10 More Christmas Quotes

“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 

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“I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!” 

- Henry Wadsorth Longfellow 

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“Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer.... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? ” 

- Bill Watterson, The Essential Calvin and Hobbes

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“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?” 

- Bob Hope

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“. . . it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"

- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

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If a kid ever asks you how Santa Claus can live forever, I think a good answer is that he drinks blood.

- Jack Handey

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"The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfully wise men - who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi."

- William Sydney Porter (O’ Henry), The Gift of the Magi

(Read the story by clicking on the following link to a past Bytes post:

http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/gift-of-magi.html) 

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"I will never forget when I was about 12, and my mother told my siblings and me that we would not be receiving Christmas gifts because there wasn't enough money. I remember at the time that I felt sad and thought: 'What would I say when the other kids asked what I had gotten?' Just when I started to accept that there would not be a Christmas that year, three nuns showed up at our house with gifts for us. There was a turkey, a fruit basket, and some games, and for me, there was a doll. " 

- Oprah Winfrey. 

The memory that led to the creation of Christmas Kindness South Africa 2002.

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Child: Your beard's not real.

Willie: No Shit! It was real, but I got sick and all the hair fell out.

Child: How come?

Willie: I loved a woman who wasn't clean.

Child: Mrs. Santa?

Willie: No it was her sister.

- Billie Bob Thornton as Willie, Bad Santa

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So this is Christmas

And what have you done

Another year over

And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas

I hope you have fun

The near and the dear ones

The old and the young

A very merry Christmas

And a happy New Year

Let's hope it's a good one

Without any fear

- John Lennon, So This is Christmas

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Photographs 2013,Part 3

Concluding a 3 part mix of pics from around the world – some of the people, places and events that made up 2013 . .

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26 years of growth, showing Shanghai then and now. The photographs show the financial district of Pudong in 1987 and in 2013 with the nearly-complete Shanghai Tower

The people receiving most attention in 2013: Britain's Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge hold baby George, Prince of Cambridge, as they pose for photographers outside St. Mary's Hospital exclusive Lindo Wing in London where the Duchess gave birth, on July 23, 2013.

The person who received second most attention: In a provocative performance that echoed widely across news media and social media, Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke perform "Blurred Lines" during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards in New York, on August 25, 2013.

Miles Scott, dressed as Batkid, walks with Batman before saving a damsel in distress in San Francisco, on November 15, 2013. San Francisco turned into Gotham City on that day, as city officials helped fulfill Scott's wish to be "Batkid." Scott, a leukemia patient from Tulelake in Northern California, was called into service on Friday morning by San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr to help fight crime, The Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation said. 

An unfortunate frog is flung skyward during a launch of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, on September 6, 2013.

A member of the "Ansar Dimachk" Brigade, part of the Asood Allah Brigade which operates under the Free Syrian Army, uses an iPad during preparations to fire a homemade mortar at one of the battlefronts in Joubar, a suburb of Damascus, Syria, on September 15, 2013.

A vending machine, carried inland by the tsunami in March of 2011, stands in an abandoned rice field inside the exclusion zone near Minamisoma in Fukushima prefecture, Japan, on September 21, 2013.

In the town of Rjukan, Norway, people gather in front of the town hall, where sunlight is reflected by giant mirrors (top) erected on the mountainside, on October 18, 2013. Rjukan, a small industrial town 150 km west of Oslo, is situated in the bottom of a valley between steep mountains in Telemark County, and is cut off from direct sunlight for five to six months a year. Now, three giant mirrors mounted on a nearby mountainside will reflect winter sunlight into the valley.

A person takes a photograph of a sculpture by artist Lucy Humphrey titled "horizon" on a rocky cliff which is part of the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition at Sydney's Tamarama Beach, on October 24, 2013. The free and temporary outdoor exhibition, now in its 17th year, stretches for two kilometres along the coastline between Bondi and Tamarama beaches.

A cargo ship washed ashore, four days after Super Typhoon Haiyan hit Anibong town, Tacloban city, Philippines, on November 11, 2013. Typhoon Haiyan was the strongest storm ever recorded at landfall, and was responsible for nearly 6,000 deaths, laying waste to cities and towns on Leyte and Samar islands. 

Flowers left by mourners surround a portrait of Nelson Mandela in the Sandton district of Johannesburg, on December 6, 2013. Mandela, the revered icon of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and one of the towering political figures of the 20th century, died on December 5, aged 95.

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Christmas Crackers

I went to dinner last weekend with some friends.  There were Christmas crackers on the table, you know the type: you and another person pull an end, it pops and someone ends up with the end that contains a paper party hat, a little gift and a joke, a really bad joke. So as each cracker was pulled, the jokes were read out:

What does a fireman say at a church fire?

Holy smoke.

What’s the most commonly read gardening book?

Weeder’s Digest.

What do you call a fairy who hasn’t washed for a week?

Stinker Bell

When it was my turn I decided to substitute a good joke instead. 

Pretending to read from the bit of paper from the cracker, I said “What’s the difference between a wizard’s magic wand and...” at which point my wife said that it did not say that and that I should not finish it. This, of course, prompted a call by one of the persons at the table to finish it, so I read “What’s the difference between a wizard’s magic wand and a policeman’s truncheon?” Prompted to give the answer I said “A wizard’s magic wand is used for cunning stunts.” The other person thought about it and said “I don’t get it.” She was told to think about it and we moved on.

My trying to make a Christmas cracker joke funny prompted son Thomas to volunteer an interesting bit of information, that a Christmas episode of QI had looked at the issue of Christmas cracker jokes being universally bad. In most cases not everyone will find a joke funny. If a good joke is told, it’s likely that the room will be divided in two: those who like the joke and those who either do not like it or do not get it. That may also cause some of those persons to dislike the joke teller. However, if if the joke is bad, then the figure of hatred is the joke itself rather than the person telling it.

The policy that Christmas cracker jokes should be bad is confirmed by Julian Reed, of Robin Reed Hand-Made Crackers: "The whole point is that they are not meant to be that funny - they are groan-inducing. The bigger the groan, the better the joke. Next to political incorrectness, the main reason jokes are rejected is that they're too funny." 

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At the beginning of December 2013 British TV channel Gold had a Twitter competition to find the 10 best Christmas cracker jokes. A shortlist was prepared and these were then voted on by 2,000 British adults.

The top 10 favourites chosen by the public were:

What does Miley Cyrus have at Christmas? 

Twerky.

Why did no-one bid for Rudolph and Blitzen on eBay? 

Because they were two deer.

Mary and Joseph – now they had a stable relationship.

What does the Queen call her Christmas Broadcast? 

The One Show.

(I believe that The One Show is a BBC programme with topical stories and big name studio guests).

What did Santa do when he went speed dating? 

He pulled a cracker.

Why don't you ever see Santa in hospital? 

Because he has private elf care.

How did Mary and Joseph know that Jesus was 7lb 6oz when he was born? 

They had a weigh in a manger.

Why is it getting harder to buy advent calendars? 

Because their days are numbered.

How do you know if Santa's been in your garden shed? 

You've got three extra hoes.

Why was the Brussels sprout sent to prison? 

Because it was a repeat offender.

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Some cracker history:

Tom Smith

In 1846 one Thomas Smith visited Paris and discovered bon bons, a sugar almond wrapped in tissue paper, twisted at each end. He began selling them in London but although he did well with them at Christmas, for the rest of the year business was slow. To increase sales, he came up with different gimmicks and promotional marketing ideas. The first such idea, in the early 1850’s, was to insert "love messages" into the wrappers of the sweets. Since many of the sweets were bought by men to give to women, this proved successful.

In about 1860 Smith added the "crackle" element when he heard the crackle of a log he had just put on a fire. The size of the paper wrapper had to be increased to incorporate the banger mechanism, and the sweet itself was eventually dropped, to be replaced by a trinket such as fans, jewellery and other substantial items to differentiate them from rivals who were imitating his product. The new product was initially marketed as the Cosaque (i.e., Cossack), but the term "cracker" soon became the commonly used name. 

The other elements of the modern cracker —the gifts, paper hats and varied designs— were all introduced by Tom Smith's son, Walter Smith, to differentiate his product from the rival cracker manufacturers which had suddenly sprung up. The paper hat was added in the early 1900’s and the jokes and riddles replaced the love poems in the 1930’s. 

As the demand for crackers increased, Tom Smith merged with Caley Crackers in 1953 taking over their headquarters and factory in Norwich, East Anglia.

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Catalogue covers printed in 1916 during World war 1

1934 Tom Smith catalogue cover

1922 catalogue cover

Modern day online US advertisement

"A Christmas Scene" 1893 - London Illustrated News

Tom Smiths "The Two Monkeys" - 1920's

Tom Smiths "Princess Elizabeth" - 1929/30

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The proper way to pull Christmas crackers is that everyone at the table pulls at once with crossed arms in a circle:

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On 10 December 2013 office workers in Birmingham claimed to have broken the Guinness World Record for the longest Christmas cracker chain. 749 people linked together to each pull a cracker at the same time, breaking the previous World Record of 603 which was set in November. 

Funny Friday

Warning: some risque content included

c

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Imagine my joy when I was getting out the Christmas decorations and found a present I forgot to give my kids last year. Their excited faces were a picture as they unwrapped it and opened the box.

Such a pity it was a puppy.

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Only five shopping days 'til Christmas!

Or if you're a male - only four and a half days 'til you start your Christmas shopping.

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I hear Dominoes are making a special Christmas pizza.

It's called the 'Good King Wenceslas' because it's Deep Pan, Crisp and Even!

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I went to the garden centre today and bought a Christmas Tree.

The assistant asked me "Will you be putting that up yourself?"

I replied: "No you sick f***, I'll be putting it up in my living room"

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A woman went into a post office to buy some stamps for her Christmas cards. "What denomination do you want?" asked the lady at the counter. "Good God!"' she replied, "Has it come to this? I suppose you'd better give me twenty Catholic and twenty Presbyterian."

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Limerick Spot:

The ampersand's such a h&dy device,

Because it's compact and concise.

As in Jessica T&y

Or Mahatma G&hi.

Okay, it's not gr&. but it's nice.

People: General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

“Go fuck yourself.”

- General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, 

to Adolf Hitler after being asked to be a German ambassador.

At first glance this should be an item in the Last Words category, one imagines that there would have been few people who would have thus addressed Hitler and not found themselves taken out to the carpark and shot.. Von Lettow did and wasn’t.

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (1870 – 1964) was a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africa campaign. For four years, with a force that never exceeded about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Belgian, and Portuguese troops. Essentially undefeated in the field, von Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade imperial British soil during World War 1. His exploits in the campaign have come down "as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful.

Von Lettow-Vorbeck returned home in early March 1919 to a hero's welcome. On a black charger he led 120 officers of theSchutztruppe in their tattered tropical uniforms on a victory parade through the Brandenburg Gate, which was decorated in their honour. Though he ultimately surrendered as ordered; he frequently won against great odds and was the only German commander to invade British territory successfully during World War I.

Von Lettow-Vorbeck at a parade in Berlin, 1919

Between May 1928 and July 1930, the former General served as a Reichstag deputy for the monrachist German national People’s Party. He intensely distrusted Hitler and his movement, so much so that when Hitler offered him the ambassadorship to the Court of St James in 1935, he declined.

During the 1960s, author and biographer Charles Miller asked the nephew of a Schutztruppe officer, "I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go fuck himself." The nephew responded, "That's right, except that I don't think he put it that politely."

After his blunt refusal, he "was kept under continual surveillance" and his home office was searched. The only rehabilitation due to his legendary standing among the populace came in 1938, when at age 68, he was named a General for Special Purposes, but was never recalled into active service.

In 1953, he visited his other home, East Africa, where he was was received with full military honours by British colonial officials. In 1964, eleven days shy of his 94th birthday, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck died in Hamburg.

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Photographs 2013, Part 2

A mix of pics from around the world – some of the people, places and events that made up 2013 . . .

An aerial photo of a neighborhood in Moore, Oklahoma, completely flattened by the massive tornado on May 20, 2013. In less than an hour, 25 were killed, 375 injured, 1,150 homes destroyed, damages adding up to more than $2 billion.

Chinese astronaut Nie Haisheng waves before stepping out of the re-entry capsule of China's Shenzhou-10 spacecraft after it landed in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on June 26, 2013. Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth, touching down after a successful 15-day mission in which they docked with a space laboratory.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, applauds as the members of the "Malala Day" Youth Assembly wish Malala Yousafzai, center, a happy birthday, on July 12, 2013 at United Nations headquarters. Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban for promoting education for girls, celebrated her 16th birthday by addressing the U.N. The U.N. declared July 12 "Malala Day," to honor the teen who returned to school in March after medical treatment in Britain for injuries suffered in the October attack.

Syria in Ruins. A man walks along a damaged street filled with debris after years of warfare, in Deir al-Zor, Syria, on June 17, 2013.

A submerged idol of Hindu Lord Shiva stands in the flooded River Ganges in Rishikesh, in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, on June 18, 2013. Torrential monsoon rains caused havoc in northern India, leading to flash floods, cloudbursts and landslides.

A garden with a swimming pool is inundated by the waters of the Elbe River during floods near Magdeburg in the state of Saxony Anhalt, on June 10, 2013. Tens of thousands of Germans, Hungarians and Czechs were evacuated from their homes as soldiers raced to pile up sandbags to hold back rising waters in the region's worst floods in a decade.

Smuggled bear paws, arranged on the ground at the China-Russia border in Manzhouli, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on June 15, 2013. Two Russians were arrested for smuggling 213 bear paws into China at a China-Russia land border, according to the Chinese customs police's recent announcement. Bear paws reportedly are believed by some people in China to have high nutritional value.

Millions attend as Pope Francis celebrates a huge mass at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 28, 2013

A Yellow Scorpion eats his prey near Sde Boker in the Negev Desert, Israel, on August 5, 2013. Scorpions have chemicals in their cuticle that naturally fluoresce when viewed under black light.

An aerial view shows the Costa Concordia as it lies on its side next to Giglio Island taken from an Italian navy helicopter, on August 26, 2013. The wrecked cruise ship was successfully righted soon after, nearly two years after the liner capsized and killed at least 30 people off the Italian coast. The giant vessel, which has lain partly submerged in shallow waters off the Tuscan island of Giglio since the accident in January 2012, was rolled off the seabed and onto underwater platforms.

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