I am going to take something I learned over in Israel. Their Independence Day is preceded the 24 hours before with Memorial Day so it gives them a chance to serve and reflect and then celebrate. I am going to try to start that tradition here in America.

No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.

So many people release albums before Christmas and they get lost in the Christmas rush.

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.

My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing.

I'm sure most of us remember being a kid and you have all of this endless time where two weeks before Christmas feels like ten years. I used to go to bed to try and go to sleep to try and make it go faster.

I'm bad on Valentine's Day but even worse on Christmas. I go shopping at nine o'clock on December 24th every year. Nobody else is there. I'm in Toys'R'Us all by myself. I get there five minutes before closing.

T'was the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly when they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky. So up to the house-top the coursers they flew with the sleigh full of toys and St. Nicholas too.

When you're a chef you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don't actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work the first thing I'll do and especially when I'm in New York I'll go for a run. And I'll run 10 or 15k on my - and I run to gain my appetite.