Monthly Archives: December 2020

December 2020 Countdown – December 31!

“Stand for something or you will fall for anything.  Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.”

Rosa Parks

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December 2020 Countdown – December 30!

“If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind.  If you don’t, you’re simply ducking your responsibilities.”

Ann Richards

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December 2020 Countdown – December 29!

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.  Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.  They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”

Frederick Douglass

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December 2020 Countdown – December 28!

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”

Gabriel García Márquez

Image: Tomás Sánchez, “Aislarse”

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December 2020 Countdown – December 27!

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Image: El Capitan, Yosemite National Park

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December 2020 Countdown – December 26!

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan.  And guess what they have planned for you?  Not much.”

Jim Rohn

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December 2020 Countdown – December 25!

“We human beings are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions.  We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities.  For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”

Dalai Lama

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Merry Christmas 2020

“Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.”

Victor Borge

“There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.”

Robert Staughton Lynd

“I get a little behind during Lent, but it comes out even at Christmas.”

Frank Butler

“Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and receipts for all major purchases.”

Bridger Winegar

“I haven’t taken my Christmas lights down. They look so nice on the pumpkin.”

Winston Spear

“At Christmas, tea is compulsory. Relatives are optional.”

Robert Godden

“The principal advantage of the non-parental lifestyle is that on Christmas Eve you need not be struck dumb by the three most terrifying words that the government allows to be printed on any product: ‘Some assembly required.’”

John Leo

“Nothing’s as mean as giving a little child something useful for Christmas.”

Kin Hubbard

“I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, ‘Toys not included.’”

Bernard Manning

“What I like about Christmas is that you can make people forget the past with the present.”

Don Marquis

“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.”

Garrison Keillor

“I love Christmas. I receive a lot of wonderful presents I can’t wait to exchange.”

Henny Youngman

“That’s the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me.”

Jerry Seinfeld

“Do give books – religious or otherwise – for Christmas. They’re never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.”

Lenore Hershey

“For Christmas this year, try giving less. Start with less attitude. There’s more than enough of that in the world as it is – and people will usually just give it back anyway!”

Anne Bristow

Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas. You know, the birth of Santa?”

Matt Groening

“Let me see if I’ve got this Santa business straight. You say he wears a beard, has no discernible source of income and flies to cities all over the world under cover of darkness? You sure this guy isn’t laundering illegal drug money?”

Tom Armstrong

“Who’s the bane of Santa’s life? The elf and safety officer.”

Catherine Tate

“Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, he must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, must be a pacifist. What’s in that pipe that he’s smoking?”

Arlo Guthrie

“Nothing says holiday like a cheese log.”

Ellen DeGeneres

“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

“Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.”

Johnny Carson

“I bought my brother some gift wrap for Christmas. I took it to the gift wrap department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know when to stop unwrapping.”

Steven Wright

“Be careful with drinking this Christmas. I got so drunk last night I found myself dancing in a cheesy bar… or, as you like to call it, delicatessen.”

Sean Hughes

“Christmas sweaters are only acceptable as a cry for help.”

Andy Borowitz

“People can’t concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces properly if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December.”

Ogden Nash

“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.”

Roy L. Smith

“A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.”

John B. Priestly

“Pets, like their owners, tend to expand a little over the Christmas period.”

Fanny Wright

“Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space.”

Dave Berry

“Next to a circus there ain’t nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.”

Frank McKinney Hubbard

“One good thing about Christmas shopping is it toughens you for the January sales.”

Grace Kriley

“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

“There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them.”

P.J. O’Rourke

“Ever wonder what people got Jesus for Christmas? It’s like, ‘Oh great, socks. You know I’m dying for your sins right? Yeah, but thanks for the socks! They’ll go great with my sandals. What am I, German?’”

Jim Gaffigan

“Every year, Christmas gets longer and longer, and you don’t care, do you? Every year, you just take more of the calendar for yourself. How long does it take you people to shop? It’s beyond belief! It’s insane! When I was a kid, Halloween was Halloween, and Santa wasn’t poking his ass into it!”

Lewis Black

“I’ve had this look for about a year. I usually grow this beard out around Christmas. I like to go to malls dressed as Jesus, and I like to then walk around the mall and go, ‘No! No! This wasn’t what it was supposed to be about, people!’ Then if there’s a Santa at the mall, I walk up to him and say, ‘Listen, fat man, you’re just a clown at my birthday party.’”

Marc Maron

“I set a personal record on Christmas. I got my shopping done three weeks ahead of time. I had all the presents back at my apartment, I was halfway through wrapping them, and I realized, ‘Damn, I used the wrong wrapping paper.’ The paper I used said, ‘Happy Birthday.’ I didn’t want to waste it, so I just wrote ‘Jesus’ on it.”

Demetri Martin

“Christmas: it’s the only religious holiday that’s also a federal holiday. That way, Christians can go to their services, and everyone else can sit at home and reflect on the true meaning of the separation of church and state.”

Samantha Bee

“What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.”

Phyllis Diller

“It may be a cliché, but it’s true – the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself.”

Julie Burchill

You’d look the same if you had a Christmas tree stuck up your ass!

Top image: Charles van Sandwyk – ‘The Fairies’ Christmas’ – “How to See Fairies & Other Tales” – Folio Society 2018

Bottom image: Julian Clary

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Have a Creepy Victorian Christmas

We have so many reasons to be thankful for the times in which we live: air conditioning, television, cell phones, cars, and no creepy Victorian-era Christmas cards.  It may be difficult to imagine, but our ancestors of the 19th and early 20th centuries either had a distorted idea of what the yuletide season is supposed to represent or they had too much alcohol and not enough sex.

Whatever was wrong with them, we can undoubtedly determine their bizarre mindsets from a glance at some of their holiday cards.  I mean…what reasonable person would glean Christmas joy from images of dead birds and dancing frogs?  Then again, look who’s talking!

“May Christmas be Merry” (19th-century)

“May yours be a Joyful Christmas”

“May all jollity ‘lighten’ your Christmas hours”
“A Happy Christmas” (1900)
“Greetings from Krampus”
“Absent friends [natives], may we soon see them again! A merry Christmas to you” (1876)
“A hearty Christmas greeting: Four jovial froggies / a skating would go; / They asked their mamma, / but she’d sternly said, ‘No!’ / And they all came to grief in a beautiful row. / There’s a sweet Christmas moral for one not too slow. / Just so!”
The red ants have a flag that reads: “The compliments of the season”

“I have come to greet you” (Inside it says: “Loving Christmas greetings, may smiling faces ring around your glowing hearth this Christmas day, may fun and merriment abound, and all your world be glad and gay”)
“Best wishes for Christmas”
“A happy Christmas”
“So please excuse this impecunious card, As all I’m good for is a used up.”
Christmas card by Wilhelm Larsen (c. 1890)
“Every good wish for your Christmas”
“A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” (1876)
“A happy Christmas to you”
“Wishing you a merry Christmas” (featuring a goldfinch, bee, and cricket)
“Merry Christmas” (Christmas pudding-themed card)
“With many merry Christmas greetings”
A Victorian snowman
“Here’s a crow for Christmas”
An example of one of the first Australian Christmas cards

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December 2020 Countdown – December 24!

“I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.”

Federico García Lorca

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