This is a collection of ‘Christmas’ quotes for cards that I spent quite a few hours compiling from famous, and lesser known, literary works and biographies. Some of the quotes are sentimental, others humorous, and yet others are very random in nature. I had fun dreaming up the images that might come along side some of these quotes on a Christmas card. As you read them, see what images come to your mind. I would sincerely like to design cards for some of these!
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“. . . an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day . . .”
~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the three of whom we shall deprive you.”
~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“The dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one; some of the older folks joined in it, and the squire himself figured down several couple with a partner, with whom he affirmed he had danced at every Christmas for nearly half a century.”
~ Washington Irving, Old Christmas

“Master Simon covered himself with glory by the stateliness with which, as Ancient Christmas, he walked a minuet with the peerless, though giggling, Dame Mince Pie.”
~ Washington Irving, Old Christmas

“They performed last Christmas in a French piece, by Alexandre Dumas, I believe–’La Duchesse de Montefiasco,’ of which I forget the plot, but everybody was in love with everybody else’s wife, except the hero, Don Alonzo, who was ardently attached to the Duchess, who turned out to be his grandmother.”
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Our Street

“Pray, dear madam, another glass; it is Christmas time, it will do you no harm.”
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Kickleburrys on the Rhine

“It happened that the undersigned spent the Christmas season in a foreign city where there were many English children.”
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Rose and the Ring

“They were much amused when they saw the Christmas toy with which I was armed.”
~John Fox, Man-Hunting in the Pound

“Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amids the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away.”
~ Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

“It was Christmas Eve, too; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub.”
~ Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

“A little before twilight, one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself towards the old churchyard; for he had got a grave to finish next morning, and feeling very low, he thought it might raise his spirits, perhaps, if he went on with his work at once.”
~ Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

“A bundle of little spruce trees had been flung off near the freight office, and sent a smell of Christmas into the cold air.”
~ Willa Cather, One of Ours

“He had been to see Mrs. Erlich just before starting home for the holidays, and found her making German Christmas cakes. She took him into the kitchen and explained the almost holy traditions that governed this complicated cookery. Her excitement and seriousness as she beat and stirred were very pretty, Claude thought. She told off on her fingers the many ingredients, but he believed there were things she did not name: the fragrance of old friendships, the glow of early memories, belief in wonder-working rhymes and songs.”
~ Willa Cather, One of Ours

“All the old ladies are so terribly puzzled about them; they can’t find out whether your brother really gave them to her for Christmas or not.”
~ Willa Cather, One of Ours

“Then I saw in one of those little miscellaneous shops—news, sweets, toys, stationery, belated Christmas tomfoolery, and so forth—an array of masks and noses.”
H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

“Christmas day is the children’s, but the holidays are youth’s dancing-time.”
~ Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons

“Through the windows of many of the houses rosy lights were flickering; and silver tinsel and evergreen wreaths and brilliant little glass globes of silver and wine colour could be seen, and glimpses were caught of Christmas trees, with people decking them by firelight—reminders that this was Christmas Eve.”
~ Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons

“His vague desire to do immortal acting with the English Dramatic Association faded out when he found that the most ingenious brains and talents were concentrated upon the Triangle Club, a musical comedy organization that every year took a great Christmas trip.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“I will not make myself ridiculous as some mothers no doubt do, by insisting that you wear overshoes, though I remember one Christmas you wore them around constantly without a single buckle latched, making such a curious swishing sound, and you refused to buckle them because it was not the thing to do. The very next Christmas you would not wear even rubbers, though I begged you.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“But at Christmas he had returned to Minneapolis, tight-lipped and strangely jubilant.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“‘Look here,’ said the Medical Man, ‘are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick—like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?’”
~ H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

“‘You don’t go out fishing after Christmas?’ I asked, as we came back to the bright kitchen.”
~ Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs

“Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts of warmth and color with all the heightening contrast of frost and snow.”
~ George Elliot, The Mill on the Floss

“They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise.”
~ Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“But if he passed he was to go to town and get splendid Sunday clothes, and come home again and dance at Christmas, to the envy of all the boys and the admiration of all the girls.”
~ Björnstjerne Björnson, A Happy Boy

“They’ve been standing now since before Christmas.”
~ Björnstjerne Björnson, A Happy Boy

“I’ve been going about all the evening with some Christmas sweeties in my pocket for you, Eyvind, but I couldn’t give them to you before.”
~ Björnstjerne Björnson, A Happy Boy

“All she ever gets from her family is a turkey at Christmas, in exchange for which she has to board two or three of her sisters in the off season; and lodge and feed her brothers when they come to town.”
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“Jim has given up that sport himself, and confines himself to a little harmless duck or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the rats during the Christmas holidays, after which he will return to the University, and try and not be plucked, once more.”
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“. . . he sate and looked out of it wondering as the great iron gates flew open, and at the white trunks of the limes as they swept by, until they stopped, at length, before the light windows of the Hall, which were blazing and comfortable with Christmas welcome.”
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“His lucky star first led him in the Christmas season to a cloister, where the friar, whose business it had been to arrange processions, and to entertain the Christian community by spiritual masquerades, having just died, Serlo was welcomed as a helping angel.”
~ Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship

“‘You were once telling us,’ she said, ‘about the first exhibition of a puppet-show on Christmas-eve: I remember you were interrupted, just as the ballet was going to begin.’”
~ Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship

“The women spun mittens for the lady and knitted boot-hose for the laird, which were annually presented at Christmas with great form.”
~ Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering

“I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you’re only a girl.”
~ George Elliot, The Mill on the Floss

“In fact, I believe a more dreadful apparition was never raised in a church-yard, nor in the imagination of any good people met in a winter evening over a Christmas fire in Somersetshire.”
~ Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones

“Only once at Christmas she sent them all presents of pies and rolls.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“I little thought, while enjoying my Christmas revels in the elegant home of my firm friends, the Reverend Lionel Delamere and his amiable lady, to find a stranger had taken my place in the affections of my dearest, my still dearest Matilda!”
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“When I went to see her last Christmas, she said, ‘Mrs. Pullet, if ever you have the dropsy, you’ll think o’ me.’”
~ George Elliot, The Mill on the Floss

“This day was Christmas, but it brought us no holiday. The only change was that we had a “plum duff” for dinner, and the crew quarrelled with the steward because he did not give us our usual allowance of molasses to eat with it. He thought the plums would be a substitute for the molasses, but we were not to be cheated out of our rights in this way.”
~ Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast

“Yankees don’t keep Christmas, and shipmasters at sea never know when Thanksgiving comes, so Jack has no festival at all.”
~ Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast

“I mean the baronet and the rector, not our brothers—but the former, who hate each other all the year round, become quite loving at Christmas.”
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“And if it happened to be a Christmas-night when the great bell seemed to rattle in its throat as it called the faithful to the midnight mass, there was such an indescribable air of life spread over the sombre facade that the great door-way looked as if it were swallowing the entire crowd, and the rose-window staring at them.”
~ Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

“I found there a large party of children, collected together for Christmas Day, and all sitting round a table at tea. I never saw a nicer or more merry group; and to think that this was in the centre of the land of cannibalism, murder, and all atrocious crimes!”
~ Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle

“Our first Christmas Day was spent at Plymouth; the second at St. Martin’s Cove, near Cape Horn; the third at Port Desire, in Patagonia; the fourth at anchor in a wild harbour in the peninsula of Tres Montes; this fifth here; and the next, I trust in Providence, will be in England.”
~ Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle

“. . . a region where, at Christmas time, I have seen old strawberries still on the vines, by the side of vines in full blossom for the next crop, and grapes in the same stages, and open windows, and yet a grateful wood fire on the hearth in early morning . . .”
~ Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast

“But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humor to the last.”
~ Charles Dickens, A Chrismas Carol

“He went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honor of its being Christmas eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman’s buff.”
~ Charles Dickens, A Chrismas Carol

“Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and byways, for their several homes?”
~ Charles Dickens, A Chrismas Carol

“For they said, is was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!”
~ Charles Dickens, A Chrismas Carol

“He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.”
~ Charles Dickens, A Chrismas Carol

“After a while they played at forfeits; for is is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.”
~ Charles Dickens, A Chrismas Carol

“A merry Christmas, Bob! said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back.”
~ Charles Dickens, A Chrismas Carol