My fondest memories are generally the day after Thanksgiving. I get the total decorating Christmas itch.
My grandmother did all the cooking at Christmas. We ate fattened chicken. We would feed it even more so it would be big and fat.
My mother, she had a very good attitude toward money. I’m very grateful for the fact that we had to learn to save. I used to get like 50 pence a week, and I’d save it for like five months. And then I’d spend it on Christmas presents. I’d save up like eight pounds. It’s nothing, but we did that.
In our racist, sexist society, Christmas is the 8 hours when we stop killing each other and gratutious over eating is encouraged so that the starving and other people in the world can die!
‘White Christmas’ is one of my favorite movies, so I’ve always just had a love for that kind of golden era musical.
My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.
My mom loved my Christmas music, so I did an awful lot of it!
I was nine or 10 years old and my father was sacked on Christmas Day. He was a manager, the results had not been good, he lost a game on December 22 or 23. On Christmas Day, the telephone rang and he was sacked in the middle of our lunch.
The thing about Christmas is that it almost doesn’t matter what mood you’re in or what kind of a year you’ve had – it’s a fresh start.
I’ve been in elementary education for years and my belief is that Christmas pageants in schools are little more than conditioning kids for the Christian religion.
When I was younger, I’d always cry on Christmas Day, and I didn’t know why. Now I know it’s because I was just overwhelmed by the togetherness.
My parents got me a $25 Kent steel-string acoustic guitar when I was around 12. The following Christmas, my parents bought me a Conora electric guitar. It looked almost like a Gretsch. It cost $59, and my mom still has it.
I’ve got my organic veg patch and fruit; we’re very garden-obsessed, my husband and I. He designed a garden for me for Christmas, so beautiful! Alasdhair’s very good at the proportion and ground work, and I come in and do the planting and the color scheme.
When I was five years old, my parents gave me a drum set for Christmas. My mom played the piano, and Dad played the saxophone badly. But that Christmas morning, I remember we all played together, and I thought it was the greatest day ever.
I stone got crazy when I saw somebody run down them strings with a bottleneck. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and I said that I had to learn.
I simply believe food is too good to throw away – and Christmas leftovers can be a gastronomic opportunity for the well-skilled kitchen forager. With a little imagination, there are a million ways to use up leftovers rather than bin them.
We never really had any kind of a Christmas. This is one part where my memory fails me completely.
To me, the most important thing is to wear something that I love and feel comfortable in, and Christmas is a great opportunity to get one of my old favourites out.
There are very few people who have done more than one Christmas album.
One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was the globe that I now keep right beside my desk.
But Tammy Faye calls me, and Ron Jeremy calls me, Erik Estrada sends me a Christmas card every year.
Christmas is a rare occasion when we are reminded that we have obligations to people we did not choose to be related to, and that love is not just a spontaneous feeling but something we sometimes really have to work at, with people we may not even much like.
I would literally sit at home and have my friends take pictures of me on my little Canon camera that my mom gave me for Christmas.
I would like to spend Christmas in different countries all over the world. I love seeing how different cultures celebrate the holidays in their own unique ways.
Britain’s passion for Christmas and huge white weddings dates from Victorian times – both were low-key celebrations before Victoria and her PR machine.
I grew up on Section 8 housing, food stamps, welfare, and dealing with social services. I never had a Christmas. I never had a birthday.
I love singing Christmas carols. I know every harmony to every music-hall Christmas song.
My grandmother was a church organist, but we only went on Easter and Christmas Eve sometimes.
The eight years of war since 9/11 had meant several Christmases away from home for most of these men. For soldiers at war, there’s comforting continuity in the traditions and inevitability of Christmas.
It’s a rare film that has staying power. ‘A Christmas Story’ is not just a funny movie but something that connects with people.
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.
Christmas means a great deal to me. I was reared in a family that celebrated Christmas to some extent, but I married into a family that celebrated Christmas in a big way. And my wife always made a big thing of Christmas for the children. We have five children, and we had a terrific time at Christmas.
When I met Letterman, he told me he thought ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ was the greatest Christmas song he ever heard, and he wanted me to be on his show to sing it.
From the time that I can remember, I worked to make money – either baby-sitting, or one year wrapping gifts at a department store at Christmas, so I could have my own money.
I’d just got back from filming my role as Flo in ‘Kidnap & Ransom’ when I got the news that Channel 4 had re-commissioned ‘Fresh Meat,’ so I think it was the first Christmas I could actually relax knowing that I had three months’ work sorted. As an actor, that’s always a good feeling.
I used to sing in church, too. Not like in the choir or anything, but for people around the church… on the church bus going home and Christmas plays.
The tradition of putting candles on Christmas trees actually began in Germany. The person who came up with the idea is thought to have been Martin Luther, father of the Reformation.
My father died when I was really young, on Christmas Day.
I got a .30-30 for Christmas in the seventh grade. It wasn’t what I asked for, by the way.
I went on iTunes and looked at versions of Christmas songs. Everyone has done them!
I had a great AP U.S. History teacher in Pittsburgh. We still exchange Christmas cards. She was the first teacher who said I was a good writer – and I’d never heard that before. And so I remember that, and I remember that level of loving the material and really loving writing about it.
Christmas is more stressful with present buying and making sure everyone gets included, but Thanksgiving is really not that. I don’t ever really get stressed out about the food.
I don’t go back home to Sardinia as much as I would like, just for Christmas and family events.
So when I was 13, I basically left home and never returned and lived at home again. I would come home for a week at Christmas and two weeks in the summer only.
In our racist, sexist society, Christmas is the eight hours when we stop killing each other and gratuitous overeating is encouraged so that the starving and other people in the world can die!
Now that I’m an adult and have a big say in what we eat on Christmas Day, turkey doesn’t even make it on to the starting grid for consideration. It isn’t just my least favourite meat; it’s my least favourite protein.
At Christmas time, I spent an extortionate amount of money on Buzz Lightyear toys, baby clothes, Disney cars and the like.
I love giving gifts and I love receiving them. I really like giving little kids extravagant gifts. You see their little faces light up and they get excited. If it’s a really good gift, I love receiving it, like jewels, small islands.
My daughter is 15. None of her friends know who the hell Chris Rea is, but they know that song – as soon as it comes on, they start singing it. I’ve played with everyone from Status Quo to Talk Talk, but nothing impresses them as much as the fact that I play on ‘Driving Home for Christmas.’
Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas, and there’s no way I’d do anything to undermine that belief.
The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time.
I always liked it when people go back in time to discover things about themselves, like with ‘A Christmas Carol’ and you’re getting a tour of your life by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.
I think we felt the pressure more at first than this time around. But still you don’t want to let anyone down. I never even met Patrick until we had a Christmas party at Ian McKellen’s house on the first movie and then I didn’t see him again until the premiere.
We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice.
Throughout history, Hanukkah was a relatively minor festival, but it’s become very popular in America due to its proximity to Christmas.
