Christmas lights may be the loneliest thing for me, especially if you mix them up with reindeers and sleighs. I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel I do not belong.

The tradition of putting candles on Christmas trees actually began in Germany. The person who came up with the idea is thought to have been Martin Luther, father of the Reformation.

When I first came out, holidays were hard. I reached a point where I didn't go home anymore. I constructed my own, kind of like, family group around Christmas.

'The Christmas Song,' by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance; to me it just sounds like the holidays. I've never sung it, because Nat's version is so perfect. I gotta leave it alone.

It will be a hard game if you think about winning a championship. We need to think about our own game at the moment and focus on getting good results especially over the Christmas period.

Very early on in life, I decided the hell with it: material things weren't for me. Christmas would come, and other kids would have all these presents, and it wouldn't bother me a bit.

Godot is whatever it is in life that you are waiting for: 'I'm waiting to win the lottery. I'm waiting to fall in love'. For me, as a child, it was Christmas. At least that eventually came.

My mother-in-law has come round to our house at Christmas seven years running. This year we're having a change. We're going to let her in.

People have nannies and big cars, and they want to go to Maui for Christmas. When there are those kind of stakes involved, people get ruthless.

I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound.

We always had lutefisk for Christmas dinner, after which Dad read from the Norwegian Bible.

Religious symbols should be visible in public space, in a dignified and non-provocative manner. Christmas trees here, Jewish menorahs there and, further along, a minaret - these symbols represent human life in all its diversity.

I'm totally the 'decorate early, start listening to Christmas songs super early' guy. I've just always been that way.

I love Christmas. I'm totally the 'decorate early, start listening to Christmas songs super-early' guy.

Christmas always rustled. It rustled every time, mysteriously, with silver and gold paper, tissue paper and a rich abundance of shiny paper, decorating and hiding everything and giving a feeling of reckless extravagance.

On the morning, Daddy and I get up at six o'clock because Christmas trees must be bought in the dark. We walk to the other end of town, as the big harbour is just the right setting for buying a Christmas tree. We spend hours choosing, looking at every branch suspiciously. It's always cold.

Mummy weighed sweets and nuts so that everyone would get exactly the same amount. During the year, everything is measured roughly, but at Christmas, it has to be absolutely fair. That's why it's such a strenuous time.

Nothing is as peaceful as when Christmas is over, when one has been forgiven for everything and can be normal again.

One of my favorite times of year is around Christmas when my entire family gets together and we make tamales together. It's a full two-day event, and we create an assembly line. It's awesome because everyone has his or her own part in making the dish. It's so much fun.

Comic-Con is nerd Christmas. People go wanting to have fun.

Christmas is more stressful with present buying and making sure everyone gets included, but Thanksgiving is really not that. I don't ever really get stressed out about the food.

Like my dad, I have a Christmas party most years. I like to celebrate and see as many people as possible.

The Christmas story has such power and such appeal every year. There are other stories we get tired of. You think of your favorite movie; you don't want to watch it 15 times.

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.

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.

Christmas in the Buckley household is hilarious - at the family dinner, we all have to do a song, no matter if you can sing in tune.

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.

The No. 1 best-selling Christmas album of all time is from Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, the Jewish smooth-jazz legend Kenny G. American Jews have always produced a lot of holiday music, just not Hanukkah music.

I tend to think of Pluto and its moons as presents sitting under a Christmas tree. They're wrapped, and from Earth all we can do is look at the boxes to see whether they're light or heavy, to see if something maybe jiggles a bit inside. We're seeing intriguing things, but we really don't know what's in there.

I used to have nightmares when I was a little kid that I woke up prematurely and opened all the Christmas presents. And then I would be so relieved when I woke up and I realized that I hadn't done it.

I've been in elementary education for years and my belief is that Christmas pageants in schools are little more than conditioning kids for the Christian religion.

I love Christmas. I really do love Christmas. I love being with my family and I love snow. I love the music and the lights and all of it.

Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas, and there's no way I'd do anything to undermine that belief.

Traditions are always puzzling to those who don't share them. I'm Jewish, so the idea of a 'perfect family Christmas' is foreign to me.

Kind 'Guardian' readers have been forwarding me round robin Christmas newsletters for years now: lengthy missives full of perfect children, exotic holidays, talented pets and endless, tedious detail. The notes that accompanied them revealed they had inspired in the original recipients everything from mild irritation to absolute rage.

I am one of those people who is not very patient in the makeup chair. I have been offered movies like 'Planet of the Apes' and stuff like 'The Grinch Who Stole Christmas' and I turned them down.

I know 'Hallelujah' isn't actually a Christmas song, but it has that cozy, haunting vibe that sounds like a winter's night and belongs by a fire.

No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace, is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.

I'm like everybody: I gain the Christmas 10 or so, and then I try to exercise more and dial it back.

We play everybody's Christmas records at our house, and sometimes you think, 'I'm not gonna play my own record; I'd be embarrassed.' But I'm gonna play our record this Christmas, because I love the songs!

I grew up in Morocco. I was born a Muslim, and, every year, I celebrated Christmas in a big white house in the country, halfway between Meknes and Fez.

My parents got me a $25 Kent steel-string acoustic guitar when I was around 12. The following Christmas, my parents bought me a Conora electric guitar. It looked almost like a Gretsch. It cost $59, and my mom still has it.

The earliest you can play Christmas music is on Thanksgiving.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a home where I woke up Christmas morning and had toys. I know that's not the case with all people and I don't think kids should go without experiencing that sort of joy.

My favorite toy growing up was Polly Pocket. But one gift that I wanted though never received for Christmas was a pair of trampoline moon shoes. You strap them to your feet and they have springs on them, and you can just jump around!

Christmas coming means one thing for comedians: office party gigs!

My very first acting role was Tiny Tim in 'A Christmas Carol.'

I'm literally obsessed with Christmas, and it's been my dream ever since I was a little girl to make a Christmas album.

I really like the European carols, and I like that captivating sound that they have that isn't usually in Christmas songs.

I really love what Chuck Berry did with Christmas music, and also the Rat Pack Christmas stuff, which I listened to all through my childhood.