Sal says that Mucka was right; neither Sal nor Phil expect a Christmas Card or Seasons Greeting e-mail or text from the minions or powers that bee over at Horse Racing Alberta this year or an invite to their holiday soiree, but that won’t damper Sal or Phil’s season. Same as it ever was. Besides, as you know the minions and powers that bee at HRA are much better at receiving than giving.
If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
Moshe Dayan
While you’re preparing for and enjoying Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, Boxing Day and the opening of Santa Anita’s winter meet enjoy a few readings, movies, Carols, Christmas and other songs.
The good old days are now.
Tom Clancy
Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.
Sitting Bull
For it is in giving that we receive.
St. Francis of Assisi
Sal says that sometimes Sal just has to be Sal.
The other day I started to take a course in psycho-ceramics. What is psycho-ceramics? It’s the study of crackpots.
Joey Bishop
Sal says don’t be a sentimental fool and be falling for ‘Falling For Christmas’.
Sal doesn’t understand how you can return to something you were never really in.
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Kurt Vonnegut
The Ringer – An Introduction to ‘White Noise,’ Don DeLillo’s Defining and Unfilmable Novel
The Ringer – Nayman – ‘White Noise’ Is the Sound of Disappointment
Is it possible Hanukkah doesn’t inspire folksy songs? Plot lines may be a part. The Christmas story has a lot of material to work with. There’s Jesus and his birth, the wise men, their gifts and tons of frankincense.
Matisyahu
Esquire – The 35 Best Family Movies of All Time
Chabad – Kitov – Lighting the Menorah
My Jewish Learning – Hanukkah Food
Southern Living – Millstein – What’s The Difference Between Christmas And Hanukkah?
How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts!
Southern Living – The Meaning Of Redbirds At Christmas
Lessons from A Christmas Tree
by Jane Lee Logan
- Be a light in the darkness.
- We all fall over sometimes.
- You can never wear too much glitter.
- Bring joy to others.
- Sparkle and twinkle as much as possible.
- It is okay to be a little tilted.
I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.
Maya Angelou
Southern Living – Our 35 Easiest Ever Christmas Cookie Recipes
Sal says that ever since that bus did an Acme Anvil on Phil bus songs are his not favourites.
Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.
Southern Living – Millstein – The Hanukkah Traditions Our Editors And Their Families Cherish
A recipe has no soul. You as the cook must bring soul to the recipe.
Thomas Keller
A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.
Anon.
Eater – McCarthy – Review: If ‘The Menu’ Makes You Uncomfortable, That’s Because It’s Supposed To
Where the Streets Have No Name
Christmas can be summed up in three phrases – peace on earth, peace to people of goodwill, and batteries not included.
Atlas Obscura – Ives – Remembering When Mrs. Claus Cracked the North Pole’s Glass Ceiling
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.
Matisyahu
Giving pays the highest interest rate, and has the longest term, of any investment available.
Jeffrey K. Wilson
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
Q. What did the three wise salesmen offer to baby Jesus?
A. Frankincense and gold… But wait! There’s myrrh!
Roses are reddish,
Violets are bluish,
If it weren’t for Christmas,
We’d all be Jewish.
Benny Hill
Eater – Timberlake – The New Vocabulary of Wine
Christmas Bells
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Juliet – William Shakespeare
It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us-the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage-may-eventually be gathered together in heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss-except the inventor of the telephone.
Mark Twain
A Visit from St. Nicholas
by Clement C. Moore
’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minnesota
Snoopy’s Christmas vs. The Red Baron
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
Dylan Thomas
When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear, when that happens, The Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them.
Chief Seattle
Why did Chicken Little cross the road?
To warn the people on the other side that the sky was falling.
Too many new writers dress up old cliches.
Christopher Fowler
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.
Oren Arnold
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the naughty girls live.
Dennis Miller
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I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas
Santa Claus has the right idea – visit people only once a year.
Victor Borge
What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?
Southern Living – Beall – 12 Ways Only Southerners Decorate Their Christmas Trees
Alas! How dreary would be the world if there was no Santa Claus! There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.
Francis P. Church
What do you call a kid who doesn’t believe in Santa?
A rebel without a Claus.
May you never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve.
Anon
Ho Ho Ho
Santa
Hawthorne Sal
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