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Your Quotes for 24 December 2005 - Christmas Eve

The year was 1818. It was bitterly cold at Oberndorf, Austria, and Pastor Joseph Franz Mohr was frustrated. The Salzach river had rushed over its banks, spilled into Saint Nicholas Church and put the organ out of commission. Only hours until the midnight mass would be sung, and there would be no anthem. Pastor Mohr took a poem he had written two years earlier and walked the three kilometers to the home of Franz Xavier Gruber, school teacher and part-time choir master. Gruber took up the challenge, and the congregation heard "Stille Nacht" presented by the choir with guitar accompaniment that night. The translation "Silent Night" was first heard in 1863. In both languages it is probably the most popular Christmas song of all time.

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
     - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, 1860 - 1904

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart ... filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.
     - Bess Streeter Aldrich, 1881 - 1954

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, 1899 - 1980

Think, In mounting higher,
  The angels would press on us, and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
  Into our deep, dear silence.
     - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806 - 1861

It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.
     - W. T. Ellis

The earth has grown old with its burden of care
  But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair
And its soul full of music breaks the air,
  When the song of angels is sung.
     - Phillips Brooks

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