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've always been shy, but I see that as a good thing because it kept me focused on music. When I was in seventh grade, I asked my parents for a mobile recording system for Christmas, and I got it. I didn't come out of my room for years after that. I'd get invited to the movies and I'd say, 'I'm gonna finish a couple of demos.'

Even today, I am still very child-like while designing. It's a bit like Christmas - each of your designs you create is like unravelling your presents.

One Christmas I had no money, and so I went home and just, like, wrote a poem; I mean, I didn't write them, but I just handed out poems as Christmas presents. Like, 'Here's a Pablo Neruda poem that really made me think of you.'

I don't go back home to Sardinia as much as I would like, just for Christmas and family events.

I write seven days a week, starting at 4 o'clock in the morning, including Christmas.

Christmas is a season which almost all Christians observe in one way or another. Some keep it as a religious season. Some keep it as a holiday. But all over the world, wherever there are Christians, in one way or another Christmas is kept.

I do have a family, and I do have friends, and so-called friends, and acquaintances, and many other people I see only around Christmas time. Maybe they could vouch for me. Maybe they could testify to my existence and save a part of me that thinks I'm no better than a bag of potato chips.

Pfft, I hate Christmas Day. It's for children and families. Not for people like me.

I wanted to have more songs with religious backgrounds. The Christmas record has strong, traditional hymns, but it also has a song called 'Christmas in Heaven' about missing someone that you love that's passed on, and wondering what's going on up there on Christmas.

The term 'natural resources' confuses people. 'Natural resources' are not like a finite number of gifts under the Christmas tree. Nature is given, but resources are created.

Tiny quails may not seem as impressive as a mammoth turkey, but there is something refreshing about a spread of individual birds on the Christmas table.

Songs that aren't even remotely connected to Christmas are now officially canonized Christmas tunes. 'Frosty the Snowman,' 'Jingle Bells' and 'Winter Wonderland' never mention anything religious but are still notches in Christmas' belt of musical dominance.

I don't think of Home Depot as romantic, but I do think the Christmas wonderland they put up during the holidays is magical. That is what Home Depot is to me, and that is the only romantic thing about it.

Contemplating Christmas when you are isolated and far from home brings its own unique pain.

For many of us, Christmas lunch is the most special meal of the year - and I certainly want nothing but the very best for this celebration.

Christmas cookies can't help but be retro - they are memory first, sugar-flour-egg-redhot-gumdrop-sparkle reality second.

There is a lot to celebrate about that little Babe who was laid in a manger. Christians celebrate Christmas because they are thankful for the promise of salvation, which was delivered in human flesh and named Jesus.

I'm not going to tell you to meditate on what Christmas really means and be thankful.

A Christian's celebration of Christmas should be a lot different from that of nonbelievers.

There's a lot of movies that aren't all about Christmas, or where Christmas isn't the focus, but have that spirit of Christmas in them. I love that sequence in 'Auntie Mame,' where she's in the department store, sewing at Macy's, and she doesn't know how to do anything but fill out a form as 'cash on delivery!'

I worked every day - Christmas Eve, birthdays - trying to become a great basketball player. Everywhere I went, I had a basketball.

Somehow we just don't make the same boisterous fun of Holy Week that we do of Christmas. No one plans to have a holly, jolly Easter.

My mom always makes the whole family pile into the car and drive around to look at the Christmas lights. My brother and I never want to do it, but my mom just loves it!

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.

Adults are tempted to produce and perform Christmas for their kids and their families, and they arrive at Christmas Day weary and disillusioned.

The Christmas genre is a field that's been well-ploughed.

For me, the spirit of Christmas means being happy and giving freely. It's a tradition for all the kids in the family to help mom decorate the tree. Christmas is all about family, eating, drinking and making merry.

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.

I realised that you could easily turn any room into a cinema with a projector, so I went on and on at my parents for one. They eventually got me a projector for Christmas when I was ten, and I realised I'd made a ridiculous mistake - I'd forgotten to say 'movie' projector; I got a still one.

Some bands today have the experience of really working together and honing their craft. And other bands are very much like, 'I just got a guitar for Christmas, let's start a band.' And you can hear the difference.

I remember being banned from other houses as a younger child during the winter holiday season; I was the only one who didn't believe in Santa Claus, and I was ruining everyone's Christmas.

The real reason Jews don't have more Hanukkah music is that, historically, American Jewish singer-songwriters were too busy making Christmas music. 'White Christmas,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' 'Silver Bells' and 'The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting)' were all written by Jews.

One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was the globe that I now keep right beside my desk.

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.

Farmers' markets are one of my favourite sources for Christmas goodies.

It's funny how we 'do' Christmas. Christmas is not something that we do, it is something that was done. It celebrates the long awaited arrival of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. We had nothing to do with it, but what we can do is praise God for the coming of the Lord, who washed away the sins of the world by dying on the cross.

Christmas is a Christian holiday, and any self-respecting person of another religion should not celebrate a holiday that they don't believe in. Clearly, Christ is in the name of the holiday, so there should be a belief in Him.

Giving is a really big thing around Christmas, as well it should be. Christmas is about giving, and it all stems from the greatest gift the world has ever received - the gift of Jesus Christ.

Don't send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals, when their cheery effect is needed.

I think 'Elf' is funny, with Will Ferrell. That's a great Christmas movie.

I was 23 when I learned how to cook; I grew up around the same time. It was precisely then that Thanksgiving started to mean something more. Growing up, Christmas was always about me, and eventually you, when I finally started to enjoy the giving part. But Thanksgiving is always about us.

Easter may seem boring to children, and it is blessedly unencumbered by the silly fun that plagues Christmas. Yet it contains the one thing needful for every human life: the good news of Resurrection.

One of my favorite traditions is that my sisters and I, we all wear the same pajamas. I've even still got some from when I was 6. Also, I'll always remember cooking together in the kitchen and that no matter how busy our schedules are, we are all together for Christmas.

I detest 'Jingle Bells,' 'White Christmas,' 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,' and the obscene spending bonanza that nowadays seems to occupy not just December, but November and much of October, too.

A simplified Christmas isn't about circumstances as much as it is about focus.

No matter where I am in the world, I will always be back home for Christmas.

Felixstowe, the United Kingdom's largest port, stops work only for Christmas Day and for crane-toppling Force 9 gales.

When I was eight, my mum found me humming to myself and scribbling on a scrap of paper. When she asked me what I was doing, I got shy. I was writing a Christmas song, and I had never shared my music with anyone before. Reluctantly, I sang it for her... and she loved it. Of course she did - she's my mum.

You are not practicing Judaism if you celebrate Christmas.