Colors of Christmas Quotes

“weeks. It was the same stuff every year. Santa mugs filled with candy canes. Canisters of homemade hot chocolate mix. Starbucks cards she’d never use—not because she didn’t like coffee but because she rarely made the seven-mile drive to the nearest Starbucks. Enough cookies for a bake sale wrapped in various colors of cellophane and tied with ribbons. Garish ornaments that would never hang on her tasteful Victorian tree in the bay window—which she hadn’t even put up this year. The odd handmade scarf in a color outside a palette she would ever don. Spruce Valley was small, with distinct but overlapping social circles. Re-gifting was next to impossible, even if she waited a year, though she might be able to give away the Starbucks cards if she took them out of the envelopes. She might use the hot chocolate mix, though she never found it a bother to make hot cocoa on the stove. At least the mix would keep. She had no appetite for the cookies.”
― Olivia Newport, Colors of Christmas: Two Contemporary Stories Celebrate the Hope of Christmas

“No two people suffer in identical ways, and we must not discount any suffering. The greatest gift we can give each other is to see suffering and name it as real. Always in suffering we meet fear. Always in suffering we must raise our eyes from darkness to light that awaits. There we will find others who have known suffering. Even God knew the suffering of His own Son.”
― Olivia Newport, Colors of Christmas: Two Contemporary Stories Celebrate the Hope of Christmas

“Meals, laundry, housekeeping, salon, exercise room, activities.” Alex ticked off the benefits as if Astrid didn’t comprehend the concept of “all included.” Astrid wondered what, if she didn’t have to cook, clean, or do laundry, she was supposed to do all day. With no car. “And physical therapy,” Alex said.”
― Olivia Newport, Colors of Christmas: Two Contemporary Stories Celebrate the Hope of Christmas

“We all have stories, and it's a wonderful thing when our stories catch up with just the right person. It's the beauty of God Himself, showing Himself among us by pulling our stories into His great story of grace."~ Astrid in Christmas in Gold”
― Olivia Newport, Colors of Christmas: Two Contemporary Stories Celebrate the Hope of Christmas