Christmas hath a darkness;
Brighter than the blazing noon;
Christmas hath a chillness
Warmer than the heat of June,
Christmas hath a beauty
Lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low

—Christina Rosetti

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
And etched on vacant places
Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish,
And loves we used to know.

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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.

—Helen Lowrie Marshall

At Christmas I no more desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
But like of each thing that in season grows.

—William Shakespeare

From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another
The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other.

—Emily Matthews

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away;
While quite unselfish, it grows small.

—Eva K. Logue

Good news from heaven the angels bring,
Glad tidings to the earth they sing:
To us this day a child is given,
To crown us with the joy of heaven.

—Martin Luther

Christmas Prayer

Let Christmas not become a thing
Merely of merchants’ trafficking,

Of tinsel, bell and holly wreath
And surface pleasure, but
beneath

The childish glamour let us find
Nourishment for soul and mind.

Let us follow kinder ways
Through our teeming human maze

And help the age of peace to come
From a Dreamer’s martyrdom.

—Madeline Morse

The First Christmas

Peter was a fisher boy
Helping with the haul;

Pilate was a shavetail
Leading troops in Gaul.

Judas was as innocent
As little child can be;

The wood that made the crucifix
Was still a growing tree;

Unminted still the silver
That made the traitor’s pay,

And none had yet commercialized
The spirit of the day.

— Keith Preston

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearth-side
ease.

We pictured the meek mild
creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,

In the lonely barton by yonder comb
Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

—Thomas Hardy