Christmas

The year I turned 16, I spent the weeks before Christmas dropping hints to my parents about how much I wanted - no, needed - my own transportation.

For Christmas 1999, my husband surprised me with a trip to Disney World. Along with our boys, we were standing on the roof of the Contemporary Hotel at midnight on New Year's Eve 2000 watching fireworks explode over every amusement park in Orlando. It was a magical way to celebrate the millennial, and a never-to-be-forgotten Christmas present.

I grew up with three little brothers. Every Christmas, we'd have piles of toy trucks and Lincoln Logs and G.I. Joes under the tree. Those were for them. For me? My No. 1 favorite present of all time: books. Two or three tall stacks of wonderful stories that I could lose myself in for weeks.

My grandmother was a church organist, but we only went on Easter and Christmas Eve sometimes.

When I was five years old, I auditioned for the role of 'Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.'

As Michael Scheuer, who ran the C.I.A.'s bin Laden unit until 1999, has pointed out, if bin Laden believed in Christmas, the Iraq war would be his perfect present from Santa Claus. The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan severely damaged bin Laden's organization.

I feel like I've got a pretty relatively extensive Christmas sweatshirt collection.

Some of my favorite records growing up were Christmas albums. The ones I liked best were the albums that you could listen to from start to finish. You could put them on while you're decorating the tree or driving around looking at Christmas lights.

I had written a book that dealt with really serious issues. Was anybody going to want to read a Christmas love story from me?

I didn't feel the need to rebel as a teenager. From age nine to 16, I went to school in Montreux in Switzerland, and it was heaven. I went to England for the Easter holidays, Cyprus for Christmas and summer holidays, and I was delighted to have that independence.

My dad's a firefighter, so I know what it's like for policemen and firefighters to be on their own on Christmas Day.

Leftists wage the war on Christmas using their traditional methods - government fiat and the court system. They never win voting, and they certainly don't win in the free market, so they bravely fight their battles through big government.

In the minds of a Liberal, someone who isn't Christian might be offended if we say Merry Christmas to them, so we shouldn't say Merry Christmas to anyone. The logic is bizarre!

I've been in Chicago for every Christmas of my life.

I started wearing Ugg when I was, like, 13 or 14, in high school, and my mom got me a pair for Christmas one year.

Seeing the actual 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe', I absolutely loved it. It became one of my favourite films. It was a real Christmas classic, and it was one of the most popular films ever in British history.

I grew up believing in Santa Claus, and we still treat our house at Christmas with a huge reverence for that belief - even though our children are 19 through 23.

We play everybody's Christmas records at our house, and sometimes you think, 'I'm not gonna play my own record; I'd be embarrassed.' But I'm gonna play our record this Christmas, because I love the songs!

I do get approached every day by people who say, 'Why don't you make more movies?' I don't really miss it when I get to go and watch my daughter in the Christmas pageant.

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.