“Merry Christmas, Marilla! Merry Christmas, Matthew! Isn’t it a lovely Christmas? I’m so glad it’s white. Any other kind of Christmas doesn’t seem real, does it? I don’t like green Christmases. They’re not green ---they’re just nasty faded browns and greys. What makes people call them green?” (Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery)

“They moved to the sitting room and Clark took Missie on his knee and opened up the Bible. He first read of the angel appearing to the virgin girl, Mary, telling her that she had been chosen as the mother of the Christ-child. He went on to read of Joseph’s and Mary’s trip to Bethlehem where no room was found in the inn, so that night the infant Jesus was born in a stable. The shepherds heard the good news from the angels and rushed to see the new-born King. Then the wisemen came, following the star and bearing their gifts to the child, going home a different way for the protection of the baby.

            “Marty thought that she had never heard anything so beautiful. She couldn’t remember ever hearing the complete story before as it was given in the Scriptures. A little baby born in a stable was God’s Son. She placed a handover her own little one.

            “‘Wouldn’t be a carin’ fer my son to be born in a barn. Don’t suppose thet God was wanting it thet way either, but no one had room for a wee baby. Still --- God did watch over Him, sendin’ angels to tell the shepherds an’ all. An’ the wisemen too, with their rich gifts. Yes, God was a carin’ ‘bout his Son.’” (Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke)

            “In the morning they all woke up almost at the same moment. They looked at their stockings, and something was in them. Santa Claus had been there. Alice and Ella and Laura in their red flannel nightgowns, and Peter in his red flannel nightshirt, all ran shouting to see what he had brought.

            “In each stocking there was a pair of bright red mittens, there was a long, flat stick of red-and-white-striped peppermint candy, all beautifully notched along each side.

            “They were all so happy they could hardly speak at first. They just looked with shining eyes at those lovely Christmas presents.” (Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder)

            “The familiar Christmas carols had never meant as much to me as they did on that night, As I recited the words, I pictured the young Mary, her hour having come, with no one to care for her ---no warm bed, no private room, no skilled midwife---only straw, a stable, and an anxious husband nearby. She herself cared for the newborn Son of God, the baby Jesus.

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