violently so. In the consequent scramble to develop more legal sources of profit, one of Mr. Candlebrow's laboratory hands happened to invent "Smegmo," an artificial substitute for everything in the edible-fat category, including margarine, which many felt wasn't that real to begin with. An eminent Rabbi of world hog capital Cincinnati, Ohio, was moved to declare the product kosher, adding that "the Hebrew people have been waiting four thousand years for this. Smegmo is the Messiah of kitchen fats." [...] Miles, locating the patriotically colored Smegmo crock among the salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, steak sauce, sugar and molasses, opened and sniffed quizzically at the contents. "Say, what is this stuff?" "Goes with everything!" advised a student at a nearby table. "Stir it in your soup, spread it on your bread, mash it into your turnips! My doormates comb their hair with it! There's a million uses for Smegmo!

Little did Dickens know when he finished A Christmas Carol after just six weeks of feverish writing that this brief story would become one of his most famous works. Though the story was successful as soon as it was published on December 19, 1843, Dickens bolstered its renown further by choosing to perform it aloud when he began touring in 1853. His name became synonymous with Christmas in England to the extent that, after his death in 1870, some feared the holiday would become culturally obsolete

Benny spent maybe thousands sending her to head-shrinkers. Even the famous one, the one can only speak German, boy, did he throw in the towel. You can’t talk her out of these”—he made a fist, as though to crush an intangible—“ideas. Try it sometime. Get her to tell you some of the stuff she believes. Mind you,” he said, “I like the kid. Everybody does, but there’s lots that don’t. I do. I sincerely like the kid. I’m sensitive, that’s why. You’ve got to be sensitive to appreciate her: a streak of the poet.

I knew damn well I’d never be a movie star. It’s too hard; and if you’re intelligent, it’s too embarrassing. My complexes aren’t inferior enough: being a movie star and having a big fat ego are supposed to go hand-in-hand; actually, it’s essential not to have any ego at all. I don’t mean I’d mind being rich and famous. That’s very much on my schedule, and someday I’ll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I’d like to have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany’s.

A reflection on Robert Lowell Robert Lowell knew I was not one of his devotees. I attended his famous “office hours” salon only a few times. Life Studies was not a book of central importance for me, though I respected it. I admired his writing, but not the way many of my Boston friends did. Among poets in his generation, poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Alan Dugan, and Allen Ginsberg meant more to me than Lowell’s. I think he probably sensed some of that. To his credit, Lowell nevertheless was generous to me (as he was to many other young poets) just the same. In that generosity, and a kind of open, omnivorous curiosity, he was different from my dear teacher at Stanford, Yvor Winters. Like Lowell, Winters attracted followers—but Lowell seemed almost dismayed or a little bewildered by imitators; Winters seemed to want disciples: “Wintersians,” they were called. A few years before I met Lowell, when I was still in California, I read his review of Winters’s Selected Poems. Lowell wrote that, for him, Winters’s poetry passed A. E. Housman’s test: he felt that if he recited it while he was shaving, he would cut himself. One thing Lowell and Winters shared, that I still revere in both of them, was a fiery devotion to the vocal essence of poetry: the work and interplay of sentences and lines, rhythm and pitch. The poetry in the sounds of the poetry, in a reader’s voice: neither page nor stage. Winters criticizing the violence of Lowell’s enjambments, or Lowell admiring a poem in pentameter for its “drill-sergeant quality”: they shared that way of thinking, not matters of opinion but the matter itself, passionately engaged in the art and its vocal—call it “technical”—materials. Lowell loved to talk about poetry and poems. His appetite for that kind of conversation seemed inexhaustible. It tended to be about historical poetry, mixed in with his contemporaries. When he asked you, what was Pope’s best work, it was as though he was talking about a living colleague . . . which in a way he was. He could be amusing about that same sort of thing. He described Julius Caesar’s entourage waiting in the street outside Cicero’s house while Caesar chatted up Cicero about writers. “They talked about poetry,” said Lowell in his peculiar drawl. “Caesar asked Cicero what he thought of Jim Dickey.” His considerable comic gift had to do with a humor of self and incongruity, rather than wit. More surreal than donnish. He had a memorable conversation with my daughter Caroline when she was six years old. A tall, bespectacled man with a fringe of long gray hair came into her living room, with a certain air. “You look like somebody famous,” she said to him, “but I can’t remember who.” “Do I?” “Yes . . . now I remember!— Benjamin Franklin.” “He was a terrible man, just awful.” “Or no, I don’t mean Benjamin Franklin. I mean you look like a Christmas ornament my friend Heather made out of Play-Doh, that looked like Benjamin Franklin.” That left Robert Lowell with nothing to do but repeat himself: “Well, he was a terrible man.” That silly conversation suggests the kind of social static or weirdness the man generated. It also happens to exemplify his peculiar largeness of mind . . . even, in a way, his engagement with the past. When he died, I realized that a large vacuum had appeared at the center of the world I knew.

The member of the Nazi hierarchy most gifted at solving problems of conscience was Himmler. He coined slogans, like the famous watchword of the S.S., taken from a Hitler speech before the S.S. in 1931, “My Honor is my Loyalty”—catch phrases which Eichmann called “winged words” and the judges “empty talk”—and issued them, as Eichmann recalled, “around the turn of the year,” presumably along with a Christmas bonus. Eichmann remembered only one of them and kept repeating it: “These are battles which future generations will not have to fight again,” alluding to the “battles” against women, children, old people, and other “useless mouths.” Other such phrases, taken from speeches Himmler made to the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen and the Higher S.S. and Police Leaders, were: “To have stuck it out and, apart from exceptions caused by human weakness, to have remained decent, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written.” Or: “The order to solve the Jewish question, this was the most frightening order an organization could ever receive.” Or: We realize that what we are expecting from you is “superhuman,” to be “superhumanly inhuman.” All one can say is that their expectations were not disappointed. It is noteworthy, however, that Himmler hardly ever attempted to justify in ideological terms, and if he did, it was apparently quickly forgotten. What stuck in the minds of these men who had become murderers was simply the notion of being involved in something historic, grandiose, unique (“a great task that occurs once in two thousand years”), which must therefore be difficult to bear. This was important, because the murderers were not sadists or killers by nature; on the contrary, a systematic effort was made to weed out all those who derived physical pleasure from what they did. The troops of the Einsatzgruppen had been drafted

Here was a temporary solution. Parole would get Mofokeng and Mokoena out of jail as quickly as possible. Other details could be sorted out later. I accompanied Nyambi to Kroonstad jail at the end of October and remember that as he told Mofokeng and Mokoena the news—that they would be home for Christmas—smiles slowly but surely transformed the sombre, cautious expressions on their faces. Big problem: it was discovered in December, a full two months after the judgment was made, that the court order does not mention the NCCS at all. Consequently, the NCCS interpreted the court's order as having removed the NCCS's jurisdiction to deal with any "lifers" sentenced pre-1994. The members of the NCCS packed their briefcases and went home. No one knows why the judgment didn't mention the NCCS; maybe the judge who wrote it, Justice Bess Nkabinde, simply didn't know how the parole system operates; but eight of her fellow judges, the best in the land, found with her. The Mofokeng and Mokoena families, who are from 'the poorest of the poor', as the ANC likes to say, are distraught. But the rest—the law men, the politicians and the government ministers—well, quite frankly, they don't seem to give a fig. Zuma has gone on holiday, to host his famous annual Christmas party for children. Mapisa-Nqakula has also gone on holiday. Mofokeng and Mokoena remain where they were put 17 years ago, despite not having committed any crime.

I reach out and squeeze her hand, and remember everything we’ve lived through together. The normal things we endured as we grew from girls to women. The days in school where boys would line us up in order of our fuckability. The parties where it was normal to lie on top of a semi-conscious girl, do things to her, then call her a slut afterwards. A Christmas number-one song about a pregnant woman being stuffed into the boot of a car and driven off a bridge. Laughing when your male friends made rape jokes. Opening a newspaper and seeing the breasts of a girl who had only just turned legal, dressed in school uniform to make her look underage. Of the childhood films we grew up on, and loved, and knew all the words to, where, at the end, a girl would always get chosen for looking the prettiest compared to all the others. Reading magazines that told you to mirror men’s body language, and hum on their dick when you went down on them, that turned into books about how to get them to commit by not being yourself. Of size zero, and Atkins, and Five-Two, and cabbage soup, and juice cleanses and eat clean. Of pole-dancing lessons as a great way to get fit, and actually, if you want to be really cool, come to the actual strip club too. Of being sexually assaulted when you kissed someone on a dance floor and not thinking about it properly until you are twenty-seven and read a book about how maybe it was wrong. Of being jealous of your friend who got assaulted on the dance floor because why didn’t he pick you to assault? Boys not wanting to be with you unless you fuck them quickly. Boys not wanting to be with you because you fucked them too quickly. Being terrified to walk anywhere in the dark in case the worst thing happens to you, and so your male friend walks you home to keep you safe, and then comes into your bedroom and does the worst thing to you, and now, when you look him up online, he’s engaged to a woman who wears a feminist T-shirt and isn’t going to change her name when they get married. Of learning to have no pubic hair, and how liberating it is to pay thirty-five pounds a month to rip this from your body and lurch up in agony. Rings around famous women’s bodies saying ‘look at this cellulite’, oh, by the way, here is a twenty-quid cream so you don’t get

IN THE SMALL Ohio town where I grew up, many homes had parlors that contained pianos, sideboards, and sofas, heavy objects signifying gentility. These pianos were rarely tuned. They went flat in summer around the Fourth of July and sharp in winter at Christmas. Ours was a Story and Clark. On its music stand were copies of Stephen Foster and Ethelbert Nevin favorites, along with one Chopin prelude that my mother would practice for twenty minutes every three years. She had no patience, but since she thought Ohio—all of it, every scrap—made sense, she was happy and did not need to practice anything. Happiness is not infectious, but somehow her happiness infected my father, a pharmacist, and then spread through the rest of the household. My whole family was obstinately cheerful. I think of my two sisters, my brother, and my parents as having artificial, pasted-on smiles, like circus clowns. They apparently thought cheer and good Christian words were universals, respected everywhere. The pianos were part of this cheer. They played for celebrations and moments of pleasant pain. Or rather, someone played them, but not too well, since excellent playing would have been faintly antisocial. “Chopin,” my mother said, shaking her head as she stumbled through the prelude. “Why is he famous?

So what’s your name?” the stranger asked. Tarrah pulled his shirt away from her head and held out her hand. “Tarrah. Tarrah Reid.” He slipped his hand into hers, his cheeks stiffening as he held back a smile. Tarrah sighed, knowing exactly what he was thinking. She was completely aware of the fact that she held the name of a famous Hollywood actress. The association actually helped with her “Christmas floozy” persona during the holidays, so she’d never really minded.

Lillian came to them, looking radiant in a dark red gown, her sable hair neatly confined in a snood made of jeweled netting. With her brilliant smile and relaxed friendliness, she was so engaging that Hannah understood why the famously dignified earl of Westcliff had married her.

And in the famous picture of the 1776 crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night, two men depicted at the front of the boat include Prince Whipple and Oliver Cromwell – two black patriots who served with George Washington and other American generals during the Revolution.

Most of the theaters in Jersey City and the surrounding area have been closed, demolished, renovated or restored, but nothing remained the same. The Stanley Theatre still stands in Journal Square, completely restored as a Jehovah’s Witnesses Assembly Hall. Originally built as a vaudeville and movie theater, having 4,300 seats, it opened on March 22, 1928 as the second largest theater in the United States. With only Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan across the Hudson River being larger, many celebrities attended the gala occasion. The well liked but notorious Mayor Hague was present to cut the ribbon. Famous and not-so-famous headline acts performed here, including the Three Stooges, Jimmy Durante, Tony Bennett and Janis Joplin. It was here at the Stanley Theatre that Frank Sinatra was inspired to become a professional performer. Being part of the audience, he watched Bing Crosby doing a Christmas performance. By the time the show was over, Sinatra had decided on the path he would follow. In 1933 Frank’s mother got him together with a group called the “Three Flashes.” They changed their name to the “Hoboken Four” and won first prize performing on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour show. Frank worked locally until June of 1939, when Harry James hired him for a one-year contract, paying only $75 a week. That December, Sinatra joined Tommy Dorsey’s band as a replacement vocalist for Jack Leonard, and the rest is history!

Still onto This Day, I Dawdle to Be Plagued With The Same Unfortunate Reoccurring Nightmare. In My Horrifying Dream, there is an Attractive Women With Piercing Blue Eyes And Light Brownish Hair, Sporting A Lengthy Red Dress With Extended Dark Black Heals Who Kills Me On Christmas Day. In My Dream I am Listening to A Christmas Song… “Jingle Bells” While Rambling Down a Dark Corridor Inside A Home. I am Shot in The Back of The Head And The Music Box Lingers Playing The Same Tune. I Can See Nothing but The Bottom of Her Mends, And Then All Becomes Ample Dark.

This is Shakespeare and Company, it's the most famous bookstore in the world." She pointed to the shelves that reached the ceiling. "Surely you have something on the feudal system or the court of the Sun King?" "All our books are in English, and there is not a great demand for works on the French aristocracy." "That's the problem with Americans, they're only interested in themselves," she sighed. "I learned about the Civil War every year from the fifth grade, but I never studied the Wars of the Roses.

Love is the nectar of life.

Josiah’s gaze narrowed in Santa’s direction. “How did he know our names?” “He must be from around here.” “I don’t live here.” He sounded more surprised than upset. “You’re one of Marietta’s most famous former residents. Most people know who you are.” Ellie touched the top of his hand to reassure him. “Or maybe he’s the real Santa, and you’ll find a special gift under the tree on Christmas morning.” “More like an identity theft notification,” Josiah joked.

The authors of the Bible got visions and revelations, but we get … just a book. And, along with it, communicators who are very human preachers, teachers, and messengers. This is a serious problem for a society like ours, which seems to have a culturewide attention deficit disorder. It is extraordinarily easy to not really hear the Word of God because it comes to us through such nonspectacular means. The Bible is a long book and is by no means a simple read. Preachers and teachers are famously flawed, and every time one of them stumbles, it seems to be a warrant for turning away from the whole Christian enterprise, Bible and all.

That Christmas, the now long-closed Parisian restaurant Voisin famously advertised one of the dishes on its festive menu: ‘cat flanked by rats.’ The same menu also had elephant and kangaroo on offer as the starving city pillaged its zoos.

Call me old-fashioned," he said, shaking his head. "But to me it isn't really Christmas without visions of sugarplums dancing through your head." Sally startled. "What did you just say?" she asked, her voice a little hoarse. Visions, sugarplums, dancing! How did he know? "Oh. It's from a famous Christmas poem," the man explained. "Surely you've heard of it.

That is just famous.” Westhaven scowled at the empty basket of rolls, wanting nothing so much as to summon Sindal back into the room—but for what? “Yes,” Valentine said, though his expression was more puzzled than thunderous. “If Sophie and Sindal were in separate bedrooms several doors apart, how does he know she was getting up and down all night with the child? I slept in one of those bedrooms for years and never heard Sophie stirring around at night.” St. Just smiled a little crookedly. “Because you sleep like the dead and snore accordingly.

In my head, I’m composing a new piece of music.” Vim turned to see Lord Val riding along beside him. “It will be called, ‘Lament for a Promising Young Composer Who Died of a Frozen Bum-Fiddle.’ I’ll do something creative with the violins and double basses—a bit of humor for my final work. It will be published posthumously, of course, and bring me rave reviews from all my critics. ‘A tragic loss,’ they’ll all say. It could bring frozen bum-fiddles into fashion.” “You haven’t any critics.” St. Just spoke over his shoulder, having abdicated the lead position to his sister. “Ellen won’t allow it, more’s the pity.” “My wife is ever wise—” “Oh, famous.” Westhaven’s muttered imprecation interrupted his idiot younger brother. Lord Val leaned over toward Vim. “There’s another word, a word that alliterates with famous, that his-lordship-my-brother-the-heir has eschewed since becoming a father. Famous is his attempt at compromise.” “I’ll say it, then.” St. Just sighed as another flurry drifted down from the sky. “Fuck. It’s going to snow again. Beg sincere pardon for my language, Sophie.” She

And now he’d hurt her feelings, which was just… famous, as Westhaven would have said. Bloody, famously famous. “Sophie.” He reached over and covered her hand with his own for just a moment. Her brothers were allowing them some privacy by dropping back a few dozen yards, probably because the entire party was in full view of the house. “I will treasure the memories I already have of this holiday season for all the rest of my days.” She urged her horse to a slightly faster walk, which meant Vim had to drop his hand or look as ridiculous as he felt.

William pondered what his next discovery might be. He knew that readers were vexed by the possibility that their Bard might have been Catholic. There is, after all, that suspicious reference to Purgatory by the ghost of Hamlet’s father. In an era when anti-Catholic legislation was favorably viewed by many, such papist skullduggery was improper in a national literary hero. And so, on Christmas Day of 1794, William presented his nation with a fine gift—Shakespeare’s Profession of Faith, in which he disowns any Catholic sympathies. His father was awed by the import of this, so much so that he could no longer keep the discoveries secret. All holiday frivolity was to be set aside now. —

St. Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee” (Confessions 1.1.1). Augustine believed that even when you seem to be enjoying something else, God is the actual source of your joy. The thing you love is from him and is lovely because it bears his signature. All joy is really found in God, and anything you do enjoy is derivative, because what you are really looking for is him, whether you know it or not. THE

Do you always wear your guns?” I asked. “Mostly. You never know what will happen.” “You might have to run down a bank robber or cattle rustler?” He grinned. “Something like that.” I’d read a story once about Pearl Hart, the famous lady stagecoach robber. How would it feel to wear the heavy pistols slung low on the hips? “May I try it on?” “My gun belt?” I nodded, Christmas morning excitement bursting through me. “Well, I guess it’d be all right.” He unbuckled his belt and handed it to me. “Be careful, though.” More weight than I expected filled my hands, but not more than I could handle. A lifetime of wielding cast-iron pots and pans made a girl’s arms strong. I strapped the belt around my waist, undecided as to whether I imagined myself a bandit or a law enforcer.

The New Testament varies widely as well, with the Gospel writers understanding Jesus’ death as a Passover sacrifice and the author of Hebrews considering it a Yom Kippur sacrifice. Mixing those two is a bit like putting a Christmas tree up on Easter, which is basically what Paul does in his various letters.

That precious Christmas memory and now-famous morsel of family lore, however, led me to a number of profound conclusions: There was no Santa. The reason behind my aunt’s itchy stocking was not that it was made of polyester. Joe Reynolds was bound to have a good year after a string of bad ones. Nixon indeed needed all the help he could get. And no family holiday—no holiday, period—is ever as perfect as we dream it will be. I should know. My family always had the best of intentions with our holiday celebrations

In the Victorian times there was much demand for Christmas books, which would make an ideal gift, as well provide amusing entertainment over the holiday period. Without a doubt the most famous of these is Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, but he was by no means the only popular writer of such books. Published in 1847, Thackeray’s first Christmas book, Mrs Perkins’s Ball, is a humorous portrait of a seasonal social gathering, with a broad panorama of guests, from the hilarious sot Mulligan to the prissy middle-class characters he upsets. However, it is Thackeray’s ability as an illustrator that is the most impressive in this novella.

When they’d filled the peppers and they were laid out in nice, neat, bacon-wrapped lines, she slid them into the oven. Then they went into the sitting room. David sat down next to Leah on the settee. “Now, we can’t fall asleep, waiting for them to finish cooking,” he said. Famous. Last. Words. They chatted for a moment about how melted cheese was probably the best invention on the planet, but it descended into quiet as their lids dropped and she wondered why she couldn’t think of anything more insightful to say. It had felt like only seconds that she rested her eyes, but Leah and David jumped to a start, the fire alarm beeping in the kitchen. The both looked at each other, their eyes big with surprise. “Oh no!” he laughed. They ran into the kitchen, David throwing on one of Nan’s oven mitts and yanking the smoking, sizzling peppers out of the oven. Leah opened the windows and the back door, but it seemed to let more cold air in than smoke out. She fanned the air, while David took the peppers outside and set them on the brick walkway. As they both stood in the freezing kitchen, the smoke billowing around the ceiling, they broke into laughter. “Maybe we should’ve just had the marshmallows,” he said. Leah rolled under the duvet to view the time, the gray morning barely giving her enough light to focus. It was still early—six o’clock. She closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow, the feel of the linens so familiar and comfortable that, at first, she’d almost forgotten about her troubles. This was the bed she’d slept in when she needed the security of family, and a retreat to ease her mind.

The following two chapters are taken from Dickens’ first novel The Pickwick Papers, concerning the Pickwickians famous visit to Dingley Dell to celebrate Christmas with their friend Mr. Wardle and to attend his daughter’s wedding. The second chapter includes the seasonal story Mr. Wardle tells the company on Christmas Eve. The tale of Gabriel Grub and the goblins is a clear precursor of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, which would be published several years later.

So what precisely is it that we don’t understand about consciousness? Few have thought harder about this question than David Chalmers, a famous Australian philosopher rarely seen without a playful smile and a black leather jacket—which my wife liked so much that she gave me a similar one for Christmas. He followed his heart into philosophy despite making the finals at the International Mathematics Olympiad—and despite the fact that his only B grade in college, shattering his otherwise straight As, was for an introductory philosophy course. Indeed, he seems utterly undeterred by put-downs or controversy, and I’ve been astonished by his ability to politely listen to uninformed and misguided criticism of his own work without even feeling the need to respond.

I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me; I'd like to be the help that you've been always glad to be; I'd like to mean as much to you each minute of the day As you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way. I'd like to do the big things and the splendid things for you, To brush the gray out of your skies and leave them only blue; I'd like to say the kindly things that I so oft have heard, And feel that I could rouse your soul the way that mine you've stirred. I'd like to give back the joy that you have given me, Yet that were wishing you a need I hope will never be; I'd like to make you feel as rich as I, who travel on Undaunted in the darkest hours with you to lean upon. I'm wishing at this Christmas time that I could but repay A portion of the gladness that you've strewn along the way; And could I have one wish this year, this only would it be: I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me.

Ah. Methylsulphonymethane. People around here use it for damn near everything. It’s famous for cell repair. I guess Doc’s right—you’re in good hands.

Gabby fell in love with the Christmassy decorations in New York City. She had always loved the winter and the snow but celebrating this season in the big city provided her with endless reasons for joy. She had never seen so many elegant decorations on every public or private building before. Gabby likes all the wreaths on the front doors; and she enjoys observing the colorfully decorated Christmas trees set up in the front windows of houses and apartments. Emma and Gabby attended the famous ceremony, the lighting of the huge Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. The atmosphere was exhilarating." Part IV, Chapter 4, Holidays

We need light for joy. God is the source of all beauty and joy. St. Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee” (Confessions 1.1.1). Augustine believed that even when you seem to be enjoying something else, God is the actual source of your joy. The thing you love is from him and is lovely because it bears his signature. All joy is really found in God, and anything you do enjoy is derivative, because what you are really looking for is him, whether you know it or

against the backdrop of his famous ghost story. Christmas and ghosts have a long association, and one that may have its roots in Britain rather than the Continent. Families and friends would gather around the fire on Christmas Eve after tiring of charades and other games and start the serious business of the evening: telling creepy stories as gaslights cast long shadows in a dark room.

In the bedroom, I shoved clothing into the bags. Why was I “famous”? What had Michael said about me? Why had he said much at all when he’d stopped actually speaking to me?

Yes, Christmas is famous for sexual exploration.” “It’s in all the best carols. You know ‘We Three Kings’ is about a hot poly hookup.

For two successive days, while perched up in the rigging, covered with tar and engaged in our disagreeable work, we saw these fellows going ashore in the morning, and coming off again at night, in high spirits. So much for being Protestants. There’s no danger of Catholicism’s spreading in New England; Yankees can’t afford the time to be Catholics. American shipmasters get nearly three weeks more labor out of their crews, in the course of a year, than the masters of vessels from Catholic countries. Yankees don’t keep Christmas, and shipmasters at sea never know when Thanksgiving comes, so Jack has no festival at all. About

I have clients that feel like family, I make far more money than I've got a right to, considering the workload, and I have amazing benefits. What could be bad?" "I suppose I meant if you are satisfied creatively." I'd never really thought about that. The Farbers give me free rein, but they have a repertoire of my dishes that they love and want to have regularly in the rotation, and everything has to be kid friendly; even if we are talking about kids with precocious tastes, they are still kids. Lawrence is easy: breakfasts, lunches, and healthy snacks for his days; he eats most dinners out with friends, or stays home with red wine and popcorn, swearing that Olivia Pope stole the idea from him. And I'm also in charge of home-cooked meals for Philippe and Liagre, his corgis, who like ground chicken and rice with carrots, and home-baked peanut butter dog biscuits. Simca was a gift from him, four years ago. She was a post-Christmas rescue puppy, one of those gifts that a family was unprepared for, who got left at a local shelter where Lawrence volunteers. He couldn't resist her, but knew that Philippe and Liagre barely tolerate each other, and he couldn't imagine bringing a female of any species into their manly abode. Luckiest thing that ever happened to me, frankly. She's the best pup ever. I named her Simca because it was Julia Child's nickname for her coauthor Simone Beck. She is, as the other Eloise, my own namesake, would say, my mostly companion. Lawrence's dinner parties are fun to do- he always has a cool group of interesting people, occasionally famous ones- but he is pretty old-school, so there isn't a ton of creativity in those menus, lots of chateaubriand and poached salmon with the usual canapés and accompaniments.

memories is of my fifth Christmas. My best friend Blip and I had asked for CD players, so we could rock out on the jams of the very famous

Curiously, we are the rare animal that actually likes the bitter taste of radicchio or black tea. I fear, however, that Americans raised on sugary things are losing the taste for things savory, sour, and bitter. It’s pitiful that commercial salad dressings contain sugar, and even sweet corn hybrids are much sweeter than when I was little. We’re not alone. In Britain, plant scientists are breeding sweeter hybrids of the brussels sprout, famous for its dour presence at Christmas lunch, but the more palatable sprouts may lack the healthy, bitter compounds.

God is the source of all beauty and joy. St. Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee” (Confessions 1.1.1). Augustine believed that even when you seem to be enjoying something else, God is the actual source of your joy. The thing you love is from him and is lovely because it bears his signature. All joy is really found in God, and anything you do enjoy is derivative, because what you are really looking for is him, whether you know it or not.

I haven't noticed that horror gets any less respect than most fictional genres. Many of the most notable classics (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe) are horror. Even Dickens' A Christmas Carol, one of the most famous and most celebrated stories of all time is, at its core, a horror story with all of its ghosts, hauntings, and macabre imagery. So horror, from my experience, gets its fair share of respect.

It’s a book. Iz would give me a book. I trace the aged leather, the letters pressed into the weathered cover. Montage of a Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes. I flip open the front cover, and my blood stands still in my veins when I note the date—1951—and the famous poet’s autograph. A signed first edition. I turn to the spot slotted by an index card, a crisp contrast to the worn, fragile pages. The poem is “Harlem,” and the familiar refrain asking what happens to a dream deferred stings tears in my eyes. I can’t ever read this poem without remembering the day my cousin died in the front yard. There are some moments in life that will always haunt us, no matter how many joys follow, and that day is one of those. I’ll never forget reciting this poem in my bedroom closet to keep Jade calm while one of her brothers shot the other. Iz couldn’t know its personal significance to me, but as I read the card, I understand why he chose it. GRIP, Our brothers live so long with dreams deferred, they forget how to imagine another life. For many of them, all they know is frustration, then rage, and for too many, the violence of finally exploding. You symbolize hope, and I know you take that responsibility seriously. I hope you know I believe that, and that nothing I’ve said led you to think otherwise. Bristol’s right—our biases are our weaknesses. Few are as patient as she is to give people time to become wiser. Thank her for me, for giving me time and for encouraging you to work with me. Together, I think we will restore the dreams of many. Merry Christmas, Iz

Charles Dickens was born in England in 1812. He is one of the most famous writers of all time.

But politics has no space in Rob’s mind right now or ever. Neither do his migrant roots nor does the Philippines, with which his parents maintain a sentimental bond and to which, while he was growing up, they tried to endear him, speaking to him in a mix of Tagalog and Bicolano, of which he remembers not a word, except Mabuhay and magayon, salamat, too, and taking him as often as they could on vacations to famous Philippine beaches, fiestas, and other sites, including Christmas in Manila.

One of the reasons Kay laughs so much now is because in the beginning, when Phil was drinking and they didn’t have much money, there wasn’t a lot of laughing going on. But now we laugh at almost everything together. On our birthdays, Kay likes to send us very random cards, like Earth Day or graduation cards. Her favorite thing to do at Christmas is to give us gag gifts. After we’ve exchanged gifts as a family, she’ll give everybody a joke gift. Kay will often forget why she thought it was funny when she bought it. She’ll give someone salt and pepper shakers and won’t even remember why she gave them! Of course, Kay’s gift always say they’re from her dogs. If you get a present from her rat terriers-or some random famous person whose name is on the tag-you know it’s actually one of Kay’s gag gifts. Every one of Kay’s rat terriers has been named Jesse James or some version of his name, because if one dies she’ll still have another one with her. Somehow, that helps her cope with the trauma of losing one of her pets. She’s had like twenty of those dogs and they’ve all been named Jesse, JJ, or Jesse James II. She calls one of her dogs Bo-Bo, but his real name is Jesse James.

I love painting a wall where the scene is continuous and free-flowing. Art feels like it should be bigger than me and painting a huge wall gives me that. I know I may never be famous and may never put food on the table with my art, but I’m okay with that.

angry with her. He had been the owner of the best broom in the world for a few short hours, and now, because of her interference, he didn’t know whether he would ever see it again. He was positive that there was nothing wrong with the Firebolt now, but what sort of state would it be in once it had been subjected to all sorts of anti-jinx tests? Ron was furious with Hermione too. As far as he was concerned, the stripping-down of a brand-new Firebolt was nothing less than criminal damage. Hermione, who remained convinced that she had acted for the best, started avoiding the common room. Harry and Ron supposed she had taken refuge in the library and didn’t try to persuade her to come back. All in all, they were glad when the rest of the school returned shortly after New Year, and Gryffindor Tower became crowded and noisy again. Wood sought Harry out on the night before term started. “Had a good Christmas?” he said, and then, without waiting for an answer, he sat down, lowered his voice, and said, “I’ve been doing some thinking over Christmas, Harry. After the last match, you know. If the dementors come to the next one . . . I mean . . . we can’t afford you to — well —” Wood broke off, looking awkward. “I’m working on it,” said Harry quickly. “Professor Lupin said he’d train me to ward off the dementors. We should be starting this week. He said he’d have time after Christmas.” “Ah,” said Wood, his expression clearing. “Well, in that case — I really didn’t want to lose you as Seeker, Harry. And have you ordered a new broom yet?” “No,” said Harry. “What! You’d better get a move on, you know — you can’t ride that Shooting Star against Ravenclaw!” “He got a Firebolt for Christmas,” said Ron. “A Firebolt? No! Seriously? A — a real Firebolt?” “Don’t get excited, Oliver,” said Harry gloomily. “I haven’t got it anymore. It was confiscated.” And he explained all about how the Firebolt was now being checked for jinxes. “Jinxed? How could it be jinxed?” “Sirius Black,” Harry said wearily. “He’s supposed to be after me. So McGonagall reckons he might have sent it.” Waving aside the information that a famous murderer was after his Seeker, Wood said, “But Black couldn’t have bought a Firebolt! He’s on the run! The whole country’s on the lookout for him! How could he just walk into Quality Quidditch Supplies and buy a broomstick?” “I know,” said Harry, “but McGonagall still wants to strip it down —” Wood went pale.

I was sneakin' down the stairs on Christmas Eve, Heard a jingle, thought I couldn't believe. There was Santa in my living room, Dancin' with my wife, under the mistletoe bloom. (Chorus) Oh, Santa, Santa, what are you doin' here? Dancin' with my wife, spreading Christmas cheer. Santa, Santa, you better think twice, Before you end up on the naughty list tonight. (Verse 2) He had his red suit on, boots so shiny bright, Twirl'd her 'round the tree, in the twinkling light. I stood there in shock, couldn't believe my eyes, Santa Claus was stealin' my wife, oh what a surprise! (Chorus) Oh, Santa, Santa, what are you doin' here? Dancin' with my wife, spreading Christmas cheer. Santa, Santa, you better think twice, Before you end up on the naughty list tonight. (Bridge) He winked at me and said, "Don't you worry, man, I'm just here to spread joy, it's part of the plan." But I grabbed my phone, took a quick snap, Now Santa's famous for his holiday mishap. (Chorus) Oh, Santa, Santa, what are you doin' here? Dancin' with my wife, spreading Christmas cheer. Santa, Santa, you better think twice, Before you end up on the naughty list tonight. (Outro) So if you see Santa, dancin' with your spouse, Just remember he's spreading joy, all through the house. But keep an eye out, and hold your loved ones tight,

Christmas