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Christmas SMS Collection
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A song was heard at Christmas
To wake the midnight sky:
A saviour's birth, and peace on earth,
And praise to God on high.
The angels sang at Christmas
With all the hosts above,
And still we sing the newborn King
His glory and his love.
Somehow not only for Christmas
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to make you glad.
Somehow he [Tim] gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant for them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.
So remember while December
Brings the only Christmas day,
In the year let there be Christmas
In the things you do and say.
So here comes Gabriel again, and what he says is Good tidings of great joy ... for all people. ... That's why the shepherds are first: they represent all the nameless, all the working stiffs, the great wheeling population of the whole world.
Probably the reason we al go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don't quite know how to put our love into words.
The outdoor Christmas lights, green and red and gold and blue and twinkling, remind me that most people are that way all year round--kind, generous, friendly and with an occasional moment of ecstasy. But Christmas is the only time they dare reveal themselves.
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer... If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' upon his lips should be boiled with his won pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!
Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him--and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.
The merry family gatherings--
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.
For Christmas is tradition time--
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.
A merry Christmas, God save you! cried a cheerful voice. Bah! said Scrooge. Humbug!
A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!
May joy be yours today,
And radiantly abide
Within your heart until
Another Christmastide.
Love came down at Christmas;
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.
Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart
Let us keep Christmas beautiful
Without a thought of greed,
That it might live forevermore
To fill our every need,
That it shall not be just a day,
But last a lifetime through,
The miracle of Christmastime
That brings God close to you
Let Christmas not become a thing
Merely of merchant's trafficking,
Of tinsel, bell and holly wreath
And surface pleasure, but beneath
The childish glamour, let us find
Nourishment for heart and mind.
Let us follow kinder ways
Through our teeming human maze,
And help the age of peace to come.
Late on a sleepy, star-spangled night, those angels peeled back the sky just like you would tear open a sparkling Christmas present. Then, with light and joy pouring out of Heaven like water through a broken dam, they began to shout and sing the message that baby Jesus had been born. The world had a Savior! The angels called it Good News, and it was.
The joy of brightening other lives, bearing others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas.
As you chose the lowly, the outcasts, and the poor to receive the greatest news the world had ever known, so may we worship you in meekness of heart. May we also remember our brothers and sisters less fortunate than ourselves in this season of giving. Amen.
Jesus, the Light of the World, as we celebrate your birth ... may we begin to see the world in the light of understanding you give us.
...it was always said of him [Scrooge] that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!
It is the personal thoughtfulness, the warm human awareness, the reaching out of the self to one's fellow man that makes giving worthy of the Christmas spirit.
It is not even the beginning of Christmas unless it is Christmas in the heart.
It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.
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