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Every year during the Christmas season I replace my regular column with a story I wrote years ago. It’s totally fictitious, but there are bits and pieces of autobiographical material here and there that reflect on my earliest remembrances of Christmas time in North Carolina. We always have a get together with family and friends at our house on Christmas Eve night. We share some food and drink and then sit around the den in a circle and everybody gets a turn to say whatever is on their minds followed by me reading Luke's version of the Christmas story. Several...

Turns out, everyone’s susceptible to the holiday blues: a mall Santa was fired in Maine for being a downright grinch. Parents complained and fa-la-la-la-la, he lost his job. Taking to Facebook, the angry parents voiced their irritation with the Scrooge Santa. The mother of 6-year-old Chantel Mailhiot told WGME 13 that the Santa wouldn’t allow her daughter to sit on his lap simply because she didn’t purchase a $20 photo package. Apparently, though, it gets worse: even after little Chantel told Santa she wanted an American girl doll, he told her that instead, she’d get an “American football.” After Chantel’s...

He's making a LinkedIn profile. He's checking it twice. He's gonna find out which employers are naughty or nice. Santa Claus is coming to town -- and he needs a job. While the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7% last month, as the Labor Department reported today, more and more Santa Clauses around the country are going without work this holiday season. There's no official Kris Kringle employment index, but agencies that place Santas at gigs around the country say the prospects for many of the men in red suits is Ho-ho-hopeless. "There's no question about it, the number of Santas...

Today (Dec 6) is the Feast of St. Nicholas. The real St. Nicholas was nothing close to the St. Nick (Santa Claus) of the modern age. He was a thin curmudgeonly man with a zeal for the Lord that caused flairs of anger. Compromise was unknown to him. The slow transformation of him into “Jolly ole’ Saint Nicholas is a remarkable recasting of him centuries in the making. Some years ago the Washington Post featured an article entitled Poles Apart: Nicholas of Myra; How a 4th-Century Bishop Achieved Fame 1,500 Years Later, With a Whole New Attitude.On this feast of...

video here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erDCrUgfSfQ

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana fiercely shot back at Mitt Romney’s claim Wednesday that President Barack Obama outmatched the 2012 Republican presidential nominee by offering "gifts" to African-Americans, Hispanics and young voters. “I absolutely reject that notion,” Jindal, who was a surrogate for Romney’s campaign, said at the Republican Governors Association conference in Las Vegas. “I think that's absolutely wrong.” “I don't think that represents where we are as a party and where we're going as a party,” he continued. “That has got to be one of the most fundamental takeaways from this election.” Romney made the comments on...

'Bama Claus Is Spreadin' It Roundoriginal music and lyrics by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie, updated lyrics by Rebel_Ace You better vote "D" And never vote "R" To Get Stuff for Free From the Welfare Czar 'Bama Claus is spreadin' it round 'Bama Claus is spreadin' it round 'Bama Claus is spreadin' it round The Union's got a list, Who voted twice; Show it to the press they put it on ice. 'Bama Claus is spreadin' it round 'Bama Claus is spreadin' it round 'Bama Claus is spreadin' it round The Rich they are not Paying We know how...

Grapevine police investigate the scene where they found seven people dead outside Dallas in Grapevine, Texas, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. Four women and three men who police believe to be related were found apparently shot to death, and authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead. Six members of a Texas family apparently opened Christmas presents just before a relative dressed as Santa Claus showed up, opened fire and killed them before killing himself, police said Monday. Grapevine police spokesman Sgt. Robert Eberling said the shooter showed up in the Santa outfit shortly before gunfire erupted and was...

Seven People Found Dead in Dallas-Area Apartment Published December 25, 2011 GRAPEVINE, Texas – Seven people believed to be related had opened their Christmas gifts and started cleaning up the wrapping paper when they were shot to death in a suburban Texas apartment, police said Sunday. Authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead, but got a warrant before doing a full search on the small chance that it was otherwise. Four women and three men, aged 18 to 60, were found in an adjoining kitchen and living room area when police entered the apartment around midday, said...

As a non-Christian with a deep affection for Christmastime, I've always felt a little left out around this time of year, but not in the way you might think. I've always felt a bit out of place with the venerable conservative tradition of denouncing the "war on Christmas." I should offer some background. When I was a kid, my parents cut out a jokey headline from a local newspaper that read "Santa Knows We're Jewish" and put it on a cardboard Christmas tree ornament. My father insisted I be raised Jewish. (I went to a Jewish day school and was...

The reign of Constantine proved to be a turning point in history. The Edict of Milan helped transform Christianity from a persecuted religion into a popular faith. Christianity spread faster than ever before. Jesus’s message offered comfort in a world full of peril and suffering. His call to love God and neighbor gave meaning to hard lives.Constantine’s own enthusiasm for Christianity helped promote it through all classes of society. The emperor bestowed presents and property upon Christian congregations. He funded the construction of churches and basilicas, including St. Peter’s in Rome. He declared Sunday a day of rest, placed Christian...

    Dear Editor—     I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?     Virginia O'Hanlon     115 West Ninety Fifth Street Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's...

IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of "The Sun": Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says "If you see it in "The Sun" it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O'Hanlon 115 West 95th Street Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age....

Last Christmas, I shared this editorial with all my FRiends here, while I was icebound in West Virginia heading back from leave to report for mobilization. This year, at my station in Ramadi, Iraq, on Christmas morning, as tracer rounds thread the sky southeast of me, I offer this simple story, a very favorite of mine, for all my FRiends again. Take the time to read it - REALLY read it - and understand that Santa has visited your troops, and he left the greatest gift of them all. A Soldier's Merry Christmas to you all!

Yes America, There is a Santa Claus By: Amy Lutz In 1897, a young girl named Virginia wrote a letter to The New York Sun, asking if Santa Claus did in fact exist. Newsman Francis Pharcellus Church responded with a now-famous editorial entitled “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.” Virginia worried, since she had neither seen Santa Claus nor did she possess tangible proof of his existence, that the jolly man was not real. Francis Church reminded Virginia, and all of us, that seeing is not believing. We must first have faith and believe in the existence of Santa...

Christmas in America is a season of time-honored traditions: The sacred performance of the annual ACLU lawsuit over the presence of an insufficiently secular "holiday" tree. The ritual provocations of the atheist displays licensed by pitifully appeasing municipalities to sit between the menorah and the giant Frosty the Snowman. The familiar strains of every hack columnist's "war on Christmas" column rolling off the keyboard as easily as Richard Clayderman playing "Winter Wonderland" ... This year has been a choice year. A crucified skeleton Santa Claus was erected as part of the "holiday" display outside the Loudoun County courthouse in Virginia...

Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps. "DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. "Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. "Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa...

What do the Occupy movement, foreskins, an ice rink, international human rights and the world’s largest gathering of naked Santa Clauses have to do with each other? Under normal circumstances, nothing — but this is San Francisco after all, where anything is possible, so come along on a guided photographic tour of several separate socio-political events that inevitably overlapped and coalesced into an unforgettable political mashup. It’s not often that one must wear a Santa costume as part of one’s job, but on Saturday, December 10 that moment had finally arrived for me: I suited up and made my way...

December 5, 2011. (Romereports.com) December 6 is the feast day of St. Nicholas of Bari, otherwise known as Santa Claus. He was bishop of the city of Myra, in present day Turkey, where he died in the fourth century. When the city was conquered by Muslims, his remains were moved to the Italian city of Bari. When his parents died, he divided his fortune among the poor. Because of his generosity, tradition remembers him as Santa Claus, who every year would deliver gifts to everyone. He is also the patron saint of Russia, Greece and Turkey. In Rome, a temple...

Ho, ho, ho is the same in any language. It’s Santa’s other expressions that can pose a challenge in multicultural South Florida. Although St. Nick is known more for listening than his gift of gab, children can better relate to a Santa who talks like them, advocates say.