Quote

There is nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. ... Time, self-pity, apathy, bitterness, and exhaustion can take the Christmas out of the child, but you cannot take the child out of Christmas.

Erma Bombeck

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Erma Bombeck
Age: 69 †
Born: 1927
Born: February 21
Died: 1996
Died: April 22
Column Author
Journalist
Writer
Bellbrook
Ohio
Erma Louise Bombeck
Nothing
Apathy
Self
Bitterness
Take
Awake
Children
Christmas
Time
Pity
World
Morning
Child
Sadder
Cannot
Exhaustion

More quotes by Erma Bombeck

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One son appears in stereo - a transistor in one ear and the phone in the other.
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You show me a boy who brings a snake home to his mother and I'll show you an orphan.
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The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect she needs to function, a mother must have her children believe she has never engaged in sex, never made a bad decision, never caused her own mother a moment's anxiety, and was never a child.
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My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.
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Written on her tombstone: I told you I was sick.
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the ultimate in longevity is the Christmas fruitcake. It is a cake made during the holidays with fruits that make it heavier than the stove it is cooked in.
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Explain to me how he [her son] can ride a bicycle, run, play ball, set up a camp, swing, fight a war, swim and race for eight hours ... and has to be driven to the garbage can.
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No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.
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I've never vied for power in the family before. Pointing a box at the garage door and saying Open! was never a big deal, but holding that television tuner and realizing I alone control what is flashed on the screen brings out the Iacocca in me.
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The Rose Bowl is the only bowl I've ever seen that I didn't have to clean.
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I didn't fear old age. I was just becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the only people who said old age was beautiful were usually twenty-three years old.
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I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.
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Last year I gave seventy-four phone hours to soliciting baked goods for the Bake-A-Rama. I was named Top Call Girl by the League.
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It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.
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If I had my life to live over, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished ever moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
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When you're lecturing teenagers and they begin to hum and leave the room, you can sense there is hostility.
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The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
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Mother's words of wisdom: Answer me! Don't talk with food in your mouth!
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I'm real ambivalent about [working mothers]. Those of use who have been in the women's movement for a long time know that we've talked a good game of go out and fulfill your dreams and be everything you were meant to be. But by the same token, we want daughters-in-law who are going to stay home and raise our grandchildren.
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You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.
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