Short Christmas Quotes About Family: 16 Lines With Sources, From Dickens's Christmas Dinner to the Manger
Words My Family Quotes Editors
The shortest Christmas quote about family with a real source is nearly 470 years old: "At Christmas play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year," from Thomas Tusser's farming verses of 1557. The rest of the best short lines come from a handful of writers who turned Christmas into a family holiday in the first place: Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott. Below are 16 short Christmas quotes about family, each checked against the book, speech or verse it comes from, with the year, what was happening when it was written, and where it works best: a card, a toast at the table, a caption, or a hard Christmas.
One of them began with a family hiding presents. In an essay called "Christmas Eve," the American editor Hamilton Wright Mabie describes the weeks before the holiday in a family house: whispered conferences that stop when someone comes up the stairs, packages of every shape slipped into out-of-the-way places, one room kept under lock and key. Then comes the sentence that ended up on thousands of cards: "Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!" The conspiracy was literal. That is the kind of detail the notes below are for.
Which line for which use
Pick by where the words are going. The word count is our own count of the line as quoted on this page, so you can see at a glance what fits inside a card or under a photo.
| The line, in short | Who, where, when | Words | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christmas comes but once a year | Thomas Tusser, farming verses, 1557 | 14 | a toast, a funny caption |
| not a time or a season, but a state of mind | Calvin Coolidge, Christmas message, 1927 | 32 | a card to the whole family |
| honour Christmas in my heart | Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843 | 15 | a card, an ornament tag |
| a conspiracy of love | Hamilton Wright Mabie, My Study Fire, 1890 | 14 | a gift tag, the kids' card |
| means a little bit more | Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, 1957 | 17 | a caption, a child's card |
| a Christmas family-party | Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1836 | 10 | an invitation, a reunion photo |
| bands of kindred hearts | Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, 1820 | 38 | a family newsletter, a long card |
| back to his own fireside | Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1837 | 48 | someone travelling home |
| pleased with one another | Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843 | 14 | a modest year, a family photo |
| Merry Christmas, little daughters | Alcott, Little Women, 1868 | 16 | a card from mom |
| the genial flame of charity | Irving, The Sketch Book, 1820 | 30 | hosts, a hospitality toast |
| doubts about the quantity of flour | Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843 | 24 | whoever cooked dinner |
| reflect upon your present blessings | Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1836 | 22 | the first Christmas after a loss |
| peace on earth, good-will to men | Longfellow, "Christmas Bells", 1863 | 26 | a hard year, a family in grief |
| found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe | Luke 2:16, King James Version | 17 | a religious family card |
| pondered them in her heart | Luke 2:19, King James Version | 12 | a card from or to a mother |
Short Christmas quotes about family, one line each
These six are the shortest, and all but Coolidge's fit inside a card in under 20 words (his first sentence alone does too). Each has been checked against the original wording, which is not always the wording you will see on Pinterest.
"At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year." — Thomas Tusser, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie (1557)
Tusser was a Suffolk farmer and poet who wrote his advice for running a farm in rhyming couplets. The Christmas lines sit among practical instructions for the farmer's year, and in the old spelling they read "make good cheere ... once a yeere." The book was reprinted many times and in 1573 grew into Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, which is the title you will usually see (Wikiquote gives the source and the original spelling). It is the oldest line here and the most cheerful, which makes it the safest choice for a toast when the table mixes ages.
"Christmas is not a time or a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." — Calvin Coolidge, Christmas message to the nation (1927)
Coolidge was famously sparing with words, and this short handwritten note is usually described as the first Christmas greeting an American president sent to the whole country through the newspapers. The full text, as published by the Coolidge Foundation, ends with a star "sending its gleam of hope to the world." Most quote sites print "not a time nor a season"; the Foundation's text has "or." For a card, the first sentence alone is enough.
"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave Four (1843)
Scrooge says this on his knees in the churchyard, in front of the gravestone the last Spirit has shown him, begging to be told the future can still change (Project Gutenberg text). It is a promise, which is why it suits a card from someone who has been absent or difficult this year and means to do better. Keep Dickens's British spelling "honour" if you credit him.
"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!" — Hamilton Wright Mabie, "Christmas Eve," My Study Fire (1890)
We read this in an 1891 printing of My Study Fire (page 37, scan on archive.org). As described above, the "conspiracy" is the family's secret gift-making, and a member of the household Mabie calls Rosalind is "the common confidant of all the conspirators." Next comes the family's Christmas tree, lit behind the parlor doors after dinner. Knowing that makes it a lovely line for a gift tag, or for the card that goes with the present everyone helped hide.
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more!" — Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957)
The Grinch thinks this on top of Mount Crumpit, after stealing every present in Who-ville and hearing the Whos sing anyway (wording on Wikiquote). It is the one line here that children already know by heart, so it works on a card the kids sign or under a photo of them. The book is still in copyright, so quote the line, credit it, and leave it at that.
"A Christmas family-party! We know nothing in nature more delightful!" — Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Dinner," Sketches by Boz (1836)
This is the young Dickens, years before A Christmas Carol, describing a whole clan gathering at uncle George's, where grandpapa and grandmamma now live (Project Gutenberg text). He is clear that he means a real tradition, "an annual gathering of all the accessible members of the family, young or old, rich or poor," not relatives "got up at a week or two's notice." It is a natural line for an invitation or the group photo.
Christmas is about family: where that idea comes from
The idea that Christmas belongs to the family, more than to church or village, owes a great deal to two writers. Washington Irving's Christmas essays came out in 1820; Dickens's sketches and novels followed in the 1830s and 1840s. These three passages are a little longer, so they suit a family newsletter, a long card, or a reading before dinner.
"...this festival... has been made the season for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose." — Washington Irving, "Christmas," The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1820)
Irving wrote his Christmas essays in England, as an American looking at old English customs, and he admits they made him homesick: "Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land." The same sentence goes on to call grown children back "once more to assemble about the paternal hearth" (Project Gutenberg text). Use the shortened line above when the family is scattered across states and this is the year everyone makes it home.
"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 fireside and his quiet home!" — Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, chapter 28 (1837)
The narrator breaks off the story to say this, while Mr. Pickwick and his friends are on the coach to the Wardles' farm at Dingley Dell for Christmas (Project Gutenberg text). Just before it he admits that many of the faces from those old Christmas gatherings are gone: "the hands we grasped, have grown cold." It is the line to send to someone serving overseas, working the holiday shift, or flying home late on Christmas Eve.
"But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time." — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave Three (1843)
The Cratchits, Scrooge's underpaid clerk and his family, have just finished a dinner that was barely enough. Dickens lists the shortcomings first: "They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof." Then comes the turn above. For a family that had a lean year, it says the right thing without pretending the year was easy.
Christmas family quotes for cards
Card lines need to sound like they could be from you. These two do, because one is a mother speaking to her children and the other is about the people who open their door.
"Merry Christmas, little daughters! I'm glad you began at once, and hope you will keep on." — Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, chapter 2, "A Merry Christmas" (1868)
Marmee says this on Christmas morning, when she finds the four March sisters already reading the books she left under their pillows (Project Gutenberg text). In the very next breath she asks the girls to give their Christmas breakfast to a poor neighbor with a newborn baby, and they do. A mother writing to grown daughters can borrow the first sentence as it is; it reads like a greeting and a blessing at once.
"It is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling--the season for kindling not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart." — Washington Irving, "Christmas," The Sketch Book (1820)
This is one of the most quoted Christmas lines in English, and it is usually trimmed to "Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart." The trim drops "not merely," which was Irving's point: a warm house is not enough without a warm heart. Quote it whole in a thank-you card to whoever hosts the family every year.
A funny Christmas family quote that someone actually wrote
Most "funny Christmas family quotes" online have no author at all. This one has Dickens, and it is about the oldest Christmas worry there is: the food.
"Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour." — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave Three (1843)
The pudding has just come in, "bedight with Christmas holly," and Bob Cratchit calls it the greatest success of Mrs. Cratchit's married life. Dickens adds that nobody said or thought it was a small pudding for a large family: "Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing." Put the flour line on the card for whoever cooked this year; anyone who has hosted will recognize the feeling. Tusser's "once a year" couplet above also works as a light toast.
When someone is missing at Christmas
Christmas cards often go to families who lost someone this year. Both of these lines look straight at the empty chair instead of pretending it isn't there.
"Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." — Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Dinner," Sketches by Boz (1836)
Just before this, Dickens speaks directly to a reader whose child has died since last Christmas: "Dwell not upon the past." It is gentler in context than it looks alone, because he names the grief before asking the reader to raise a glass. Use it for a family that wants to celebrate in spite of a loss, not one still in the first weeks of mourning. For those weeks, our sympathy quotes for the loss of a mother are a better fit.
"I heard the bells on Christmas Day / Their old, familiar carols play, / And wild and sweet / The words repeat / Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Christmas Bells" (written Christmas Day 1863)
Longfellow wrote this on Christmas Day 1863. His wife Frances had died of burns from a house fire in 1861, and a month before Christmas his oldest son Charles had been badly wounded at the Battle of Mine Run (history of the poem). The middle stanzas despair; the last one answers, "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep." It first appeared in print in February 1865 and later became the carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." For a grieving family, send the whole poem and let them find the turn themselves.
Bible verses about family at Christmas
The Christmas story is a family story: a mother, a father who stood by her, a newborn. These two verses from Luke are the shortest that say so.
"And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger." — Luke 2:16, King James Version
The shepherds have just heard the angels and gone to Bethlehem to see for themselves. What they find is not a palace but a family of three. The verse fits a nativity card from a young family, especially one with a new baby this year. These are the lines that follow the passage Linus recites in A Charlie Brown Christmas (CBS, December 9, 1965), which ends with "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
"But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." — Luke 2:19, King James Version
Three verses later, while everyone else is spreading the news, Luke turns to the mother. It is the verse for a card to a mother at Christmas, or from her to a grown child about everything she still remembers. For more family verses with their context, see our blessed family Bible quotes (both texts checked against the Project Gutenberg King James Bible).
How to put a quote in a family Christmas card
- Choose by the person, not the season. A grandparent may like Irving or Longfellow; a teenager will read the Grinch line. The table at the top sorts the lines by use.
- Keep it short enough to write by hand. Inside a standard card, about 20 words is comfortable. If you shorten a passage, mark the cut with an ellipsis ("...") instead of quietly changing the words.
- Credit it simply. "— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol" is enough on a card. Leave out "unknown" lines entirely; you would not sign a stranger's name either.
- Add one line of your own under it. The quote sets the tone; your sentence makes it personal. After the Cratchit line, for example: "We had our doubts about the flour too, and it was perfect."
- For a toast, say who wrote it first. "Thomas Tusser, a farmer, wrote this in 1557..." makes a two-line couplet feel like a story, and it gives you a second to look up from your glass.
The same habits work for short Thanksgiving quotes for family a month earlier.
Popular Christmas family lines we could not source
- "The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other." Usually credited to Burton Hillis. We found no book, column or date for it, only quote sites copying each other, so it is not on this page.
- "Christmas is not a time nor a season..." This is Coolidge, but the Coolidge Foundation's text reads "not a time or a season." Use "or."
- "Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality..." This is Irving, but trimmed so that his "not merely" disappears. The full sentence is in the card section above.
For famous family quotes that turned out to belong to someone else, see our guide to misattributed family quotes.
Quick answers
What is a good short Christmas quote for family?
Calvin Coolidge's "Christmas is not a time or a season, but a state of mind" (1927) and Scrooge's "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year" (Dickens, 1843) are both short, sourced and suit any family card. For a toast, Thomas Tusser's 1557 couplet "At Christmas play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year" is hard to beat.
Who said "Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love"?
Hamilton Wright Mabie, an American editor and essayist, in his essay "Christmas Eve," collected in My Study Fire (1890). The "conspiracy" is a household secretly making and hiding presents in the weeks before Christmas.
What Bible verse is about family at Christmas?
Luke 2:16, "And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger," shows the first Christmas as a family scene. Luke 2:19, "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart," suits a Christmas card to a mother.