Christmas quotes are the spice of the season. They are shared by thousands of publications to inspire your greeting cards, they hold feelings some of us are unable to express, they inspire writers, and they carry joy in every word. Many of the Christmas quotes published today are excerpts from beautiful Christmas stories that convey deeper meanings than a brief paragraph on a pretty picture. Within the following lines, hopefully, you will find the Christmas story that will inspire you to travel or to open your doors to strangers this year.
Old Christmas by Washington Irving
This quote by Washington Irving is from a short story called Old Christmas.
It is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling–the season for kindling, not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart.
Washington Irving was an American short story writer who lived in the early XIX Century. He is best known for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, New York.
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen a charming, albeit sad tale. Nevertheless, reading it at Christmas time will lit a fire of kindness and care in your heart.
Now there she was sitting under the most magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich merchant’s house.
Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her hands towards them when–the match went out. The lights of the Christmas tree rose higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one fell down and formed a long trail of fire.
A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas
A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas is a powerful Christmas story with a strong dream factor, to inspire travels towards the sea.
All the Christmases roll down towards the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is one of the most beautiful Christmas stories in the world. It is widely popular and read by many parents to their children around Christmas time. The story of Ebeneezer Scrooge is deep and full of meaning. It is a story of redemption.
But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
The Other Wise Man by Henry van Dyke
The Other Wise Man by Henry van Dyke is an interesting take on a classic Bible tale. van Dyke ads a fourth Magi to Three Wise Men of the East. In this story, which was published in 1895,the other wise man never reaches the King, but his gifts are accepted:
A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the pale face of Artaban like the first ray of dawn, on a snowy mountain-peak. A long breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips. His journey was ended. His treasures were accepted. The Other Wise Man had found the King.
There are many other beautiful stories to read around Christmas time, many of which deal with the concept of hospitality. But they also bring forward the importance of sacrifice, love, and hope, which tear up the things that darken our present with a powerful divine light.