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The Year Without Santa Claus

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

They were family living in building that was populated with important people from the old politic system, like retired politicians, rich and important people. It was about about one month after SHTF started, family stayed inside, did not know what to do, their apartment building was one of the few that gangs did not visit yet. They heard screams and pistol shots, always bad signs, then loud curses, and sound of fighting. Anyway, there was no too much time to do anything smart, while gang get to their floor, they managed to hide girl in one of the closets, and...

Father Frost didn’t drop presents off for Russian children on Dec. 25. And he won’t on Orthodox Christmas (Jan. 7), either. Rather, Ded Moroz and his lovely snow maiden assistant, Snegurochka, are attached to New Year’s Eve, which in Russia is the new year and the secular bits of Christmas like trees and presents all rolled into one. Initially, the Soviets tried to replace Christmas with a more appropriate komsomol (youth communist league) related holiday, but, shockingly, this did not take. And by 1928 they had banned Christmas entirely, and Dec. 25 was a normal working day. Then, in 1935,...

Norad Santa Tracker Live stream!

A wide range of illustrations of Nativity scenes.

Nine Lessons and Carols in binaural sound optimized for headphone listening

Monday on CNN’s “New Day,” former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, also a CNN contributor, discussed potential “unintended consequences” of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Host Erica Hill said, “As we have been reporting, CNN is reporting about so much being unknown at this point and the fact that the concern here is that perhaps the president doesn’t understand how complicated this is, and while a number of Americans support the move to pull troops back, just doing it on a whim could be dangerous.” Clapper said, “Exactly. I spent 13 years throughout my career...

2014 Christmas ad from Sainsbury’s – Christmas is for sharing. Made in partnership with The Royal British Legion, it commemorates the extraordinary events of Christmas Day, 1914, when the guns fell silent and two armies met in no-man’s land, sharing gifts – and even playing football together. The chocolate bar featured in the ad is on sale now at Sainsbury’s. All profits will go to The Royal British Legion and will benefit the armed forces and their families, past and present. Click for beautiful video.

A wide range of illustrations of the Adoration of the Magi.

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Russian writer and I must say prophet Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A statue was erected this month in a Moscow neighborhood to mark the anniversary of his birth with Russia's President Vladimir Putin paying his respects. Its a story that happens to take place in an around December 25th, 1949. Christmas Day in the Western nations, but not in Russia. However, it certainly is the Christmas season as it happened USSR style. Among other people in the story are the prisoners of the "best prison" in the Soviet Gulag Archipelago on...

The Christmas story begins in the town of Nazareth nine months before the birth of Jesus. Now, if any narrative ever cried out for attention to detail it is this one, so it’s worth taking a good look at this little town and what it might tell us about the nature and character of God. Nazareth is much more widely known today than it ever was in Jesus’ day. It is not among the sixty-three villages of Galilee mentioned in the Hebrew Talmud or the forty-five mentioned by first-century Jewish historian Josephus, who knew the area well. This was an...

NO SANTA IN SIGHT WORST CHRISTMAS EVE EVER DOW -653 FALLS BELOW 22,000

Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice published an op-ed Sunday in the New York Times in which she declares that President Donald Trump “does more to undermine American national security than any foreign adversary.” More dangerous than the Islamic terrorists who carried out the Benghazi attack, about which she lied to the world, blaming a YouTube video; more dangerous than the so-called “Islamic state,” which she let take root after her boss, President Barack Obama, called them the “J.V. team”; more dangerous than Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which took over Crimea on her watch; more dangerous than Iran, with which she...

A 96-year-old water main burst in a South Los Angeles neighborhood Friday, sending water bubbling up above the pavement, flooding streets and creating a void that submerged cars. It took the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power more than four hours to fully shut off the 24-inch cast iron main as water inundated the neighborhood at 55th Street and Towne Avenue. About 30 adults and 20 children were displaced from their homes; the Fred Roberts Recreation Center was set up as a temporary shelter. LADWP is covering the cost of hotel stays for some affected residents while crews do...

Well, this seems to have become an annual event. Alone on Christmas Eve, reaching out to my fellow FReepers. Myself, I have my daughter's hermit crab for company. And some great classical Christmas music. And, a little later, George Bailey and friends via BluRay. Anyone else spending this evening solo?

It had to happen. As we suspected would happen. The caravan migrants, still cooling their heels out of sight of tourists in an isolated redoubt of Tijuana, in line awaiting for their U.S. asylum claims to be adjudicated, have finally turned on their rabidly left-wing organizers – namely, Pueblo Sin Fronteras. The Associated Press has a pretty good report about the scope of the migrant disgust: We know that the migrants have turned on the organizers because suddenly, they are nowhere to be found in Tijuana. Some are still talking for the cameras, but the Tijuana mayor says he wants...

It was not a place of fun and games. And when that red phone rang — it was wired directly to a four-star general at the Pentagon — things got real. All eyes would have been on Shoup when he answered. “Col. Shoup,” he barked. But there was silence. Until finally, a small voice said, “Is this Santa Claus?”

In honor of the season I've made my Christmas novel A Fantasía for Two Lutes available as a free Kindle download. It's a story of ghosts and visions, and an allegory of Western society, as personified by its protagonist, Aaron Westwode, a good man suffering guilt for something which he can neither identify, nor define. Driven to despair and suicide, he is saved on Christmas eve by Margaret, the ghost of a woman murdered by his evil brother, a domestic terrorist. She wafts him to the other world, where visions of his past precede a trip to Hell, and confrontation...

Seattle is on the verge of making some controversial land-use changes that advocates say will make this increasingly expensive city more livable for people who aren’t wealthy. The city may soon allow taller buildings in the cores of many neighborhoods and ease restrictions on mother-in-law apartments and backyard cottages. But change is hard: Those moves have encountered legal challenges. Minneapolis this month took a much more dramatic step on density meant to ease its real-estate crunch and address its history of racial segregation: The City Council there voted to end single-family zoning altogether. Moving ahead, the Midwest city will allow...