Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.

Hubbard’s quip plays on the contrast between the idealized “Christmas spirit” (goodwill, generosity, neighborliness) and how quickly that mood can evaporate once the holiday passes. By comparing it to a circus—an event that arrives, dazzles briefly, then rapidly “packs up and tears out”—he suggests that seasonal virtue is often temporary and performative rather than sustained. The folksy dialect (“ain’t,” “packs up”) reinforces the down-to-earth, skeptical voice typical of Hubbard’s humor, implying a wry realism about human nature: people can be warm and charitable on cue, yet revert to ordinary self-interest as soon as the occasion ends.