When therefore the first spark of a desire after God arises in thy soul, cherish it with all thy care, give all thy heart into it; it is nothing less than a touch of the divine loadstone, that is to draw thee out of the vanity of time, into the riches of eternity. Get up therefore, and follow it as gladly as the wise men of the east followed the star from heaven that appeared to them. It will do for thee as the star did for them, it will lead thee to the birth of Jesus, not in a stable at Bethlehem in Judea, but to the birth of Jesus in the dark centre of thine own soul.
—William Law

Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles.
~Author Unknown

The message of Christmas is that the visible material world is bound to the invisible spiritual world. ~Author Unknown

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.–Washington Irving

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.
— Charles Dickens

How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! `tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.
—Benjamin Franklin

The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected. ~Samuel Johnson

The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable. —Ralph W. Sockman

Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it; for mirth is also of Heaven’s making. ~Leigh Hunt

Great little One! whose all-embracing birth
Lifts Earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to Earth.

~Richard Crashaw

(Graphics copyright ©2006 Julia Bettencourt. Used with permission.)