You could set a timer to check the date every 24 hours. I'm not sure of a better way to do that unless you join/connect every day and could put it into an on join event.

Code:
.timerchristmas 0 0:01 checkdate
alias checkdate {
  if ($date == 24/12/2006) {
    topic #yourchannel Merry Christmas!
    .timerchristmas off
  }
}


This was just a matter of including $strip to what you were writing. Also, you don't need /'s on commands in a script, and $$1 in your previous $strips is unnecessary... there will always be a $1, so you don't need to prevent it from runnning when there isn't one (that's what double $ means).

Code:
on *:TEXT:*:#: {
  if ($strip($1) == !quote) {
    msg $chan 3 $+ $read(txt\quote.txt)
  }
  if ($strip($1) == !addquote ) {
    write txt\quote.txt $strip($2-) 11:: 7added by $nick
    msg $chan 3done
  }
}