Quotes & Sayings About Before Christmas

I thought I was long done with the Firsts. First Easter since his death, First Birthday, First Trip to IHOP, First Phillies Game. But everything we ever did together, that we'd never share again
like Longwood Gardens at Christmas
still waited before me. In that moment, I dreaded the rest of my life. — Jeri Smith-Ready

How much farther?" Sammy asks. It will be dark soon, and the dark is the worst time. Nobody told him, but he just knows that when they finally cone it will be in the dark and it will be without warning, like the other waves, and there will be nothing you can do about it, it will just happen, like the TV winking out and the cars dying and the planes falling and mommy wrapped up in bloody sheets.
When the others first came, his father told him the world had changed and nothing would be like before, and maybe they'd take him inside the mothership, maybe even take him on adventures in outer space. And Sammy couldn't wait to go inside the mothership and blast off into space just like Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing starfighter. It made every night feel like Christmas Eve. When morning came, he thought he would wake up to all the wonderful presents the Others brought would be there.
But all the Others brought was death. — Rick Yancey

She rolled her eyes. "Then what happened?"
Rubbing his temples, he glanced at the door. "Bethany and I were making out and something happened that never happened before."
Dee leaned back. A look of supreme disgust clouded her pretty face. "Uh, yuck if this is about any kind of premat-"
"Oh my God, shut and listen, okay?" He dragged a hand through his hair. "we were making out, and I lost my hold on my human form. I lit up like a freaking Christmas tree. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Well ... yes, and here we go again. But before we get to The Work, as it were, I want to make sure I know how to cope with this elegant typewriter - (and, yes, it appears that I do) - so why not make this quick list of my life's work and then get the hell out of town on the 11:05 to Denver? Indeed. Why not? But for just a moment I'd like to say, for the permanent record, that it is a very strange feeling to be a 40-year-old American writer in this century and sitting alone in this huge building on Fifth Avenue in New York at one o'clock in the morning on the night before Christmas Eve, 2000 miles from home, and compiling a table of contents for a book of my own Collected Works in an office with a tall glass door that leads out to a big terrace looking down on The Plaza Fountain. Very strange. — Hunter S. Thompson

He wrote and kept reading aloud what was written, while Vasilisa considered what she ought to write: how great had been their want the year before, how their corn had not lasted even till Christmas, how they had to sell their cow. She ought to ask for money, ought to write that the old father was often ailing and would soon no doubt give up his soul to God ... but how to express this in words? What must be said first and what afterwards? — Anton Chekhov

Christ and the life of Christ is at this moment inspiring the literature of the world as never before, and raising it up a witness against waste and want and war. It may confess Him, as in Tolstoi's work it does, or it may deny Him, but it cannot exclude Him; and in the degree that it ignores His spirit, modern literature is artistically inferior. In other words, all good literature is now Christmas literature. — William Dean Howells

Gansey was full of the knowledge that he needed to do something about Ronan Lynch before Ronan did something about Ronan Lynch. Christmas was a dangerous time to be a broken thing. — Maggie Stiefvater

To those Romans December twenty-fifth was the birthday of the sun. They wrote that in gold letters in their calendar. Every year about that time, the middle of winter, the sun was born once more and it was going to put an end to the darkness and misery of winter. So they had a great feast, with presents and dolls for everybody, and the best day of all was December twenty-fifth. That feast, they would tell you, was thousands of years old- before Christ was ever heard of. — John G. Jackson

On Christmas morning when I was a child, my mother would leave a book wrapped at the foot of the bed, which was a hint that Santa had come. It was also her way of keeping us in bed a little longer before we went downstairs. So I've always associated books with happiness and gifts. And they are. I can't get enough of them. — David McCullough

Postal officials say that before Christmas they receive tons of letters written to Santa Claus, but after Christmas how few letters of thanks are sent to him! From childhood onward, human beings seem to be characterized by thanklessness. — Robert E.Lee

I am a bomb but I mean you no harm. That I still am here to tell this, is a miracle: I was deployed on May 15, 1957, but I didn't go off because a British nuclear engineer, a young father, developed qualms after seeing pictures of native children marveling at the mushrooms in the sky, and sabotaged me. I could see why during that short drop before I hit the atoll: the island looks like god's knuckles in a bathtub, the ocean is beautifully translucent, corals glow underwater, a dead city of bones, allowing a glimpse into a white netherworld. I met the water and fell a few feet into a chromatic cemetery. The longer I lie here, listening to my still functioning electronic innards, the more afraid I grow of detonating after all this time. I don't share your gods, but I pray I shall die a silent death. — Marcus Speh

There was a bounty on my head, it was four days before Christmas, and I was having turtle gumbo with a merman, an undead pirate king, two loups-garou, and my best friend - a human pregnant with the half-elven child who had unknowingly helped set this whole debacle in motion. Plus a newbie vampire who didn't like the smell of food anymore. — Suzanne Johnson

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. — Dylan Thomas

Tacos will grow on Christmas trees before I learn to carry a tune. Fortunately, it doesn't matter. In karaoke, talent means nada; enthusiasm is everything. What I lack in talent, I make up for in passion. Hence my karaoke problem. — Rob Sheffield

To make his point, Ivan staged a sensational demonstration. Some time before Christmas he had arrested two Lithuanians employed in the Moscow Kremlin. He charged them with plotting to poison him. The accusations against Jan Lukhomski and Maciej the Pole did not sound very credible; but their guilt or innocence was hardly relevant. They were held in an open cage on the frozen Moskva River for all the world to see; and on the eve of the departure of Ivan's envoy to Lithuania, they were burned alive in their cage.50 As the ice melted under the fierce heat of the fire and the heavy iron cage sank beneath the water, taking its carbonized occupants down in a great hiss of steam, one could have well imagined that something was being said about Lithuania's political future. — Norman Davies

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. — Hampton Sides

The habit of a midwinter festivity had come by the dawn of history (and probably very long before) to seem a natural one to the British, and not one to be eradicated by changes of political or religious fashion ... It was general custom in pagan Europe to decorate spaces with greenery and flowers for festivals, attested wherever records have survived. — Ronald Hutton

It was the night before Christmas. — John Green

On bottom ... Fellows studied the blue and green Mackenzie plaid kilt laid out across his bed. He'd worn it before, at Christmas at Kilmorgan, feeling strange with wool wrapping his hips, air circulating his thighs. Scotsmen had to be mad. — Jennifer Ashley

It follows that I must accept myself for what I am before I can deliberately change it. — Christmas Humphreys

The idea of performing some of Jack Skellington's songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas live for the very first time is immensely exciting. — Danny Elfman

I was on the tube just before Christmas. and this girl turned round to me and said, 'Are you Kate Winslet?'. And I said, 'Well, yes. I am actually'. And she said, 'And you're getting the tube?' And I said, 'Yes'. And she said, 'Don't you have a big car that drives you around?' And I said, 'No'. And she was absolutely stunned that I wasn't being driven round in some flash car all the time. It was ludicrous. — Kate Winslet

Could be a cold night so I guess I'll start a fire."
"A fire? Have you got wood?"
A curve played at the corner of his mouth. "Oh, yeah. I got wood."
The door slammed before she realized what she'd said. — Tracy Brogan

Before, if I thought Christmas, I would have remembered my past on Earth and would have succumbed to the aching sadness for a life I can never have again.
Now, I can think the word and not feel anything but a dull ache, a phantom pain for a part of my life that's been amputated. [p.244] — Beth Revis

She blew out of the Terrace sometime before Christmas to points unknown. The Gujarati guy told me when I ran into him at the Pathmark. He was still pissed because Pura had stiffed him almost two months' rent.
Last time I ever rent to one of you people.
Amen, I said. — Junot Diaz

It's just sex, Blake. Isn't that what you said to me the last time? No emotions. Just sex."

"I'll only end up hurting you," I say to the wall. "Worse than I did before."

He moves from the back of the sofa and comes to stand directly in front of me. His dick is mere inches from my mouth. I have to swallow several times to keep from using my tongue on it. I close my eyes.

"I can't, Seth. If I take you now I'll be rough and I'll end up hurting you in other ways."

"Being rough wasn't a concern of yours before."

"I'm not the same person I was before. — Candi Kay

A disagreement about what?" The voice belonged to Frost, Doyle's second in command. Other than the fact that they were both tall, physically they were almost opposites. The hair that fell in a glimmering curtain to Frost's ankles was silver, a shimmering metallic silver like Christmas tree tinsel. The skin was as white as my own. The eyes were a soft grey like a winter sky before a storm. His face was angular and arrogantly handsome. His shoulders were a touch broader than Doyle's, but other than that they were both very alike and very unalike. He — Laurell K. Hamilton

Before Santa and presents and shopping and all the attendant Christmas (stuff) got involved, this holiday was enshrined to commemorate a guy who got nailed to a tree for daring to tell people to be kind to one another. If you have two cloaks, He said, give one away. Remember those who have less than you, be charitable, be good, be merciful. — William Rivers Pitt

On Christmas Eve morning, hours before Zach left or Star arrived, my father asked me to kill him. I'd spent some of that night in a chair at the end of his bed. At one point, he woke and started to panic, then remembering, — Orna Ross

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

Christmas is about change. It's a time we open our hearts before we open our presents. — Toni Sorenson

But now, sitting on this airplane on my way back to the life I went on to fashion after she left, I think of her differently. I see her so many ways: sitting back on her heels at the side of the bathtub, singing softly as she washes Sharla and my backs; watching at the window for the six o'clock arrival of our father; wrapping Christmas presents on the wide expanse of her bed; biting her lip as she stood before the open cupboards, making out the grocery list; leaning out the kitchen window that last summer to call Sharla and me in for supper. Most clearly, though, I see her sitting at the kitchen table, in her old, usual spot. There is a cup of coffee before her, but she doesn't drink it. Instead, she stares out the window. I see the sharp angle of her cheekbone, the beautiful whitish down at the side of face, illuminated by the sun. Her hands are quiet, resting in the cloth bowl of her apron. She sits still as a statue - waiting, I can see now; she was always waiting. -What We Keep — Elizabeth Berg

He had been to see Mrs. Erlich just before starting home for the holidays, and found her making German Christmas cakes. She took him into the kitchen and explained the almost holy traditions that governed this complicated cookery. Her excitement and seriousness as she beat and stirred were very pretty, Claude thought. She told off on her fingers the many ingredients, but he believed there were things she did not name: the fragrance of old friendships, the glow of early memories, belief in wonder-working rhymes and songs. — Willa Cather

It is surprising that people are snapping photos and stuff and then putting them on the internet. For me, it is like, "Why would you want to do that?" It would be like knowing what your Christmas presents were before Christmas morning. — Michael Shannon

People open shops in order to sell things, they hope to become busy so that they will have to enlarge the shop, then to sell more things, and grow rich, and eventually not have to come into the shop at all. Isn't that true? But are there other people who open a shop with the hope of being sheltered there, among such things as they most value - the yarn or the teacups or the books - and with the idea only of making a comfortable assertion? They will become a part of the block, a part of the street, part of everybody's map of the town, and eventually of everybody's memories. They will sit and drink coffee in the middle of the morning, they will get out the familiar bits of tinsel at Christmas, they will wash the windows in spring before spreading out the new stock. Shops, to these people, are what a cabin in the woods might be to somebody else - a refuge and a justification. — Alice Munro

It was Christmas night, the eve of the Boxing Day Meet. You must remember that this was in the old Merry England of Gramarye, when the rosy barons ate with their fingers, and had peacocks served before them with all their tail feathers streaming, or boars' heads with the tusks stuck in again - when there was no unemployment because there were too few people to be unemployed - when the forests rang with knights walloping each other on the helm, and the unicorns in the wintry moonlight stamped with their silver feet and snorted their noble breaths of blue upon the frozen air. Such marvels were great and comfortable ones. But in the Old England there was a greater marvel still. The weather behaved itself. — T.H. White

I looked at the place on my finger again. This time it really was an empty space. And silent. It was big. For the first time I faced a loss with a sense of curiosity. What would come to fill up this space? Would I make another ring? Or would I find another ring in a secondhand shop, or even in another country? Perhaps someday someone I had not even met would give me a ring because he loved me. I was thirty-five and I had never trusted life before. I had never allowed any empty spaces. I had believed that empty spaces remained empty. Life had been about hanging on to what you had and medical training had only reinforced the avoidance of loss at all costs. Anything I had ever let go of had claw marks on it. Yet this empty space had become different. It held all the excitement and anticipation of a wrapped Christmas present. — Rachel Naomi Remen

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

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

Here's an Advent illustration for kids - and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don't know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really happy and you feel hope. But which is better? The happiness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and it's really her?

That's the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That's what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing. — John Piper

Because, George thought as she sat there with her eyes closed back before Christmas in Mrs Rock's self-consciously comfortable chair in the counselling office, how can it be that there's an advert on TV with dancing bananas unpeeling themselves in it and teabags doing a dance, and her mother will never see that advert?
How can that advert exist and her mother not exist in the world?
She didn't say it out loud, though, because there wasn't a point.
It isn't about saying.
It is about the hole which will form in the roof through which the cold will intensify and after which the structure of the house will begin to shift, like it ought, and through which George will be able to lie every night in bed watching the black sky. — Ali Smith

Calvin: Dear Santa, before I submit life to your scrutiny, I demand to know who made YOU the matter of my fate?! Who are YOU to question my behavior, HUH??? What gives you the right?!
Hobbes: Santa makes the toys, so he gets to decide who to give them to.
Calvin: Oh. — Bill Watterson

I've been wondering all day what flavor lip gloss you've got on."

"Dr. Pepper," I say, before my brain starts to work again.

"Lip Smackers?" He laughs. "Really?"

"My mom always puts a ton of them in my stocking at Christmas," I try to explain, but really, what's the point now? He already knows my taste in cosmetics hasn't changed since the seventh grade.

"I like it."

"You do?"

"Well, let me double-check," he says, and then he licks his bottom lip before he kisses me again. I feel the tip of his tongue soft against mine, taste the sweetness of his breath as he kisses me deeper. Then he moves his lips, all warm and soft over to my ear and kisses me there until I can't speak. — Mercy Brown

My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing. — Meghan O'Rourke

Gerald Middleton was a man of mildly but persistently depressive temperament. Such men are not at their best at breakfast, nor is the week before Christmas their happiest time. — Angus Wilson

I've always thought about the theatre like a Christmas tree, all shining and bright with beautiful ornaments. But now it seems like a Christmas tree with the tinsel all tarnished and the colored balls all fallen off and broken ... '
Sure, I know what you mean ... And it's both ways ... Some of the ornaments fall and break and some stay clear and bright. Some of the tinsel gets tarnished and some stays shining and beautiful like the night before Christmas. Nothing's ever all one way. You know that. It's all mixed up and you've just got to find the part that's right for you.'
- Elizabeth and Ben — Madeleine L'Engle

Mandy was thinking back to when she was five years old, when she, her parents and Jud went outside before Christmas and had a snowball fight with the gray snow of Sydney Mines. "This is a wicked blast," Jud would say, and Mandy would snap photos with a 35mm disposable film camera, photos she wished very much she could step into sometimes. — Rebecca McNutt

The Smile won Matthew extra time before bed, extra Christmas pudding, extra anything he wanted. Adults were helpless to resist The Smile.
Matthew gave his all to this particular smile. Butter melted. Birds sang. People slipped about dazed amid the butter and birdsong. — Cassandra Clare

You are riding for a fall, Your Grace,"
"I'll be riding you before Christmas. — Stephanie Laurens

Professor Snape was forcing them to research antidotes. They took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before Christmas to see if their antidote worked. — J.K. Rowling

He stood in the open door, hands planted on the roof of the Suburban. "I've never had a woman tell me I gave her nightmares before, but plenty have told me I played a prominent role in their dreams. — Debbie Mason

What good was a love affair that ended with the last train to the country, and Christmas presents that had to be given the day before Christmas because holidays were family times, and knowing that you would still be as alone as before because you could never telephone the man you loved when you needed him? — Rona Jaffe

Wait a minute, look at them. Smiling and laughing. Just having a wonderful time, enjoying themselves to the fullest. Why shouldn't they? They deserve it. It's Christmas. Their Christmas. The best day I ever had was the day Karla found me and brought me here, to my home. Ryan, Kaley, Matt and yes, even Derek, are my family too. I'm treated so well I've lost perspective. Well, what do you expect, I am a dog after all. They always find the time to take me for walks, play with me in the yard, bring me to the vet, get me in out of the heat and cold, cuddle up with me before bedtime and even celebrate my birthday. Today is for them and not for me. The least I can do is to let them enjoy it without me getting in the way. But if this continues tomorrow there'll be hell to pay! Who am I kidding, it'll never happen. — Patrick Yearly

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

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

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more! — Dr. Seuss

Christmas Eve Punch Ingredients 2 cups water ¾ cup sugar ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon 4 cups chilled cranberry/apple juice 1 46-ounce can chilled pineapple juice 1 liter chilled ginger ale In a large saucepan bring your water, sugar, and cinnamon to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Chill. Before you serve, add the sugar water mixture, chilled juices, and ginger ale to a large punch bowl. Serve in party glasses over ice. — Lee Hollis

My dad got me my first bow for Christmas, when I was ten. But he took it away before New Year's." "Did you shoot someone?" "He caught me soaking arrows in lighter fluid. I just really, really wanted to shoot a flaming arrow at something. It didn't matter what. Still do. I feel like that would complete me: to see a burning arrow go thwock into something and set it afire. I suppose it's how men feel when they imagine sinking balls-deep into the perfect piece of ass. I just want one sexy little thwock." John — Joe Hill

Grant that I may experience the power of Thy Word before I deliver it. — Christmas Evans

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

Twenty years ago, two of the CIA's best double-agents had been murdered in their own home on Christmas Eve. The husband had been killed first, and the wife had been raped repeatedly before she'd been beaten to death. The two children were never found. — Katie Reus

I can't ignore his one-sided almost smile or his methylene blue eyes. I can't ignore his pretty shoulders or his arms. I can't ignore his big hands, his shoulder-blade-spanning hands, the way the tendons in them lock to every knuckle and speculate on things like capability and dexterity and, of course, the scar over those knuckles on his left hand that I've noticed before, and its reminder that he has a life and has been hurt in it. — Mary Ann Rivers

I decided to be a filmmaker between my sophomore and junior years at Morehouse. Before I left for the summer of 1977, my advisor told me I really had to declare a major when I came back, because I'd used all my electives in my first two years. I went back to New York and I couldn't find a job. There were none to be had. And that previous Christmas someone gave me a Super-8 camera, so I just started to shoot stuff. — Spike Lee

A footman approached bearing a tray of sparkling wine. Lord Sheffield motioned the footman away before he could offer them a glass of champagne. "Forgive me," he murmured in Amelia's ear. "I cannot wait another moment to have you in my arms. — Erica Ridley

Christmas ribbons decked every crystal ball knocker on every sparkling door as far as the eye could see. Through the snowy streets of the Veiled Village, Echoes and Sounds rushed to and fro, their shimmering clothes looking like pouring rain or ice or waves. Before them multi-colored parcels fluttered like strange birds carried on small see-through wings, and every once in a while two parcels would collide and rain down gifts. — Dew Pellucid

Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us ... a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird ... a social being ... capable of actual affection ... nuzzling its young with almost human- like compassion. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family ... — Berkeley Breathed

Turkey is the main course in more Christmas dinners than any other meat or fowl. The high proportion of meat to unusable bone and fat makes it an ideal bird for a feast. Turkeys were domesticated in Mexico long before Spanish explores found them and introduced them into their homeland. From there they spread throughout Europe and gradually replaced most of the native Christmas feast foods. — Patricia Del Re

Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes. — Jean Webster

Just before you went into the ICU, I started to feel this ache in my hip." "No," I said. Panic rolled in, pulled me under. He nodded. "So I went in for a PET scan." He stopped. He yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and clenched his teeth. Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but A Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile. He flashed his crooked smile, then said, "I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace. The lining of my chest, my left hip, my liver, everywhere. — John Green

Most people made comments on how I was the strongest woman they knew.
That was before the title wave of disaster hit my charmed life. — K.D. Emerson

Therefore with idle hands and head I sit
In late December before the fire's daze
Punished by crimes of which I would be quit. — Allen Tate

Don't wait until Christmas to show love. You never know those who will breathe their last breath before the sacred season. — Lailah Gifty Akita

As the campfire radiated warmth in the opening of the lean-to, Red Macalister crouched before the burning logs. He added more wood to the blaze, then rocked back on his boot heels, studying the flames, and decided the fire would do for the next few hours to ward off the cold winter night. He glanced up at the black sky dotted with diamonds. A clear night. — Debra Holland

I'd like a stocking made for a giant, And a meeting house full of toys, Then I'd go out in a happy hunt For the poor little girls and boys; Up the street and down the street, And across and over the town, I'd search and find them everyone, Before the sun went down. — Eugene Field

We need a Savior. Christmas is an indictment before it becomes a delight. — John Piper

One of the joys our technological civilization has lost is the excitement with which seasonal flowers and fruits were welcomed; the first daffodil, strawberry or cherry are now things of the past, along with their precious moment of arrival. Even the tangerine
now a satsuma or clementine
appears de-pipped months before Christmas. — Derek Jarman

I can't think of a better way to start my day."
"Get used to it," he murmured, right before he kissed her. — Samantha Chase

I also remember, having been fucked up every day for years, that the world seemed like such a novelty to me during my first few years sober. Like, I remember going through each of the seasons and the magic of rediscovering what it felt like to be in the world: going to a pumpkin patch on Halloween, getting a tree for Christmas, I felt excited by reality in a way that I never had before. I actually wanted to be alive. — Melissa Broder

There is no name so sweet on earth,
no name so sweet in heaven,
The name, before His wondrous birth,
to Christ the Savior given. — George Washington Bethune

It was dusk and the light had an ultra-violet quality to it, a final burst of pigmentation as night and day rushed at each other in a clash of colour prisms before darkness finnaly, inevitably won out. — Karen Swan

Harry arrived early in the Room of Requirement for the last DA meeting before the holidays and was very glad he had, because when the torches burst into flame he saw that Dobby had taken it upon himself to decorate the place for Christmas. He could tell the elf had done it, because nobody else would have strung a hundred golden baubles from the ceiling, each showing a picture of Harry's face and bearing the legend: 'HAVE A VERY HARRY CHRISTMAS! — J.K. Rowling

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

Mayor: How horrible our Christmas will be!
Jack Skellington: *No.*
[the Mayor switches to his upset face]
Jack Skellington: How *jolly*!
Mayor: Oh. How *jolly* our Christmas will be — Tim Burton

Life's not always a bed of noses. "We've been put on this earth to do good, and as long as you can put you hand on yer heart and say you've done yer best you can gan to yer rest with an easy conscience," was what me granny used to say. Before they dragged her off to the funny farm dressed as a Christmas turkey (it were the stuffing that gave the game away). — Andre The BFG

Two days later, two days before Christmas, I am judged fat and sane enough to be kicked out of the hospital. The plan to send me straight back to New Seasons won't work. There is no room at the inn for a leather Lia-skin plumped full of messy things. Not yet. The director promises Dr. Marrigan he'll have a bed for me next week. I'm stable enough to go home until then. They all say I'm stable. — Laurie Halse Anderson

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

To embrace the message of Christmas is to throw off my hedonistic rebellion and bow before the chafing reality that I can't save myself, and in that very act to be suddenly taken aback in that I've stumbled upon the very freedom I've longed for in the very place I'd least expected it. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I dug out the powder blue cashmere cardigan my mother Lisa gave me the Christmas before last, pulled on my oldest, softest Levi's. Comfort clothes; the next best thing to a hug from a warm, living body. Lately there had been a shortage of hugs in my life. Lately there had been a shortage of warm, living bodies. — Josh Lanyon

Xmas Trivia: Before it became a major shopping holiday, Christmas is believed to have had a "religious" meaning. — Andy Borowitz

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

The next morning after finishing my interviews, I found myself with some time to kill before the bus arrived to return me to Whitby.

The term "time to kill" suddenly sounded awfully harsh.

Was "time to waste" better? No, "waste" is so un-Benedictine.

"Time to spend"? Too much of a material ring.

"Time to bum around?" Yes, it had just the right balance of self-effacement and no fixed address. Like Jesus. — Jane Christmas

Mary approaches her before she is able to reach her station. "Hello Lily. Get anything special for Christmas?"
"Just the usual." She answers. "Shattered dreams. — Carroll Bryant

I will wait till after Christmas. What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which it is hardly worthwhile to set about anything we are disinclined to. — George Eliot

My mum gave me a T-shirt with it on last Christmas.' Ed smiled at the memory. 'Wish I still had it. All I had to get stressed about before was GCSEs.' 'She didn't give you a T-shirt that said Save Kitchen Scraps to Feed the Pigs, then? — Charlie Higson

Remember what it was like on Christmas when you woke up before your parents, and had to sit there until they were ready, knowing that just a few rooms away there was something awesome waiting for you? For the next thirty minutes, I felt that way, while I waited for them to call me back up to the set. — Wil Wheaton

Abe picked up a shiny silver star, now a bit tarnished, the symbol of a happier time. The year after their daughter's death came the joy of a a newborn son,. Jeremy just squeaked into life the day before the holiday. The star was Abe's gift to his wife that Christmas. He smiled as he hung it on a branch. — Debra Holland

And there it is! Bravo! I knew it was only a matter of time before Byron realized he had an audience. That man is simply incapable of keeping his shirt on when there are spectators. One Christmas Eve, he stripped his shirt off right in the middle of the choir's rendition of Oh Child of Bethlehem. Coincidentally, the next song was Come Let Us Adore Him and the imbecile actually launched into some interpretive dance. — Kirt J. Boyd

I'll be in # Jharkhand along with Kaustav Narayan Niyogi, who is directing the film and my director of photography for location hunting. I want to lock the locations before Christmas as everyone goes into vacation mode after that, — Pooja Bhatt

Kai kissed Sehun's lips one last time before letting Sehun rest his head on his arm. When Sehun caressed Kai's cheek, he realized that the boy's hand was colder than it had been just several minutes ago. Even then, he managed to smile. "Merry Christmas, Kai."

'Merry Christmas, Sehun.' he tugged Sehun close until their foreheads brushed as he watched Sehun close his sleepy eyes just before Kai closed his. — FishMeAnEXo

Twas the night before Christmas - well, the late afternoon, in fact, but who could tell at the North Pole in the middle of winter - and Matthias the werewolf was knee-deep in reindeer guts. Really, it was the deer's own fault for having that glowing red nose that had made it ever so easy to pick him out in the gloom. There it had been, like a neon sign saying FAST FOOD and Matt being like Yellow Dog Dingo - always hungry - had taken the opportunity for a quick snack. — Kat Richardson