Reflections this Christmas A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. ROBERT FROST
There are times when I do well to be angry, but I have mistaken the times. GEORGE MATHESON
Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. LARRY WILDE
Women are requested not to have children in the cocktail lounge. NOTICE IN TURKISH HOTEL
An elderly woman walked into the local church. “Where would you like to sit?” an usher asked politely. “The front row, please,” she announced. “You really don’t want to do that,” the usher said, trying to be helpful. “The priest is really boring.” “Do you happen to know who I am?” the woman inquired. “No,” he said. “I’m the priest’s mother,” she replied, indignantly. “Do you know who I am?” the usher asked. “No,” she said. “Good,” he answered. “Let me show you to the front pew.”
Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it. RICHARD LAMM
Friends of ours who recently bought a larger deep freeze decided to buy a side of beef from the local butcher’s and joint it themselves. They cleared the kitchen table and set to work with saw, knives and cleaver. They were still wrestling with the huge carcass when there was a knock on the kitchen door and the new curate peered in. “I was just calling to introduce myself,” he said, “but I see I’m interrupting your tea, so I’ll call again.” When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? G. K. CHESTERTON
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses. TAYLOR CALDWELL
After becoming born again in the late 1960s, Jimmy Carter went on trips throughout America as a missionary. One of his companions – they went out in two – was a Cuban called Eloy Cruz. In sermons and speeches in the years afterwards, Carter often quoted a line from Cruz: “A man needs only two loves in his heart: one is a love of God; the other is a love for the person who happens to be in front of you at any particular time.” Carter interpreted that to mean that it’s easy to love nameless innocent people far away in a foreign country, but “the difficulty comes when you try to love someone right in front of you - on the elevator, across the desk from you, whom you might be inclined to hate.” JONATHAN ALTER
HIS VERY BEST: JIMMY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CARTER, A LIFE
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
The way you spend Christmas is far more important than how much.
CHARLES DICKENS, A CHRISTMAS CAROL
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
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