‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ are movies we love with magic in them.
What makes ‘A Christmas Story’ universal, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, is that you recognize that family… It’s ultimately about a family being glued together for the holiday season.
The theme of ‘A Christmas Story’ is that you can count on Christmas – that everybody has a Christmas story. Everybody has that time in the holiday season that they remember.
At the beginning of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ Scrooge embodies one of the central tenets of depression: that one has always been this way – and always will be.
For much of my adult life, I believed, inaccurately, that I knew the story of Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ – that I remembered it from childhood.
I love London in the rare parts of the year when it’s quiet, and no time is more reliably quiet than the week between Christmas and New Year.
When I was 14, 15, 16, I was wearing ‘Edward Scissorhands’ and ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ stuff. I saw ‘Sleepy Hollow’ a dozen times.
I think ‘Scrooge’ is the best of the Christmas stories. Every child warms to it because it’s about one man’s transformation. It’s saying that it’s never too late to change, and that’s a good feeling to have at Christmas.
Christmas and Thanksgiving are the two days of the year where we know the spurs are going to stay off the boots because the family doesn’t have to work. It’s such a nice – and rare – treat!
The crown of lamb has always been a quintessential Christmas dish, and growing up in India, we would read about lamb when learning about the holiday.
I could be imagining it, but I believe myself to have exchanged sly, understanding nods with other people I see attending movies alone on Christmas Day.
Saying that you spend Christmas alone is, to most middle-class Americans, akin to confessing a terminal illness.
Christmas in the Buckley household is hilarious – at the family dinner, we all have to do a song, no matter if you can sing in tune.
Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God’s perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to share it with others on Christmas and every other day of the year.
It’s true, Christmas can feel like a lot of work, particularly for mothers. But when you look back on all the Christmases in your life, you’ll find you’ve created family traditions and lasting memories. Those memories, good and bad, are really what help to keep a family together over the long haul.
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.
Faith is salted and peppered through everything at Christmas. And I love at least one night by the Christmas tree to sing and feel the quiet holiness of that time that’s set apart to celebrate love, friendship, and God’s gift of the Christ child.
Always be prepared if someone asks you what you want for Christmas. Give brand names, the store that sells the merchandise, and, if possible, exact model numbers so they can’t go wrong. Be the type who’s impossible to buy for, so they have to get what you want.
Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.
Me and my girlfriend don’t have any family in Ipswich, so we were thinking of what we could do to fill our time on Christmas Day. We thought about feeding the homeless and we phoned up the church that we eventually went to and asked if we could help.
I’ve got more than 600 pairs of Ray-Ban sunglasses, from 1950s originals to newer models. I have them on the wall like opticians do so I can pick out a pair that goes with my outfit. I had around 30 pairs, then my husband Rainer started getting them for me as birthday and Christmas gifts.
No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do – eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other… and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!
We used to listen to Lionel Barrymore do ‘A Christmas Carol’ on the radio long ago, and I like Reginald Owen, who played Scrooge in the first treatment for the screen. But my favorite Scrooge was Alastair Sim. He was enchanting, an absolutely beautiful performance.
My parents were kind of over protective people. Me and my sister had to play in the backyard all the time. They bought us bikes for Christmas but wouldn’t let us ride in the street, we had to ride in the backyard. Another Christmas, my dad got me a basketball hoop and put it in the middle of the lawn! You can’t dribble on grass.
Why is there an end of the year? Because the calendar imposes numerical order on time. There is a natural fitness in the celebration of the New Year, a holiday of numbers imposed on things, with lists, as well as with Advent calendars and songs like ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’
