Did You Hear What They Said...About Christmas?
On this Day before Christmas, I thought it would be a good change-of-pace to offer a holiday version of The Perspective's Signature Series:
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ~Norman Vincent Peale
Christmas is a time when you get homesick - even when you're home.
~Carol Nelson
He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.
~Roy L. Smith
Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind. ~Mary Ellen Chase
The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. ~Burton Hillis
There has been only one Christmas - the rest are anniversaries.
~W.J. Cameron
Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself. ~Francis C. Farley
Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it. ~Richard Lamm
The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin. ~Jay Leno
Be sure to stop by tomorrow when Linus Van Pelt once again shares with us about the true meaning of Christmas.
posted by therobb7 at 12/24/2005 04:52:00 AM
1 Comments:
I worry sometimes about the radical polarization taking place in America. So it is with that in mind, I was just thinking this morning about the passing last month of Alfred Anderson of Scotland, at 109 years old, the last living man who remembers the guns going silent on Christmas Eve, 1914.
A spontaneous truce broke out across German and English lines on Christmas Eve, 1914, when the troops started singing carols to each other. Anderson enlisted in the Army at 18, and fought for two years before being wounded in 1916, then being sent home to Scotland where he took over his father's boat building business.
It was difficult not to be moved, listening to a audio clip of Anderson being interviewed a few years ago talking about the almost sudden and eerie silence over the front, then hearing the sound of Silent Night being sung in German rising softly from the opposing trenches... For me, the meaning and hope of Christmas resides in extraordinary moments like the 1914 Christmas Eve Truce.
It just seems like lately too many Americans, left and right, have all become soley about our own anger, cyncism and enmity. I want to remember a time when I didn't feel like this all the time, and hope for a day when I can put that all away again.
If soldiers could look across that "short deadly space" of no-man's land and remember their humanity on Christmas, even for just a few hours, then perhaps we can too...
It reminds me of the line from the Tommy Sands song "Roses:" I don't know what the moral is or how the song should end/but I wonder just how many wars are fought between good friends."
Sorry, didn't mean to moralize or bring anyone down... I am sure we'll all get back to beating one another soon enough...just seems like it's been a while since we've had any light around here...
Merry Christmas. Peace.
mojo sends
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