Protestant Christmas Quotes

Instead of protesting and cursing others because they write "X-Mas" instead of "Christmas"; try being Christmas. Live Christmas. Breathe Christmas. Act Christmas. Speak Christmas. Reflect Christmas. Listen and feel Christmas Christ doesn't care how you write Christmas; he cares how you live Christmas all year long.

My magic is not evil. It is a powerful force for good," Levet protested, his wings twitching with outrage. Really some demons. "I am like Batman. Only cuter.

If one doesn't do something well, it shouldn't be done." "I don't agree," she protested. "Sometimes the effort should be made even if the results aren't perfect.

Don’t come near me with those,” Annabelle said firmly. She shook her head with a grin, watching as Evie solemnly held up her own arms for Lillian to cut holes beneath her sleeves. This was one of the things she most adored about Evie, who was shy and proper, but often willing to join in some wildly impractical plan or adventure. “Have you both lost your minds?” Annabelle asked, laughing. “Oh, what a bad influence she is on you, Evie.” “She’s married to St. Vincent, who is the worst possible influence,” Lillian protested. “How much damage could I do after that?

Harry dreamed he was back in the DA room. Cho was accusing him of luring her there under false pretences; she said he had promised her a hundred and fifty Chocolate Frog Cards if she showed up. Harry protested... Cho shouted, 'Cedric gave me loads of Chocolate Frog Cards, look!' And pulled out fistfuls of Cards from inside her robes and threw them into the air. Then she turned into Hermione, who said, 'You did promise her, you know, Harry... I think you'd better give her something else instead... how about your Firebolt?' And Harry was protesting that he could not give Cho his Firebolt, because Umbridge had it, and anyway the whole thing was ridiculous, he'd only come to the DA room to put up some Christmas baubles shaped like Dobby's head...

That which interests most people leaves me without any interest at all. This includes a list of things such as: social dancing, riding roller coasters, going to zoos, picnics, movies, planetariums, watching tv, baseball games; going to funerals, weddings, parties, basketball games, auto races, poetry readings, museums, rallies, demonstrations, protests, children’s plays, adult plays … I am not interested in beaches, swimming, skiing, Christmas, New Year’s, the 4th of July, rock music, world history, space exploration, pet dogs, soccer, cathedrals and great works of Art. How can a man who is interested in almost nothing write about anything? Well, I do. I write and I write about what’s left over: a stray dog walking down the street, a wife murdering her husband, the thoughts and feelings of a rapist as he bites into a hamburger sandwich; life in the factory, life in the streets and rooms of the poor and mutilated and the insane, crap like that, I write a lot of crap like that

Bring me some condoms when you're done hiding," Noel calls out. "For Holly's Countdown-to-Dickmas Calendar." "It's not…" I protest meekly. "I can't believe Santa brings you anything with that mouth.

Oooh, and I should check if Fletch is around.” “Fletch?” “Kyle Fletcher, but I call him Fletch,” she says absently. “Ex-boyfriend.” My head swivels toward her. “You’re making plans with your ex-boyfriend?” “Retract those claws, missy. Fletch is still a good friend of mine.” I can’t fight my curiosity. “How long were you together?” “Three years.” I whistle softly. “And then three and a half more with Sean…You’re a nester, huh?” “No, I’m not,” she protests. “Babe, that’s almost seven years of your life spent in a serious relationship. And you’re only twenty-two.” “Twenty-one. I’m a Christmas baby.” “For real? Your birthday’s the twenty-fifth?” “The twenty-fourth. I guess that makes me a Christmas Eve baby. Sorry.” “You better be sorry. How dare you mislead me like that?

That day being Christmas Day, Ned Land seemed to regret sorely the non-celebration of "Christmas," the family fete of which Protestants are so fond.

In his trip to Bethlehem Mark Twain had reported that all sects of Christians, except Protestants, had chapels under the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, he also observed that one group dared not trespass on the other’s territory, proving beyond doubt, he noted, that even the grave of the Savior couldn’t inspire peaceful worship among different beliefs.

it’s real . . . if it’s real, it’s worth its weight in gold, you understand? You would have to guard it with your life.’ ‘It’s a book,’ protested Mirren. ‘Books change the world,’ said the old man,

Bacon would not be a choice if the pig had any say in the matter. A lamb, given the gift of speech, would most probably say "no" if you asked if you could eat her leg. Fish would no doubt choose to stay in the water, if they could and I feel pretty sure turkeys must object once their Christmas fête (or should that be fate?) is made clear to them. Chickens are surely protesting from having their eggs systematically stolen and freedoms restricted, and both cows and their calves would be up in arms, if they had any, with the theft of their milk and violent separation. Given the chance, bees will attack and defend ferociously, even sacrificing themselves in the process, in order to protect their precious honey; a sure sign they do not part with it voluntarily.

He described the theme in this way: “It’s a Wonderful Life sums up my philosophy of film making. First, to exalt the worth of the individual. Second, to champion man—plead his causes, protest any degradation of his dignity, spirit, or divinity. And third, to dramatize the viability of the individual—as in the theme of the film itself . . .There is a radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look.”5 Nearly seventy years after The Greatest Gift was written

He cut off her protest with his mouth. When he was certain she would no longer object, he moved his lips from her mouth to her breast. They were so full and fit perfectly in his hands. She cried out when his tongue flicked her sensitive nipple so he did it again and again. Her response was driving him wild. His plan had been to take his time and wait for her to come to him. But the moment she'd said his name, he was lost. Couldn't control himself. She was his. Nobody else's. With that thought on his brain he let himself go. Frantically, he slammed into her and she met every thrust head-on, grinding into him as he came.

For what, in actual practice, should the critical, mature modernist Christian do when, for instance, he gathers his children around him to celebrate Christmas? Should he read Luke's Christmas Gospel and sing the Christmas carols as if they were true, even though he believes them to be crude and primitive theology? After all, the rest of his society has no scruples about doing this, the pagans and the department stores. Or if this seems too cynical, too dishonest, ought he rather, in the manner of early socialist Sunday schools, to devise a passionately rationalist catechesis, swap German for German, chant a passage from Bultmann instead of 'Joy to the World!'; ought he rather to gather his little ones about the Crib, light the candles, and read Raymond Brown instead of St. Luke on the virginal conception of Jesus: 'My judgment in conclusion is that the totality of the scientifically controllable evidence leaves an unresolved problem.' How their eyes will shine, how their little hearts will burn within them as they hear these holy words! How touched they will all be as the littlest child reverently places a shining question mark in the empty manger. And how they will rejoice when they find their stockings, which they have hung up to a Protestant parody of a Catholic bishop, stuffed with subscriptions to 'Concilium,' 'Catholic Update,' 'National Catholic Reporter,' and 'The Tablet.

He ducked down under the wooden slats used to separate the stalls in the barn and crawled into the adjacent stall where he began rubbing the belly of the chestnut mare. "Lay down, Lady. Please . . . it's awful cold tonight. Please lay down." The mare complied as she always did to the soothing tone in his voice. Drawing the blanket up tightly around him, he lay down beside the horse, moving in close to her side. He was careful to place his frozen feet near enough to her for warmth, but not so near that she'd protest. "They had a real purty tree, Lady, with candles. Bet it didn't look as purty from the inside, though. Weren't no snow on the inside." He snuggled in closer to the warm beast. "Merry Christmas, Lady," he whispered. The mare nickered and moved her head in closer to the boy as he drifted off to sleep, the scent of hay and livestock surrounding them.

They're installing a boiler system," Pandora said, flipping through a book. "It's a set of two large copper cylinders filled with water pipes that are heated by gas burners. One never has to wait for the hot water- it comes at once through expansion pipes attached to the top of the boiler." "Pandora," Kathleen asked suspiciously, "how do you know all that?" "The master plumber explained it to me." "Dear," Helen said gently, "it's not seemly for you to converse with a man when you haven't been introduced. Especially a laborer in our home." "But Helen, he's old. He looks like Father Christmas." "Age has nothing to do with it," Kathleen said crisply. "Pandora, you promised to abide by the rules." "I do," Pandora protested, looking chagrined. "I follow all the rules that I can remember." "How is it that you remember the details of a plumbing system but not basic etiquette?" "Because plumbing is more interesting.

Nikhilananda’s birthday. Maybe we’d Morris dance, naked, around the base of an old-growth California redwood, its branches lavishly festooned with the soiled hammocks and poop buckets of crunchy-granola tree sitters mentoring spotted owls in passive-resistance protest techniques. You get the picture. In place of Santa Claus, my mom and dad said Maya Angelou kept tabs on whether little children were naughty or nice. Dr. Angelou, they warned me, did her accounting on a long hemp scroll of names, and if I failed to turn my compost I’d be sent to bed with no algae. Me, I just wanted to know that someone wise and carbon neutral—Dr. Maya or Shirley Chisholm or Sean Penn—was paying attention. But none of that was really Christmas. And none of that Earth First! baloney helps out once you’re dead and you discover that the snake-handling,

When Camilla and her husband joined Prince Charles on a holiday in Turkey shortly before his polo accident, she didn’t complain just as she bore, through gritted teeth, Camilla’s regular invitations to Balmoral and Sandringham. When Charles flew to Italy last year on a sketching holiday, Diana’s friends noted that Camilla was staying at another villa a short drive away. On her return Mrs Parker-Bowles made it quite clear that any suggestion of impropriety was absurd. Her protestations of innocence brought a tight smile from the Princess. That changed to scarcely controlled anger during their summer holiday on board a Greek tycoon’s yacht. She quietly simmered as she heard her husband holding forth to dinner-party guests about the virtues of mistresses. Her mood was scarcely helped when, later that evening, she heard him chatting on the telephone to Camilla. They meet socially on occasion but, there is no love lost between these two women locked into an eternal triangle of rivalry. Diana calls her rival “the rotweiller” while Camilla refers to the Princess as that “ridiculous creature”. At social engagements they are at pains to avoid each other. Diana has developed a technique in public of locating Camilla as quickly as possible and then, depending on her mood, she watches Charles when he looks in her direction or simply evades her gaze. “It is a morbid game,” says a friend. Days before the Salisbury Cathedral spire appeal concert Diana knew that Camilla was going. She vented her frustration in conversations with friends so that on the day of the event the Princess was able to watch the eye contact between her husband and Camilla with quiet amusement. Last December all those years of pent-up emotion came flooding out at a memorial service for Leonora Knatchbull, the six-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Romsey, who tragically died of cancer. As Diana left the service, held at St James’s Palace, she was photographed in tears. She was weeping in sorrow but also in anger. Diana was upset that Camilla Parker Bowles who had only known the Romseys for a short time was also present at such an intimate family service. It was a point she made vigorously to her husband as they travelled back to Kensington Palace in their chauffeur-driven limousine. When they arrived at Kensington Palace the Princess felt so distressed that she ignored the staff Christmas party, which was then in full swing, and went to her sitting-room to recover her composure. Diplomatically, Peter Westmacott, the Wales’s deputy private secretary, sent her avuncular detective Ken Wharfe to help calm her.

Ranulf stared blankly into the campfire, trying to ignore Lily. "White horses always look dirty," Lily told the young smitten soldier sitting beside her. "That's why I refuse to ride them.Brown ones may be just as filthy,but at least I cannot see the dirt. Black ones less so,but I have found that in general dark horses suit me better." "You just think you look better on them," Edythe protested before succumbing to several seconds of coughing. Bronwyn studied her redheaded sister for a moment.Tyr put another blanket around Edythe's shoulders and eventually the coughs quieted. Turning her attention to Ranulf,Bronwyn promised him softly, "You'll have to ignore them." Ranulf grimaced and sent a reproving look to his youngest sister-in-law. It,just like the others he had sent Lily throughout the day,changed nothing. "I just find it hard to reconcile the child I hear now with the woman who appeared after your death. With you gone,she had to grow up.Now that you are back..." Bronwyn snuggled up against his side with a sigh. "I admit I encourage it.Life will force Lily to grow up soon enough and I am glad it was not my death that thrust it upon her. In the meantime,you ignore her prattle and I'll just be amused it," she advised before planting a gentle kiss on his arm. Ranulf,with his free hand, raked his fingers through his short hair. How had he gotten into this predicament? But it took only one look at the huddled form next to him to remember exactly how. Bronwyn. He had wanted to make her happy. After thinking her lost to him forever, he would have promised her anything, even the moon.

Here you go,” Ryder says, startling me. He holds out a sweating bottle of water, and I take it gratefully, pressing it against my neck. “Thanks.” I glance away, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave me in peace. His presence makes me self-conscious now, but it wasn’t always like this. As I look out at Magnolia Landing’s grounds, I can’t help but remember hot summer days when Ryder and I ran through sprinklers and ate Popsicles out on the lawn, when we rode our bikes up and down the long drive, when we built a tree fort in the largest of the oaks behind the house. I wouldn’t say we’d been friends when we were kids--not exactly. We had been more like siblings. We played; we fought. Mostly, we didn’t think too much about our relationship--we didn’t try to define it. And then adolescence hit. Just like that, everything was awkward and uncomfortable between us. By the time middle school began, I was all too aware that he wasn’t my brother, or even my cousin. “Mind if I sit?” Ryder asks. I shrug. “It’s your house.” I keep my gaze trained straight ahead, refusing to look in his direction as he lowers himself into the chair beside me. After a minute or two of silence but for the creaking rockers, he sighs loudly. “Can we call a truce now?” “You’re the one who started it,” I snap. “Last night, I mean.” “Look, I’ve been thinking about what you said. You know, about eighth grade--” “Do we have to talk about this?” “Because we didn’t really hang out in middle school, except for family stuff,” he continues, ignoring my protest. “Until the end of eighth grade, maybe. Right around graduation.” My entire body goes rigid, my face flushing hotly with the memory. It had all started during Christmas break that year. We’d gone to the beach with the Marsdens. I can’t really explain it, but there’d been a new awareness between us that week--exchanged glances and lingering looks, an electrical current connecting us in some way. The two of us sort of tiptoed around each other, afraid to get too close, but also afraid to lose that hint of…something. And then Ryder asked me to go with him to the graduation dance. There was no way we were telling our parents.

To those who have looked at Rome with the quickening power of a knowledge which breathes a growing soul into all historic shapes, and traces out the suppressed transitions which unite all contrasts, Rome may still be the spiritual centre and interpreter of the world. But let them conceive one more historical contrast: the gigantic broken revelations of that Imperial and Papal city thrust abruptly on the notions of a girl who had been brought up in English and Swiss Puritanism, fed on meagre Protestant histories and on art chiefly of the hand-screen sort; a girl whose ardent nature turned all her small allowance of knowledge into principles, fusing her actions into their mould, and whose quick emotions gave the most abstract things the quality of a pleasure or a pain; a girl who had lately become a wife, and from the enthusiastic acceptance of untried duty found herself plunged in tumultuous preoccupation with her personal lot. The weight of unintelligible Rome might lie easily on bright nymphs to whom it formed a background for the brilliant picnic of Anglo-foreign society; but Dorothea had no such defence against deep impressions. Ruins and basilicas, palaces and colossi, set in the midst of a sordid present, where all that was living and warm-blooded seemed sunk in the deep degeneracy of a superstition divorced from reverence; the dimmer but yet eager Titanic life gazing and struggling on walls and ceilings; the long vistas of white forms whose marble eyes seemed to hold the monotonous light of an alien world: all this vast wreck of ambitious ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixed confusedly with the signs of breathing forgetfulness and degradation, at first jarred her as with an electric shock, and then urged themselves on her with that ache belonging to a glut of confused ideas which check the flow of emotion. Forms both pale and glowing took possession of her young sense, and fixed themselves in her memory even when she was not thinking of them, preparing strange associations which remained through her after-years. Our moods are apt to bring with them images which succeed each other like the magic-lantern pictures of a doze; and in certain states of dull forlornness Dorothea all her life continued to see the vastness of St. Peter's, the huge bronze canopy, the excited intention in the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in the mosaics above, and the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. Not that this inward amazement of Dorothea's was anything very exceptional: many souls in their young nudity are tumbled out among incongruities and left to "find their feet" among them, while their elders go about their business. Nor can I suppose that when Mrs. Casaubon is discovered in a fit of weeping six weeks after her wedding, the situation will be regarded as tragic. Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

Have to say, this is the best Christmas ever", he sais softly. "Wait, that´s my line", she protested. "And how can yoy say that? I didn´t get you anything" He shook his head solemnly. "All I wanted is right here in my arms. You smiling and looking at me like I just handed you the world. There´ll never be a better present than that, baby.

You all might want to look in the crate that was delivered from Winterborne’s this morning,” he said. “I’m sure it contains some Christmas finery.” All movement and sound in the hall was instantly extinguished as everyone looked at him. “What crate?” Kathleen demanded. “Why did you keep it a secret until now?” West gave her a speaking glance and pointed to the corner, where a massive wooden crate had been set. “It’s hardly been a secret--it’s been there for hours. I’ve been too busy with this blasted tree to make conversation.” “Did you order it?” “No. Devon mentioned in his last letter that Winterborne was sending some holiday trimmings from his store, as a gesture of appreciation for inviting him to stay.” “I did not invite Mr. Winterborne,” Kathleen retorted, “and we certainly can’t accept gifts from a stranger.” “They’re not for you, they’re for the household. Hang it all, it’s just a few baubles and wisps of tinsel.” She stared at him uncertainly. “I don’t think we should. I’m not certain of the etiquette, but it doesn’t seem proper. He’s an unmarried gentleman, and this is a household of young women who have only me as a chaperone. If I were ten years older and had an established reputation, it might be different, but as things are…” “I’m a member of the household,” West protested. “Doesn’t that make the situation more respectable?” Kathleen looked at him. “You’re joking, aren’t you?” West rolled his eyes.

We Pfliegmans, however, are incapable of imagining anything. From the get-go, Pliegmans were outcasts in a country of outcasts. We were then, and probably always have been, whole ages behind the progress of the company we kept. When men were bashing rocks together to make tools, Pliegmans were slithering from the ocean, coated in a greenish much; when men were grunting, sneezing, and lighting fire, hirsute Pfliegmans lay recluse in a dark musty corner of a cave, hissing; when men began wearing pelts and eating meat and painting walls, Pliegmans were stealing pelts to make fun of the pelt-wearers and would return to a cold cave hungry again, goddamnit; when men began forming languages and speaking in recognizable tongues, Pliegmans snorted and threw their heads in the mud in protest; when men began eating with forks, Pliegmans licked their dirty nails; when men were building factories to work in and homes for themselves to live in, Pliegmans rolled in the gross, deliciously; when Edison illuminated the world, Pliegmans squealed and covered their eyes; when Ford made the world go faster, Pliegmas stood at the curb, fearing for their lives, gaping at the shiny wheels, which explains why my father, János Pliegman, who, one Christmas morning in 1984, after receiving a VCR as a Christmas present from my mother, spent four minutes examining the buttons and one minute examining the manual before bashing it in the face with an elbow -- But I digress.

you really have never heard of me, have you?” “I totally almost have,” protested Carmen.

You looking for a spanking? Is that it?” “You can’t spank me on Christmas Eve,” I protest. “No?” He narrows his eyes at me. “No. It’s not on the permitted list of activities,” I snigger. “You’re right it’s not. So how about I fuck you instead? Right here, right now, sweetheart? Because if you think I need a cock ring clearly I need to remind you that I can fuck you longer and harder than any man in this room.

Wanna get some pulled pork over at Stucky’s?” I asked, climbing off the Harley. Lark blinked hard like she was about to say no, but wasn’t sure how. “Do you not like barbecue?” I asked. “I do, but it’s been really slow at the restaurant and I don’t really have money to spend and…” Lark was sweaty and a hint of her eyeliner had smudged on the right side. Yet, she never looked more beautiful than when I realized she wanted me. No, she fucking needed me.. “Let’s stop playing games,” I said, reaching to wipe the smudge from her face. “This is a date and I’m paying.” Before she might protest, I leaned down and kissed those lips I had craved since the reception. Lark lifted them to me, needing what I needed. The kiss was soft. Even wanting more, my lips left hers. They returned to suck softly at her bottom lip once more before relenting. When I stepped back, Lark shivered and gave me a little relieved smile. I knew how she felt. I’d been waiting to do that for weeks. “Let’s go,” I said, holding out my hand. Lark’s smile grew and I nearly kissed her again. She looked lovely like a child on Christmas and I was what Santa left. A guy could get used to that look.

The surface of the snow sparkled with crystals that flashed colorlessly cold. The air seemed armed, and full of sharp, eager points that pricked the skin painfully. The great tree-trunks cracked their sharp protests against the frosty entrances being made beneath their bark.

The surface of the snow sparkled with crystals that flashed colorlessly cold. The air seemed armed, and full of sharp, eager points that pricked the skin painfully. The great tree-trunks cracked their sharp protests against the frosty entrances being made beneath their bark. The lake, from under the smothering ice, roared in dismay and pain, and sent the thunders of its wrath at its imprisonment around the resounding shores.

Giddy-up, giddy-up!" she cried, switching her horse's flanks with one of her mother's long knitting needles as a riding crop. "Take it easy!" Bear protested. "I'm going as fast as I can!" Caroline had to laugh at the sight. "Now if you don't ride nicely, I'll buck you off and run for the woods!" "No, you won't," retorted Bianca smugly. "It's too cold out there. Giddy-up!

Now that the sit-in organizers had "the ball rolling," they had another trick up their sleeves. "As you know, black people like to dress," Richard Hall said. "So at Easter everybody would go out and buy an outfit generally, if they could afford it." In fact, according to Dr. Hereford, the Easter clothing splurge was the largest purchase most black Huntsvillians made all year (the second largest being for Christmas toys). On a visit to Nashville in the middle of the Huntsville protests, Hereford learned about a protest called "Blue Jean Easter" where African Americans, "instead of buying $100 suits and $100 dresses, they decided to spend five dollars on a pair of blue jeans for Easter, and I brought the idea back to Huntsville...The economic toll downtown was enormous. "There were twenty thousand black people in Madison County," Hereford said, "and ten thousand in the city, and if there are even ten thousand black people failing to buy $90 or $100 Easter outfits, that's a lot of money and losses for the merchants downtown. It could cost them a million dollars or more." As an extra, aded dig at the storeowners, Hereford said, people did not even buy their blue jeans in Huntsville...

I do consider it my responsibility to know everything there is to know about anything that could be considered my domain. I believe I am quite adept at the management of people and events.” His green eyes twinkled. “You’ve certainly managed me since the day I was born.” “I was but three years old when you were born,” she protested. “I didn’t start managing you for at least another year.

Well Josie,” my dad turned to me suddenly. “I think you and Samuel have earned the right to name the colt. Whaddya think?” I looked at Samuel expectantly, but he just shrugged, dipping his head in my direction as he deferred to me. “Go ahead, Josie.” “George Frederic Handel,” I said impulsively. Jacob and my dad groaned loudly in unison and hooted in laughing protest. “What the hell kind of name is that, Josie?” My brother howled. “He’s a composer!” I cried out, embarrassed and wishing I had taken a minute to think before I blurted out the first thing that came to my head. A smile played around Samuel’s lips as he joined in the fray. “He wrote the music that Josie played last night at the church service.” “I just thought the colt should have a Christmas name, and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus is synonymous with Christmas!” I defended and then cringed as Jacob and my dad burst out laughing again. My dad wiped tears of mirth from his eyes as he tried to get control of himself. “We’ll call him Handel,” he choked out. “It’s a very nice name, Josie.” He patted my shoulder, still chuckling. I felt like I was ten years old.

Rabbit's parents, lapsed Protestants, had managed to pass along the big-ticket ideas of Christianity, but practically speaking, Rabbit had learned Judeo-Christian history from the school of Indiana Jones. Bambi's mother taught him about loss, and he was too in love with dinosaurs to entertain the idea of a literal seven-day Creation schedule. Charlie Brown (or rather, Linus) told him the Christmas story; Jesus Christ Superstar covered the crucifixion. He did not regret his secular education. He may have been baptized Presbyterian, but music was his true religion.

At the empathetic tone in Sean’s voice, Lotti’s heart and stomach and head all clenched in unison. “What do you mean you can’t give me what I want?” she asked. “All you have to do is walk away.” “Tried that already,” he said. “And it was the biggest mistake of my life.” He brought her hand up to his mouth and met her gaze over their entwined hands. He was looking at her like . . . well, she wasn’t sure what was going on in his head, but her thoughts were racing along with her pulse. “You’re incredible, Lotti. I hope you know that.” Very slowly, clearly giving her time to object, he pulled her into him. Her breath caught at the connection and his eyes heated in response as he slid a hand up her spine and then back down again, pressing her in tight to him from chest to thighs and everywhere in between. His nose was cold at the crook of her neck, but his breath was warm against her skin. She felt his lips press against the sensitive spot just behind her ear and she shivered. “You’re trembling,” he said, his voice low. “Are you cold?” “No,” she whispered. Try the opposite of cold . . . “Nervous?” “No.” Not even close. The way his mouth moved across her skin was making her warm all over. Not that she could articulate that with his body pressed to hers and his fingers dancing over her skin. She was literally quivering as the memories of what it felt like to be touched by him washed over her, as if no time at all had gone by. Yes, she’d let him think that their time together had sucked for her. But it hadn’t. Not even close. That long-ago night he’d evoked feelings and a hunger in her that she’d never forgotten. “I’ve just had a long day,” she said. “I know. I’m going to make it better.” He pressed a kiss at the juncture of her jaw and ear before he made his way to her lips for a slow, hot kiss, his mouth both familiar and yet somehow brand-new. She was so far gone that when he pulled back she protested with a moan, but he held her tight, staring down at her with heated eyes. “Just checking,” he murmured. “Checking what?” “That you want this as badly as I do.

You must admit, Jake, that at the start you didn’t think I’d be able to do this.” “That is absolutely—” Jake started to protest but hesitated, looking from her to the fully assembled nativity situated in the side yard by the winter garden. “The uncontested truth.” She beamed and turned again to admire her handiwork, and with good reason. “You should be very proud of yourself, Aletta.” She nodded. “I am.” “And I”—he winced—“should be somewhat ashamed.” “Yes, you should be.” She playfully narrowed her eyes. “But truly, I couldn’t have built this without your help. So thank you.” He offered a salute. “My pleasure, General Prescott.

versions of popular Christmas carols that one James Dodson produced in the 1990s. Take, for example, “God Keep of All You Protestants” (sung to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”): God keep all of you Protestants From walking in the way Of heathens and idolaters To celebrate this day. You resurrect this Romish mass, for you have gone astray. Chorus: O, I know that its just a popish ploy, popish ploy Yes, I know that its just a popish ploy. You celebrate the birth of Christ Though God did not command This service of idolatry Is not part of His plan You wed the devil to the Son, when Christ-Mass you demand.

Eldovia.” He snorted. “It sounds like one of those fake Hallmark Channel countries.” “Leo!” the girl protested. “That was so rude!

She gazed over her oxygen mask at the small, smiling Christmas tree that sat on the table behind her.  Tonight, the whirling sound of the disk in the drive was a song that was sweeter than any lullaby.

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

looked into her mournful blue eyes and couldn’t help laughing. ‘It’s not funny,’ Bethany protested. ‘I’ve killed a snowman and a reindeer too.’ She folded her arms and pouted like a petulant child. She looked and sounded more like she was

I’m looking forward to the indoor water closets,” Pandora confessed sheepishly. “Don’t tell me your loyalty has been bought for the price of a privy?” Kathleen demanded. “Not just one privy,” Pandora said. “One for every floor, including the servants.” Helen smiled at Kathleen. “It might be easier to tolerate a little convenience if we keep reminding ourselves of how pleasant it will be when it’s finished.” The optimistic statement was punctuated by a series of thuds from downstairs that caused the floor to rattle. “A little inconvenience?” Kathleen repeated with a snort. “It sounds as if the house is about to collapse.” “They’re installing a boiler system,” Pandora said, flipping through a book. “It’s a set of two large copper cylinders filled with water pipes that are heated by gas burners. One never has to wait for the hot water--it comes at once through expansion pipes attached to the top of the boiler.” “Pandora,” Kathleen asked suspiciously, “how do you know all that?” “The master plumber explained it to me.” “Dear,” Helen said gently, “it’s not seemly for you to converse with a man when you haven’t been introduced. Especially a laborer in our home.” “But Helen, he’s old. He looks like Father Christmas.” “Age has nothing to do with it,” Kathleen said crisply. “Pandora, you promised to abide by the rules.” “I do,” Pandora protested, looking chagrined. “I follow all the rules that I can remember.” “How is it that you remember the details of a plumbing system but not basic etiquette?” “Because plumbing is more interesting.

Perhaps it was because of this genuine bloodshed that the complainers, eventually, had their way. It might have been all but impossible to stamp out wild Kalends celebrations outside the church, but within it, after a few centuries of complaints from bishops, archbishops and the Pope himself, the ritual was banned. In the fifteenth century, the Council of Basel, as well as dealing with the issue of the power of the Pope and the provision of military assistance against the Ottoman Empire, also outlawed the Feast of Fools. The feast lingered for a while, but was helped into its decline (across some parts of Europe) by the coming Protestant Reformation, which took an extremely dim view of the entire business, and largely crushed it.

if it’s real, it’s worth its weight in gold, you understand? You would have to guard it with your life.’ ‘It’s a book,’ protested Mirren. ‘Books change the world,’ said the old man,