I couldn't live on the singing at first, so I worked as a cleaner, in a launderette, in a garage, face painting and doing the windows of shops at Christmas, 'cause I had been to art college.

My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing.

When you travel on Christmas, for you as the traveler - whether you're in 1A or 39D - there is a mental state that you have to put yourself in: that you're traveling at the busiest time of the year, and you're going to take whatever comes your way.

As a very young man growing up in Texas, usually I got a shotgun or cowboy boots for Christmas.

Christmas is relentless. It's around the clock. I sit with my little ones in front of the TV screen, and we watch movie after movie after movie.

Sometimes I wonder: What are the children thinking? And sometimes I wonder why the hell I'm not buying a tree like the other neighbors. After all, there is no mention in Christianity of Christmas trees, and even if there were - is there any good reason why I shouldn't be buying some red stockings?

At Christmas play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year.

The first story I can remember writing, that I truly set down on paper, was a Christmas story that I wrote when I was ten years old.

Dickens was a part of how the whole celebration of Christmas as we know it today emerged during the 19th century.

'A Christmas Carol' has been described as the most perfect of Dickens's works and as a quintessential heart-warming story, and it is certainly the most popular.

I love 'White Christmas.' That's one of my favorites just because I love the music. I love the story, Bing Crosby. It's just one of my all time favorites. And it's hard to have a Christmas without seeing a little bit of Jimmy Stewart and angels running around town.

I want to go to Lapland and see Father Christmas, and now I've got a child, so I've got an excuse. Also, I'd like to go to South America especially as I'm now living in that part of the world, in L.A. now. And I must get down to Mexico.

My parents were willing to let me follow my nose, do what I wanted to do, and they supported my interest by buying the books that I wanted for birthdays and Christmas, almost always poetry books.

The only thing I liked about Christmas as a kid was the gifts; otherwise, it just seemed like a stressful time.

As a child, I was bonkers for Christmas. The entire month of December, I couldn't sleep at night from anticipation.

When I was five years old, my parents gave me a drum set for Christmas. My mom played the piano, and Dad played the saxophone badly. But that Christmas morning, I remember we all played together, and I thought it was the greatest day ever.

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

I've taught fifth-year Christmas leavers last thing on a Friday afternoon. Basically, if you can face that you can face anything.

I save every Christmas card. I keep them all.

My son was 8 or 9, and he really wanted a gun. It was Christmas, and I said to my husband, 'It's time for a gun.'

Most of the soap operas always use the Christmas special to kill huge quantities of their characters. So they have trams coming off their rails, or cars slamming into each other or burning buildings. It's a general clean-out.

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.

I had a great AP U.S. History teacher in Pittsburgh. We still exchange Christmas cards. She was the first teacher who said I was a good writer - and I'd never heard that before. And so I remember that, and I remember that level of loving the material and really loving writing about it.

My favourite time of year is two weeks before Christmas when everybody's up for it - you're having lunches with people, drinking Cosmopolitans, and getting ready for something exciting!

During the first 13 centuries after the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, no one thought of setting up a creche to celebrate Christmas. The pre-eminent Christian holiday was Easter, not Christmas.

The 'Story of Silent Night', which was given to me one Christmas when I was six - it was the story of a down and out composer who had no ideas left, and it was Christmas, and he came up with the hymn 'Silent Night.'

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

To understand this Christmas record, you have to understand our ministry.

I hate to say it, but Christmas as a kid was always a moneymaking venture for me. I played trumpet, and a friend of mine who played trombone and a guy who played tuba, every Christmas we'd go out for three or four days beforehand and play Christmas carols on our horns.

Christmas brings us great music: Everything from Handel's 'Messiah' to 'White Christmas,' to 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.'

Christians get trees. Jews get bushes. To stay in good standing with the Tribe, you've got to refer to a Christmas tree as a Hanukkah bush.

I read everything. I'll read a John Grisham novel, I'll sit and read a whole book of poems by Maya Angelou, or I'll just read some Mary Oliver - this is a book that was given to me for Christmas. No particular genre. And I read in French, and I read in German, and I read in English. I love to see how other people use language.

I came out to my dad in Christmas of '94.

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

For Christmas I do gift bags for my friends and the cast, and I put 'treat yo self' key chains in there. And people send me pictures of 'treat yo self' all the time.

I love snow; I love building snowman. The only thing I don't like is the cold - so if we could have a hot Christmas, that would be amazing.

At Christmas time, I spent an extortionate amount of money on Buzz Lightyear toys, baby clothes, Disney cars and the like.

I was in 'Christmas with the Crawfords' with Joey Arias. I did that for six years, so I have a holiday show mentality a little bit.

I did a Christmas movie where I played Mrs. Claus because my children's favorite movie of all time was a Christmas movie that my father did in which he played Santa, and I was like, 'How often do they make a movie about Mrs. Claus?' and, 'My kids will love this.'

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

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.

My mom is a really good cook. I didn't get the cooking gene, but she cooks this really amazing dinner every Christmas, and that's always really fun.

I've not cooked Christmas dinner since 1982.

I have always wanted to do a Christmas album and covers.

I just travel all the time. And I was just looking at the schedules now and starting the first week of October I will be every weekend with somebody at tournaments through Christmas. So it gets very difficult to just go away and not do that.

There I am, watching Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of my favourite actors in the world, walk into the room dressed up as Father Christmas, being hilarious, and I'm suddenly thinking, 'Where am I?'

My fondest memories are generally the day after Thanksgiving. I get the total decorating Christmas itch.

Christmas is a time of year that's so romantic.

Fans talk to me about how 'Country Christmas' has become a holiday tradition for them and that they all watch to start their holiday season. To be a part of people's holiday traditions is a real joy.

I got my first instrument for Christmas when I was three or four years old. My parents got me a mandolin because it was the only instrument that would fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into the drums when I was six, and then I started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.