Christmas

With Christmas less than a week away, most Americans have been inundated with an endless stream of holiday movies. Turn on the TV and you’re bound to find some channel playing one of the many classics that have kept us entertained for…

When I was a high school junior in Ohio, I had to debate a classmate on a topic of our choice for a course on public speaking. I was always obnoxiously political, so my peers had no interest in hearing me drone on and on about ISIS, Social…

The birth of Jesus was the beginning of the greatest act of love ever known, which leads us to devote an entire season to celebrate it. Unfortunately, the secularization of Christmas means Christ’s arrival on Earth doesn’t always get the…

As a child, my relationship with unsweet baker’s chocolate was one of suspicion. Why would they take something sweet and delicious like chocolate and make it bitter? I remember one December, when my very organized father…

In the original “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge was a miserly, bitter employer utterly devoid of compassion and mirth. He symbolized the very antithesis of the Christmas spirit and thus needed great reform. To…

Some poor misguided souls view tradition with suspicion. Nothing but archaic echoes of repressive ages, they say. I, like most conservatives, view things a little differently. Tradition, properly viewed, is an inter-generational “body…

Dec. 25 falling on a Sunday reminds me of one particularly magical Christmas past. My age at that time is completely elusive to me now, but suffice it to say I still believed in Santa Claus — yet suspicion was bubbling. When my brother and…

For many of you, it never left. For those involved in Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and other denominations that have kept to liturgy, you have been enjoying the long-held tradition of Advent since the 4th century. Not so for me.…

HALIFAX – Scores of Haligonians were forced to evacuate their homes and business this morning as Pearl, the grotesque Oyster Fest mascot, and Woody, the horrifying talking Christmas tree, engaged in a titanic battle for control of the…

SASKATOON – A Christmas tree still on display in the Miller household’s living room is uncertain if the family that purchased it is planning to celebrate Orthodox Christmas, or if they’ve just been too lazy to throw it out onto the curb for…