It seems that a Mattawan, Michigan High School Teacher was suspended and then reinstated after the School Christmas Gift Exchange went a little XXX! It seems that students brought sex toys to school wrapped as presents for the Christmas gift exchange.  The teacher didn’t know about the X-rated toys ahead of the exchange.  It wasn’t [...]

Christmas means relatives and they are arriving in droves. I’m off to pick up my mother from the Airport. So, not much is going to be written for now!

The Moody Blues: Don’t Need a Reindeer I like the sentiment. This one is appropriate to the Occupy Protests. I dedicate it to all those people who say the US is a Christian nation, yet are the most unchristian people I know. Unfortunately, they don’t know who they are. As the song says: Once in [...]

I am seriously hoping that the BBC will post its Christmas offerings sometime soon just to set up the PVR for Howard Goodall’s The Truth About Christmas Carols. That means I am serching the iPlayer site for Christmas specials. What turns up? Noreen Khan’s Asian Network Christmas Party I love England and I’m glad the [...]

From Howard Goodall’s The Truth About Christmas Carols. You need to go 3m19s into the clip to see the carolers.

The BBC is going to rebroadcast Howard Goodall’s The Truth About Christmas Carols on the following dates and stations: Friday, 17 Dec 2010 21:30 BBC HD Sunday, 19 Dec 2010 20:00 BBC Four This is the third year it has been broadcast and is well worth watching. The iPlayer site doesn’t have the broadcast info [...]

Is it just me or does it seem that the economy is really hitting people? It doesn’t seem that the decorations are out in as much strength as they have been in the past. Of course, the economic effect of Christmas spending seems to be chilling out. But, I am not in retail. The BBC [...]

What is Christmas without alcohol? Forget putting Christ back in Christmas since he has never really had anything to do with the date, but drunken revelry–that’s another thing. Oz Clarke and Hugh Dennis tried to sample every Christmas tipple in a BBC Christmas special last year.  And the institution of Christmas drinking is enshrined in [...]

It’s time to remind all those good Christians who want to put Christ back in Christmas that Christmas was banned in England under the Commonwealth (Cromwell’s Purtian Government)… ‘Forasmuch as the Feasts of The Nativity of Christ, Easter, Whitsuntide, and other Festivals, commonly called Holy-days, have been heretofore superstitiously used and observed: Be it Ordained, [...]

Since a few people have mentioned the Germanic Tradition of Saint Nicholas Day in comments here, I am posting David Sedaris’s Dutch Christmas story from Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Sedaris’s story reminds me of getting into Antwerp and not realising that it was Saint Nicholas day. The Zwarte Piet (black men) were [...]

Steve Gibson at the Aricibo Observatory has assembled a list of the most common national and religious holidays observed in the U.S. along with some older holidays tied rather directly to points in the Sun’s annual journey around the sky, and the astronomical dates which underlie many of them. Ancient peoples were very attentive to [...]

The Unsporken Bible has a really good piece about the Astrological significance of the Nativity story that shows up in the First Zeitgeist film which I mention in the No Myth post and can be found at http://www.usbible.com/Astrology/star_of_bethlehem.htm. He also discusses it at When Was Jesus Born? The Wise Men and the Star of Bethlehem [...]

David Burbidge has posted some videos of Traditional English Carolers.  I found them while trying to locate traditional pub carolers.  The first is of the Cautley Carolers from Cumbria:   Anyway, I hope the Beeb runs Howard Goodall’s The Truth About Christmas Carols again this year since I remember he looked into the pub caroling [...]

As we Are getting ready for another bout of crazed Christians trying to get Christ back in Christmas, I am reminded of yet another attempt to ban the holiday due to it’s not being a “Christian Holiday”. That is because while I am getting ready for St. Andrew’s Day, it hit me that there is [...]

Fear Monsters Freedom means being able to brandish a gun. Empathy Monsters And when you accidentally shoot yourself in the foot, to have the health insurance cover to cover it. Fear Monsters Let’s face it: Glenn Beck IS America. Empathy Monsters I’m moving to Sweden. Empathy Monsters Fear Monsters gets their political news from one [...]