Christmas

Thanksgiving Day . Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.

On Christmas Day it is proclaimed that Christianity established peace on earth and good will towards men. Next day the Christian, with refreshed soul, goes back to the manufacture of submarines and torpedoes.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Time is our tedious song should here have ending.

The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet.

It was the winter wild,

A cold coming we had of it,

I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.

‘God bless us every one!’ said Tiny Tim.

‘Bah,’ said Scrooge. ‘Humbug!’

I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the Middle of Winter.

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner, Eating a Christmas pie. He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, And said, “What a good boy am I!”

A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year.

In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.

Heap on more wood!—the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.

It was the winter wild While the Heav’n-born child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.

This is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heav’n’s eternal King, Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; For so the holy sages once did sing, That He our deadly forfeit should release, And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.