Holidays

From the New York Post: > Consumers spent an average of $763 each on holiday shopping this season . . . I think my wife and I spent less than $763 together, and that's with seven kids to buy for. Of course, Max (2) got a bunch of gaudy junk (that

> A nativity scene that includes naked women and transvestites standing near the baby Jesus has caused outrage in Italy. > The scene was created by the Scuotto siblings from Naples, who are famous for carving traditional nativity scenes. Link [http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1657012.html]. Don&

Pontifications has a great assortment of passages [http://catholica.pontifications.net/] for the Christmas season (which hasn't ended, contrary to celebrate-for-four-weeks-then-grow-sullen-on-the-26th American tradition). Thanks, Open Book [http://amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/2005/12/food_for_though.html].

In case you were thinking you enjoy the holiday season: > Health experts notice a bizarre phenomenon December 25 of every year. It's the beginning of a two week spike in the death rate nationwide. > Depression is just part of this puzzle. The reason the number of

I've posted these before, but they're good enough to repeat: Max Beerbohm once said, “I may be old-fashioned, but I am right.” They're good words to recall at this time of the year. After all, we tend to mark the holidays with things old

> Shakespeare calls it "the baleful mistletoe," perhaps in allusion to the Scandinavian legend that it was with an arrow made of mistletoe and wielded by the blind god Hoder that Balder was slain, or to the tradition that it was once a tree from which the wood