Christmas quotations

Many scrapping titles around Christmas are song lyrics...

• White Christmas (if we're that lucky!)
• Have yourself a merry little Christmas
• Joy to the World
• All I want for Christmas is...
• It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
• Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree
• Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
• The Night before Christmas
  

Here are some alternative Christmas quotations:

At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.
- Thomas Tusser

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), 'Love's Labour Lost'

Peace on earth will come to stay,
When we live Christmas every day.
- Helen Steiner Rice

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.
- Peg Bracken

This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone.
- Taylor Caldwell (1900-1985)

It is the personal thoughtfulness, the warm human awareness, the reaching out of the self to one's fellow man that makes giving worthy of the Christmas spirit.
- Isabel Currier

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
- Charles Dickens (1812-1870), 'A Christmas Carol'

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

From home to home, and heart to heart,
from one place to another.
The warmth and joy of Christmas,
brings us closer to each other.
- Emily Matthews

At Christmas, all roads lead home.
- Marjorie Holmes

It comes every year and will go on forever. And along with Christmas belong the keepsakes and the customs. Those humble, everyday things a mother clings to, and ponders, like Mary in the secret spaces of her heart.
- Marjorie Holmes

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

The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas.
- W. C. Jones

Heap on the wood! - the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
- Sir Walter Scott

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

Definitions

Definitions were a popular trend in scrapbooking not so long ago. But don't discount them just because they aren't quite as "trendy" as they were!

Use definitions to expand and build on the words that you come up with for your titles or subtitles. A quick way to extend your journalling!

Pick up your dictionary for a classic definition in traditional style... write it or type it in a pretty font in your wordprocessor.

There also online dictionaries and thesauruses:

• Dictionary.com

• Merriam-Webster (American)
  

Here are some to use:

Adore (a·dore) 1. to worship or honour as a deity or as divine 2. to regard with loving admiration and devotion 3. to be extremely fond of

Admire ( ad·mire ) 1. to marvel at 2. be pleased by 3. respect

Abundance ( a·bun·dance ) 1. a more than plentiful quantity of something 2. large amount

Adventure (ad-ven-ture) 1. a daring, hazardous undertaking 2. an unusual, exciting, often suspenseful experience.

Accomplish (ac·com·plish ) 1. to succeed in doing or achieving something 2. reach point in time: to arrive at the end of a period of time

Beautiful ( byoot-e-ful) 1. pleasingly attractive physical appearance 2. lovely; fine to behold 3. delicate and favourable

Believe ( be·lieve ) 1. to accept that something is true or real 2. to have faith in 3. to put one’s trust in 4. to accept as fact

Bliss (blis) 1. great or perfect happiness 2. a state of spiritual joy

Bright (brit) 1. shining with light 2. brilliant in colour or sound; vivid 3. lively and cheerful 4. favourable; hopeful 5. radiant with happiness, smiling faces, moments 6. radiating or reflection light 7. of high saturation or brilliance 8. clever or intelligent

Celebrate (sel-e-brat) 1. perform as a ritual 2. to commemorate with festivity 3. to do honour 4. have a good time

Cherub (cher*eb) 1. a type of angel characterized as a chubby, rose-cheeked child with wings 2. a child with a sweet, innocent face

Chemistry (chem·is·try) 1. study of transformation of matter: a branch of science dealing with the structure, composition, properties, and reactive characteristics of substances, especially at the atomic and molecular levels.

Cherish (cher-ish) 1. to hold dear 2. to treasure, adore, value and love 3. to keep deeply in mind

If you can - add to the definition with a thoughtful extra that is more feeling than definition:

moth·er (mu-th-er) n. 1. A woman who loves, nourishes, protects and nurtures a child. 2. A creative source; an origin. 3. Respected for her wisdom and age. 4. Maternal love and tenderness. 5. A son’s first and best friend. ♥ moth·er-in-law n. 1. The mother of your spouse. 2. A second mother or friend. ♥ nan·a (nä’nä) n. 1. Endearing form of grandmother 2. The mother of your father or mother. 3. Sweet smile, warm hugs, bedtime stories, treats and kindness, heart of gold. 4. A person with time for their grandchildren. ♥

moth*er: \'me-thar\ n 1. compassionate supporter, giver of warm hugs 2. a woman generous of herself and her love 3. a dedicated listener 4. a woman who gives selfless tender affection without expectation 5. inspiring, dependable; all caring

fa*ther \'fath-ar\ n 1. protector and guardian 2. source of strength and support 3. guide through life; honest advisor 4. person always ready to help 5. person whose tolerance and pride are unlimited 6. ready taxi-driver

A face that says it all...

Sometimes a picture really can be worth a thousand words (and you didn't hear me say that!)

Coming back from a holiday in Cornwall I realised my son had rather tiresomely pulled faces in virtually all of the photos I took, in many cases spoiling a beautiful photo of his sister smiling attractively. So I took as my theme a quote (I wish I could remember where I found it because it's PERFECT!):

"Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting"

Just look at those faces!

Write it on Wednesday: Mondegreens

There's a name for misheard song lyrics - they are mondegreens.
There's a lovely story behind this name:

The word mondegreen, meaning a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric , was coined by the writer Sylvia Wright.

As a child she had heard the Scottish ballad " The Bonny Earl ofMurray" and had believed that one stanza went like this:

Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands
Oh where hae you been?
They hae slay the Earl of Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.

Poor Lady Mondegreen, thought Sylvia Wright . A tragic heroine dying with her liege; how poetic. When it turned out, some years later, that what they had actually done was ‘ slay the Earl of Murray and lay him on the green’ , Wright was so distraught by the sudden disappearance of her heroine that she memorialized her with a neologism.

An Aussie friend's son’s class at school used to sing the first line of the Australian national anthem as:

Australia’s sunset ostriches.

(Australia’s sons let us rejoice – now amended to ‘Australians all let us rejoice’)

I remember a few from prayers and hymns at school as well...
More recently, I thought for some time that the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "The Zephyr Song" had the lyrics - "Fly away on my cellphone..." I thought it was somewhat fanciful to describe a mobile phone call in such terms!

Have you a mondegreen to share? (Can you find one on the Web?) Is there a mondegreen that could inspire a LO for you? Could you use it as the title?

More Write it on Wednesday

Quotes about sharing...

Sharing ...

... could be a title on any number of LOs - about children, about families...

or even an incentive to blog...

"Whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof." Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others." Robert Louis Stevenson

What does "sharing" mean to you? Does it have a spiritual meaning?

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Buddha

"It's about sharing. You just give what you have to give wherever you go, and you let God handle the rest." Lindsay Wagner

This one could accompany almost any thoughtful photograph

“Our best thoughts come from others.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do you have a LO abut a meal?

"Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.” M. F. K. Fishe

Wedding quotes

I was making a card for a silver anniversary, so I thought I would look out some sayings suitable for such a card.

Here are some of my favourites:

“There are three things that last:
faith, hope and love,
and the greatest of these is love.”
- 1 Corinthians 13:13

"Together you shall be for evermore...
but let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens
dance between you." - Kahlil Gibran

Two human loves make one divine. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the wedding cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up. - Ogden Nash

Love is the silent link
between heart and mind,
and the silver thread that
ties two souls together. - Flavia

Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever.
- June Master Bacher

Write it on Wednesday: Knickering the elephant

Do you have any family sayings, words or phrases that are unique to yourselves, local dialect appropriated for your use, in-jokes and the like? These are great inspirations for a LO - write about how they came to be - or if you can't remember, just journal how these words are something that makes your family unique.

Here are two of mine:

Mouldywarps

My brother and youngest sister were, for some reason, known as the "Mouldywarps". There were four of us, so we split into pairs, the two older ones - the "girls" - and the two younger ones. Mouldywarp is apparently a dialect word for mole (though I must admit I always thought the Mouldywarp was a mole CATCHER)

What's odd is that in the next generation my son was fascinated by moles. It must be something about the boys in my family... With my son it was because of the story One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth - you'll have to read it to find out why! He has a much loved mole puppet or two and several mole china figures (Molennium...)

In E. Nesbitt's The House of Arden a contemporary boy, Edred, must be tested before he can become Lord Arden and restore the family fortunes. He meets the Mouldiwarp (a mole who appears on the family coat-of-arms).

Perhaps there are more mouldywarps around than I realised! But there isn't yet (at time of writing) a Wikipedia article about it.

Knickering the elephant

OK, it's a strange thing to say - but you'll see what I mean when I explain...

The bigger the duvet you have on your bed, the more difficult it is to change its cover. How do you do it? Do you dive inside? Turn it inside out and grab the corners? Get someone to help you - especially if it's a king-size?

This is such an awkward task that one of my parents (who might have thought it up or might have read or heard it somewhere) declared that it was "as difficult as trying to put knickers on an elephant".

So if you're in our house and someone asks you to "come and help me knicker the elephant", you will know what it means!

Go on, journal your own family words and phrases. It hardly even needs a photo, although the one to go with "knickering the elephant" should be quite interesting!

More Write it on Wednesday

Write it on Wednesday: inspiration from quotes

One of my favourite quotes is something like:

"It's not the days in your life that count, but the life in your days."

I've seen it attributed to Brian White and, as
"Don't seek more days in your life but more life in your days", to Charles Swindoll

Inspirational quotes can inspire titles and journalling. It's one of the simplest ways to journal - you hardly have to write anything yourself there are so many great quotes to choose from. (See my post here for some great sites for quotes and sayings.)

Here's today's starter for ten...

"It's not what you do in life ..."

Decide on your own ending to the quote: choose one of these or make up your own to suit your picture and the story you want to scrap! e.g.

... that matters - it's who you are.
... it's what you finish! (Katherine Hepburn)
... that counts, it's what you bring to what you do that counts.
... it's the way that you do it.
... that counts, it's where you left your mark in things you tried to do that counts.
... that makes you who you are, it's who you are that makes you do what you do. (Cirek Brecy)
... that counts, but how much you enjoy doing whatever you do.

photo by monceau

More Write it on Wednesday

Quotations, quotes, sayings, titles and journalling

Where to find quotes, quotations and sayings for your scrapbook pages...

Denny’s Quotes: http://www.dennydavis.net/index.html Amazingly comprehensive

Simple Scrapbooks magazine Quote Archive: http://www.simplescrapbooksmag.com/quotes/

Two Peas Pea Soup: http://twopeasinabucket.kaboose.com/res.asp

Scrapbook.com: http://www.scrapbook.com/quotes.php

Scrapbooking Quotes: http://www.stickersnfun.com/quotes.asp with some interesting Australian slang...

The Quote Garden (not specifically scrapbooking): http://www.quotegarden.com/

Brainy Quote (not specifically scrapbooking): http://www.brainyquote.com/

You can also personalise your Google homepage (see http://www.igoogle.com/) and include inspirational quotes every day as one or more of the elements.

Mine come from Quotations of the Day
http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html

and

The Quotations Page
http://www.quotationspage.com/

My favourite quotation of all time?

' Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.' William Morris

Now there’s a challenge to scrapbook!

Sayings and poems for couples

Suitable sayings and poems for weddings, anniversaries, engagements and civil partnership ceremonies

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. - Mignon McLaughlin

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments: love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds.

- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Sonnet

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances:
if there is any reaction, both are transformed. - Carl Jung

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. - David Viscott

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
- Khalil Gibran

My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for another given:
I hold his dear, and mine he can not miss,
There never was a better bargain driven:
- Philip Sydney

i carry your heart with me
by e. e. cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

We must not sever, you and I,
The world is cruel, friends are few;
Let us be steadfast faithfully,
I and you. - JJW

May you have laughter to cheer you
And those you love near you,
And all that your heart may desire
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward

A thousand welcomes to you two today, may you be healthy all your days. May you be blessed with long life and peace, may you grow old with goodness, and with riches.

Some quotes and sayings about aging

I'm often looking for quotes and verses to put inside cards for the older generation. Or indeed, to put on a scrapbook LO about older relatives. Here are some I've found recently:

Some people, no matter how old they get,
never lose their beauty - they merely move
it from their faces into their hearts.

So Life's year begins and closes;
Days, though short'ning, still can shine;
Though youth gave us love and roses,
Age still leaves us friends and wine.

Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age.
Sometimes age just shows up
all by itself.

Like a beautiful rose unfolding
as the summer day begins...
may your special day unfold into happiness.

A birthday is a time to plan ahead and to dream
of all the beautiful things that life has to offer.

Anyone can count the years... it's much more fun to count the joys along the way.

Birthdays are Like Bumper Stickers
You enjoy other people's, but you don't really want one for yourself.
Happy Birthday!

The great thing about getting older is that
You don't lose all the other ages you've been. -Madeleine L'Engle