Joe Pecora

February 21, 1937 - November 30, 2020

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

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.

Larry Wilde

The Merry Book of Christmas

Santa knows Physics:

Of all colors, Red Light penetrates fog best. That's why Benny the Blue-nosed reindeer never got the gig. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

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

 

Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves.

Eric Sevareid

Good news from heaven the angels bring,
Glad tidings to the earth they sing:
To us this day a child is given,
To crown us with the joy of heaven.

Martin Luther

For centuries men have kept an appointment with Christmas. Christmas means fellowship, feasting, giving and receiving, a time of good cheer, home.

W.J. Ronald Tucker

 

 

It is the Christmas time:
And up and down 'twixt heaven and earth,
In glorious grief and solemn mirth,
The shining angels climb.

Dinah Maria Mulock

At Christmas-tide the open hand
Scatters its bounty o'er sea and land,
And none are left to grieve alone,
For Love is heaven and claims its own.

Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale;
'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year.

Walter Scott

 

It matters not what the custom may be,
For Christmas is loved by you and by me!
Yes; the years may come and the years may go;
But, when December wind doth, coldly, blow,
We all, I guess, are just children once more
And we plan our gifts, as we did of yore.

Gertrude Tooley Buckingham

"Christmas" (1940s)

Christmas — that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. 

Augusta E. Rundel

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 Eliot 

"The Mill on the Floss"

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. 

Norman Vincent Peale

May Peace be your gift at Christmas and your blessing all year through!

Author Unknown

 

Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, the incarnation of perfect love. 

Lucinda Franks

We ring the bells and we raise the strain
We hang up garlands everywhere
And bid the tapers twinkle fair,
And feast and frolic — and then we go
Back to the same old lives again.

Susan Coolidge

 

 

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

Charles Dickens

 

The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.

Louisa May Alcott 

"Little Women"

Christmas! ‘Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

Washington Irving

Each sight, each sound of Christmas
And fragrances sublime
Make hearts and faces happy
This glorious Christmastime.

Carice Williams

 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
And the thing that will make them ring
Is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart.

Meredith Willson

“It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas”

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!

Charles Dickens 

"The Pickwick Papers"

The universal joy of Christmas is certainly wonderful. We ring the bells when princes are born, or toll a mournful dirge when great men pass away. Nations have their red-letter days, their carnivals and festivals, but once in the year and only once, the whole world stands still to celebrate the advent of a life. 

Author Unknown

There is a Christmas song upon the air,
There is a joy innate within the heart;
An inner sense of peace, a holy light
Illumines life and sets these days apart.

Edna Greene Hines

At Christmas, all roads lead home. 

Marjorie Holmes

 

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 

"Song of Years"

I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back. Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn’t make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of our hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy.

Robert Fulghum

 "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten"

How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, His precepts!

Benjamin Franklin

Joe

 

Joe Pecora

February 21, 1937 - November 30, 2020

In 2014, Joe published a book titled THE STORIED HOUSES OF ALAMO SQUARE.

Joe Pecora, former ASNA board member and neighborhood historian, filled the pages of this ode to Alamo Square with the house histories that once graced the pages of our neighborhood newsletter. Joe was also the former editor of the Alamo Square Neighborhood Newsletter.

Brimming with details about who lived where, this book is a must-have for any Alamo Square aficionado.

Many of the color photos in the book are mine.

May Christmas lend a special charm
To all you chance to do.
And may the season light your way
To hopes and dreams anew.

Garnett Ann Schultz

“My Christmas Wish”