100+ Christmas Quotes That Will Bring The Holly And The Jolly

Christmas quotes come in handy for, well, a surprisingly great deal of things during the holiday season. Maybe you need them for your holiday greetings cards. You might want to incorporate them into your holiday dinner table decor with bespoke placement cards (#tablescapegoals). Or perhaps you just need a big printout of Christmas quotes you can read from any time the conversation lulls or (eek!) turns to politics. After all, this time of year is all about togetherness — and sometimes you need a little help with words to fill out that time with family and friends. Having a few quotes that bring to mind the beauty of this season can be a lifesaver if you need to diffuse tension or break an uncomfortable silence. Hey, you can even use them to get a few minutes of peace and quiet if you have someone read the quotes when things start to get a little rowdy.

Of course, you’re wildly busy running around grabbing last-minute gifts, so the mere thought of finding said words of wisdom might feel overwhelming. Don’t worry; here are over 100 (yup) Christmas quotes that will move you, make you laugh, and bewilder you (did you know Taylor Swift grew up on a Christmas tree farm?! We’re stunned!)

And if you want more entertaining Christmas content, maybe even some that border on the adult-friendly, NSFW kind, we have you covered there, too. After reading through these Christmas quotes, you can turn your attention to dirty Christmas jokes, Christmas pick-up lines, Christmas riddles, Christmas jokes, Christmas photo booth ideas, and even funny Christmas quotes to give you the jollies.

Christmas Quotes That Celebrate the Holiday Season

1. “Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.” — Calvin Coolidge

2. “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” — Norman Vincent Peale

3. “Having a birthday cake squashed into your face by young kids? Delicious. I always don a Santa suit at Christmas. Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence.” — John Lydon

4. “Everybody loves a good Christmas song if you do it right.” — Sabrina Carpenter

5. “Christmas for me is all about spending time with my family. I cherish any chance we have to spend all day together making gingerbread houses, baking cookies, or sitting around and watching movies.” — Blake Lively

6. “I love the excitement, the childlike spirit of innocence and just about everything that goes along with Christmas.” — Hillary Scott

7. “Halloween isn’t the only time for ghosts and ghost stories. In Victorian Britain, spooky winter’s tales were part of the Christmas season, often told after dinner, over port or coffee.” — Michael Dirda

8. “People think it’s terribly sad to spend Christmas alone, but it’s no sadder, really, than spending any other day alone, is it?” — Paula Hawkins

9. “Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” — Washington Irving

10. “Christmas can have a real melancholy aspect, ’cause it packages itself as this idea of perfect family cohesion and love, and you’re always going to come up short when you measure your personal life against the idealized personal lives that are constantly thrust in our faces, primarily by TV commercials.” — Dan Savage

11. “No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do – eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other… and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!” — Dolly Parton

12. “Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.” — Johnny Carson

13. “I love the atmosphere at the mall — everything about Christmas. I don’t think anything specific gets me in the holiday spirit except for the holidays themselves.” — Drake Bell

14. “The two most joyous times of the year are Christmas morning and the end of school.” — Alice Cooper

15. “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” — Charles Dickens

16. “I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.” — Taylor Swift

17. “There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.” — Erma Bombeck

18. “Once again, we come to the holiday season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.” — Dave Barry

19. “Nothing says holidays like a cheese log.” — Ellen DeGeneres

20. “One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.” — Andy Rooney

21. “I was one of those goofy kids whose year narrowed down to focus on Christmas from about September on. I guess I was like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, in that I would get swept up into the anticipation of the holiday, watching the lights go up, hearing the songs in the stores, getting special Christmas issues of comics and all that.” — Paul Dini

22. “Music is my thing. It’s my thing; it’s what I love. It’s what I do. It’s football to me; it’s Christmas to me; religion to me; poetry to me.” — Ryan Adams

23. “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.” — Ian McKellen

24. “Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassured, taking pleasure in the fragrant brilliance of the Christmas tree.” — T. S. Eliot

25. “Being a traditionalist, I’m a rabid sucker for Christmas. In July, I’m already worried that there are only 146 shopping days left.” — John Waters

26. “Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!” — Charles Dickens

27. “I think I’m a lot like other moms out there who feel like if we don’t have the pecan pie we have every year, then it just won’t be Christmas.” — Faith Hill

28. “My mother accidentally gave me food poisoning. She fed me baby carrots for a snack before Christmas dinner – but they had expired in June! I threw up for the next 24 hours.” — Busy Philipps

29. “I put up my Christmas tree entirely too early. I’m one of those people.” — Rachel Boston

30. “I like to think I’m like the guy who goes to the office Christmas party Friday night, insults some people, but still has his job Monday morning.” — Don Rickles

31. “God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it.” — Pope Francis

32. “I can remember being at Sandringham, for the first time, at Christmas. And I was worried what to give the Queen as her Christmas present. I was thinking, ‘Gosh, what should I give her?’. I thought, ‘I’ll make her something.’ Which could have gone horribly wrong. But I decided to make my granny’s recipe of chutney.” — Kate Middleton

33. “Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused – in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened – by the recurrence of Christmas.” — Charles Dickens

34. “Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it ‘white.'” — Bing Crosby

35. “I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. I didn’t want to waste it so I just wrote ‘Jesus’ on it.” — Demetri Martin

36. “I like the idea of putting your Christmas wish list up and letting people share it.” — Bill Gates

37. “The South has a way of worshipping appearances — the suburbs are all about presentation and amazing flowers and a beautiful yard and dinner parties that impress people and having the Christmas lights just right.” — Paul Downs Colaizzo

38. “Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” — Dr. Seuss

39. “I don’t care why they love me, as long as they love me. I think people respect me because they feel like – I’m kind of like Christmas. I come back every year. You can’t get rid of me. I just keep coming back.” — David Hasselhoff

40. “Us Filipinos love Christmas so much that we have the longest Christmas season in the world.” — Catriona Gray

41. “I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.” — Shirley Temple

42. “I love Christmas. I’m really sentimental about it. My parents made it awesome for us, and we were allowed to be kids for a long time.” — Michael Buble

43. “I’m a disorganized mess. My purse is gross: I once found a shoulder pad, string cheese, and a Christmas ornament in it!” — Hoda Kotb

44. “I remember being banned from other houses as a younger child during the winter holiday season; I was the only one who didn’t believe in Santa Claus, and I was ruining everyone’s Christmas.” — Jami Attenberg

45. “You know what I love the smell of? Christmas trees and pine. I always have a pine candle even if it’s not Christmas.” — Brooklyn Decker

46. “That’s the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me.” — Jerry Seinfeld

47. “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.'” — Mira Sorvino

48. “For Christmas every year, my mother used to give me those cheap little diaries that would tell your horoscope and provide a little blank slot for each day.” — Patti Smith

49. “My first real job, I sold Christmas trees when I was twelve for extra money. I did that until I was fifteen. Then I bagged groceries, and I worked at the first Borders ever in Tulsa, Oklahoma.” — Bill Hader

50. “Growing up in Northern California, I’ve only seen snow at Christmas maybe twice in my life! I was always jealous of my cousins on the East Coast with their white Christmases.” — Guy Fieri

51. “Always be prepared if someone asks you what you want for Christmas. Give brand names, the store that sells the merchandise, and, if possible, exact model numbers so they can’t go wrong. Be the type who’s impossible to buy for, so they have to get what you want.” — John Waters

52. “For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.” — Queen Elizabeth II

53. “For me growing up, Christmas time was always the most fantastic, exciting time of year, and you’d stay up until three in the morning. You’d hear the parents wrapping in the other room but you knew that also, maybe, they were in collusion with Santa Claus.” — Chris Pine

54. “On Christmas morning, before we could open our Christmas presents, we would go to this stranger’s home and bring them presents. I remember helping clean the house up and putting up a tree. My father believed that you have a responsibility to look after everyone else.” — George Clooney

55. “My favorite traditional Christmas movie that I like to watch is All Quiet on the Western Front. It’s just not December without that movie in my house.” — Tom Hanks

56. “Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.” — Stephen Fry

57. “Don’t send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals, when their cheery effect is needed.” — P. J. O’Rourke

58. “My mom loved my Christmas music, so I did an awful lot of it!” — Johnny Mathis

59. “I had eight brothers and sisters. Every Christmas my younger brother Bobby would wake up extra early and open everybody’s presents — everybody’s — so by the time the rest of us got up, all the gifts were shredded, ribbons off, torn open and thrown aside.” — Tommy Hilfiger

60. “Christmas is always the most fun. I start looking forward to Christmas before it’s even summertime.” — Mariah Carey

61. “Christmas is a huge thing in my family. We usually start decorating the day after Thanksgiving. We spend Christmas Eve with one set of grandparents, and Christmas Day with the other grandparents and our family.” — Samantha Isler

62. “I like indoor Christmas trees. And I like people who decorate their homes with lights and all that crap. I think it’s a healthy outlet for them. If they weren’t covering their lawns with twinkling lights, they’d be doing something that was really, really creepy.” — Lewis Black

63. “I remember driving to North Carolina when I was a little girl in a snowstorm to get down to my mom’s family in the Carolinas. There were chains on the car — it was the late sixties — and we were just singing in the car. Christmas carols.” — Tori Amos

64. “I don’t think Christmas is necessarily about things. It’s about being good to one another, it’s about the Christian ethic, it’s about kindness.” — Carrie Fisher

65. “There’s something about a Christmas sweater that will always make me laugh.” — Kristen Wiig

66. “Before Christmas, I host a party for our kids and all their friends. We love to make a mess while decorating gingerbread houses.” — Kourtney Kardashian

67. “The way my family always did Christmas was on Christmas Eve, it wasn’t really centered around a dinner on Christmas Eve. It was more about keeping the kids calm. Sometime after dark is when we were going to open all the presents underneath the tree from Mom, Dad and the kids and everything — just the family presents was every Christmas Eve.” — Blake Shelton

68. “My Christmas wish would be to have an entire week off. To spend it with my family and just curl up and watch Christmas movies when it’s snowing outside.” — David Hasselhoff

69. “Almost any American can connect on some level to a family background of having come across some ocean. They say, ‘My great-grandparents came from wherever… this is why we have this last name, why we do this thing at Christmas.’ All the details get watered down but don’t quite disappear.” — Jhumpa Lahiri

70. “I love giving gifts. It’s almost like I don’t open my gifts until, like, three days after Christmas ’cause I want to give everyone else their presents.” — Mariah Carey

71. “Christmas makes everything twice as sad.” — Douglas Coupland

72. “The thing about Christmas is that it almost doesn’t matter what mood you’re in or what kind of a year you’ve had — it’s a fresh start.” — Kelly Clarkson

73. “What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.” — Phyllis Diller

74. “Why not share with the world the way it is and tell them my feelings about my cat, and how I played with my kids, and how addicted to Christmas time I am, and the smell of pine needles and hearing my kids laugh.” — Steven Tyler

75. “It’s true, Christmas can feel like a lot of work, particularly for mothers. But when you look back on all the Christmases in your life, you’ll find you’ve created family traditions and lasting memories. Those memories, good and bad, are really what help to keep a family together over the long haul.” — Caroline Kennedy

76. “Being half Jewish, we grew up with Christmas trees but had Jewish ornaments.” — Gina Rodriguez

77. “Christmas is my favorite time of the year.” — Lacey Chabert

78. “Untangling Christmas lights is the true tragedy of Stranger Things.” — David Harbour

79. “I’ve always loved Christmas and that’s not really gone away from me from being a child to now. It’s always a magical time and I’m unashamed in my love for Christmas.” — Martin Freeman

80. “All punk rockers hate Christmas.” — Rhys Ifans

81. “One thing I love about Christmas music is that it has a tradition of warmth.” — Zooey Deschanel

82. “Making a Christmas album is looked upon by some people as the thing you do when you are heading towards retirement.” — Annie Lennox

83. “It may be a cliche, but it’s true — the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself.” — Julie Burchill

84. “Christmas cookies can’t help but be retro — they are memory first, sugar-flour-egg-redhot-gumdrop-sparkle reality second.” — Dana Goodyear

85. “My Barbies were usually naked. Once, I took their heads off, cut their hair, drew on their short, spiky hair with some markers, then stuck the heads on Christmas lights. Every year, we’d string our tree with those Barbie heads. It looked demonic. My parents were so cool — they saw it as a form of self-expression.” — Jessica Biel

86. “I remember wishing there was snow in L.A. And how jealous we used to get of those Christmas specials with kids playing in the snow.” — Ice Cube

87. “A good conscience is a continual Christmas.” — Benjamin Franklin

88. “Adults are tempted to produce and perform Christmas for their kids and their families, and they arrive at Christmas Day weary and disillusioned.” — Ann Voskamp

89. “I think ‘Scrooge’ is the best of the Christmas stories. Every child warms to it because it’s about one man’s transformation. It’s saying that it’s never too late to change, and that’s a good feeling to have at Christmas.” — Leslie Bricusse

90. “Christmas is a bridge. We need bridges as the river of time flows past. Today’s Christmas should mean creating happy hours for tomorrow and reliving those of yesterday.” — Gladys Taber

91. “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.” — John Tesh

92. “The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.” — Charles Dudley Warner

93. “I love Christmas. I never used to. I didn’t hate it, but I could take it or leave it. But, as I got to the age of 25 or 26, Christmas became quite a big deal, and I love it now. I love the food, and I love sharing time with people.” — James McAvoy

94. “I’m a physicist, and we have something called Moore’s Law, which says computer power doubles every 18 months. So every Christmas, we more or less assume that our toys and appliances are more or less twice as powerful as the previous Christmas.” — Michio Kaku

95. “At Christmas, play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year.” — Thomas Tusser

96. “Christmas coming means one thing for comedians: office party gigs!” — Katherine Ryan

97. “Even today, I am still very child-like while designing. It’s a bit like Christmas — each of your designs you create is like unravelling your presents.” — Christian Louboutin

98. “For many years, I’ve wanted to do one, and I’ve always mentioned it to the chieftains, and they would say things like, ‘Oh well. Christmas albums don’t sell,’ and things like that. But that’s not the point. Christmas albums are important. The music is important. The season is important.” — Aretha Franklin

99. “I was once part of a Christmas cabaret. I sang ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.’ I tap-danced. I had a ten-gallon hat. It was quite absurd.” — Peter Dinklage

100. “I don’t like to see Christmas trees torn down.” — John Prine

101. “I love singing Christmas carols. I know every harmony to every music-hall Christmas song.” — Zooey Deschanel

102. “Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing, but of reflection.” — Winston Churchill

103. “My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others.” — Bob Hope

104. “We are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.” — Laura Ingalls Wilder