In my adolescence, I think I felt very outcast; I felt lonely. I felt great loneliness, and sometimes I wouldn't partake in Christmas, and I would go off and wander in the streets of Melbourne.
'Make your plate look like a Christmas tree,' I tell people, 'mostly green with splashes of other bright colors.'
I love the smell of a real Christmas tree - also, my mum's Christmas pudding with brandy sauce.
It kills me when people talk about California hedonism. Anybody who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento.
I never really did Christmas before. Christmas Day? I mean - what's that? What's it all about? I was always flying on Christmas Day.
Dickens was a part of how the whole celebration of Christmas as we know it today emerged during the 19th century.
I love cooking during Christmas, all smells like the hot apple cider, the hot spiced wine.
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.
South Park started as a little video Christmas card.
I was a public aid recipient for about nine years as a kid, and this time of year was always tough sledding, so I just committed myself to doing something good for someone at Thanksgiving, and especially Christmas.
I was at the vice president's Christmas party. I thought that his speech was spectacular, and I knew that it was a very emotional and difficult thing for him to do, but I admonished him for not waiting just one more stinking day.
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against.
I think 'Elf' is funny, with Will Ferrell. That's a great Christmas movie.
I really want a Christmas in New York one year, when it's snowing. Like, it's Christmas morning, and you have a fight with someone, and you run down the street, and it's snowing, and you can't find them.
When I was five years old, my parents gave me a drum set for Christmas. My mom played the piano, and Dad played the saxophone badly. But that Christmas morning, I remember we all played together, and I thought it was the greatest day ever.
There are very few people who have done more than one Christmas album.
My father Bill had a problem with Christmas. Although he appears in old photographs to possess a whippy, muscular frame, he was actually a frail man and usually managed to cause some kind of drama just before the festivities began.
I have a good house for hosting, so we had the barbecues, and some of the guys over for Thanksgiving, even Christmas.
My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.
I love 'Call the Midwife'; it's an absolute gem of a programme. Filming the Christmas special and then the second series felt like going back to a boarding school that you really love and is full of friends.
One of my favorite movies of all time is 'It's A Wonderful Life,' which is a pretty interesting choice for a seasonal Christmas favorite, because it's about a guy who wants to commit suicide and is presented with reasons not to.
'Joker' was a violent, dark, and brutal book, so I wanted to do something a little less heavy. I played around with the idea of a children's book, and that eventually became 'Noel.' And I just kept finding these parallels between things I could do with Batman and Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol.'
For a Jewish guy, I've recorded a lot of Christmas albums.
I quickly discovered that trying to go play golf while living in Manhattan was about as easy as trying to grab a taxi while standing out in front of Saks Fifth Avenue in the freezing rain on the last shopping day before Christmas.
Dad bought me a toy drum one Christmas, and I eventually destroyed it. I wanted a real drum and he bought me a snare drum. Dad continued to buy me one drum after the other.
You have to remind kids to stay connected to the meaning of Christmas. Sometimes it takes a little bit of effort, but it's so worth it.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a home where I woke up Christmas morning and had toys. I know that's not the case with all people and I don't think kids should go without experiencing that sort of joy.
Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.
We don't consider the Wizard of Oz or Father Christmas to be too old. They're still magical characters, and the fact they've been around the block only adds to their magic.
Everyone knows that there are some odors that send you directly back to memories of your childhood - odors from Christmas time and so forth.
The thing about Christmas is that it almost doesn't matter what mood you're in or what kind of a year you've had - it's a fresh start.
The fact is, we need markers in life, whether we subscribe to a religion or not. And the major holidays, such as Christmas, serve to remind us of the turning world.
I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said 'Happy Birthday' on it. I didn't want to waste it so I just wrote 'Jesus' on it.
That's the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me.
Tiny quails may not seem as impressive as a mammoth turkey, but there is something refreshing about a spread of individual birds on the Christmas table.
My Christmas present to myself each year is to see how much air travel can open up the world and take me to places as far from sheltered California and Japan as possible.
