Salon.com > Christmas http://www.salon.com Sun, 27 May 2012 13:20:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 How to argue with right-wing relatives http://www.salon.com/2011/12/25/how_to_argue_with_right_wing_relatives/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/25/how_to_argue_with_right_wing_relatives/#comments Sun, 25 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10810151 There comes a time at most large family gatherings when a heated political argument breaks out. And by "heated political argument" what I mean is "someone just repeats something they heard on Hannity's radio show that you know to be completely untrue." You may be the lone liberal in a conservative family, or you may have one right-wing uncle in your left-wing family, but this will happen. What to do?

If you have a "smart phone," just bookmark Snopes now. That'll take care of the really weird stuff. (Well, not this level of weird, but "I read that airlines don't pair Christian pilots and co-pilots in case The Rapture happens" weird.)

But a right-wing myth generally lives on forever, no many how many times it is debunked. You are powerless to prevent its spread. All you can do is perhaps convince one person that one talk radio meme is completely bogus. But you will probably have better luck simply changing the subject. (Suggestions: Whether or not Peyton Manning will be a Colt next season, "American Horror Story," Jay-Z and Beyonce's baby.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/25/how_to_argue_with_right_wing_relatives/feed/ 348 #occupychristmas http://www.salon.com/2011/12/24/occupychristmas/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/24/occupychristmas/#comments Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10709011 Christmas has always been politicized. Since 2005, when Fox News commentator John Gibson published "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought," the focus has mainly been on a supposed progressive agenda to, in the words of Bill O’Reilly, “get Christianity and spirituality out of the public square." Last year the New York City YMCA drew criticism for replacing Santa Claus with Frosty the Snowman at a family event — children were forced, complained the New York Post, to “suffer the icy embrace of a talking snowman” instead of the warm hug of a fur-clad fat man. This year the American Family Association has once again called out retailers who favor the word "holidays," placing them on its “Naughty” list.

But there is also something different going on this year. A popular hashtag on Twitter is #OccupyXmas. In Portland, San Francisco and elsewhere, carolers dressed in Santa suits and elf outfits have been singing a new song. It goes in part like this:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/24/occupychristmas/feed/ 25 The fake “War on Christmas” outrage http://www.salon.com/2011/12/23/the_fake_war_on_christmas_outrage/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/23/the_fake_war_on_christmas_outrage/#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10762371 One of the defining qualities of late December is the predictable and ritualized nature of America's holiday season. Other than discovering what's inside the wrapped gift boxes, there's no mystery or suspense to it anymore. The Christmas music starts right before Thanksgiving. Then come the flickering lights, the red-and-green decor, Hollywood's vacation movie blitz, and finally, with media charlatans turning the key, the fake outrage machine rumbles back to life.

Like a narcissist's souped-up 4-by-4, this turbocharged colossus of self-righteous indignation makes a lot of noise and leaves a mess in its wake -- but ultimately says a lot more about its drivers' pitiable insecurities than anything else.

This year has been particularly illustrative, as the fake outrage machine has caricatured itself like a Bigfoot-esque monster truck in a desperate bid for attention. In just the last few weeks, the Heritage Foundation billed an Agriculture Department initiative to raise revenue for tree farmers as a "Christmas Tree Tax"; Fox News said that standard federal safety warnings were proof that the government wants to "tell you how to decorate your Christmas tree"; and conservative activists criticized Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an Independent, for daring to consecrate a "holiday tree" -- rather than a "Christmas Tree" -- at the statehouse.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/23/the_fake_war_on_christmas_outrage/feed/ 196 Christmas fading in the Holy Land http://www.salon.com/2011/12/23/christmas_fading_in_the_holy_land/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/23/christmas_fading_in_the_holy_land/#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10754151 JERUSALEM -- In the land that put Christ in Christmas, Christianity is shrinking.

Less than a century ago, Christians comprised nearly 10 percent of the population of Palestine (now Israel and the Palestinian territories). In 1946, the figure was around 8 percent. Today, Christians make up about 4 percent of the West Bank’s population, although there are still a few Christian-majority villages, such as Taybeh, whose skyline is dominated by church spires and whose businessmen produce the only Palestinian beer. In Israel, though Christians make up 10 percent of its Palestinian population, they only constitute 2.5 percent of the total population. In Gaza, the Christian minority is even smaller, representing just 1 percent of the population.

One major factor in the decline of Christianity here: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Arab-Israeli war of 1948 caused hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee or be driven out of their homes, most never to return – and each subsequent war has led to more Palestinians leaving. Today, though Palestinians are often materially better off than other Arabs, restrictions on movement, lack of economic opportunity, unemployment and the constant indignity of living under occupation prompt many to seek out new homes. Palestinian Christians, relatively better educated that Palestinian Muslims and sharing a common religion with the West, have generally been better placed to leave the region.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/23/christmas_fading_in_the_holy_land/feed/ 65 Corporate America: No complaints considered http://www.salon.com/2011/12/22/corporate_america_no_complaints_considered/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/22/corporate_america_no_complaints_considered/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:33:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10761791 In the spirit of the season, I’d like to file a complaint -- about complaints. Corporate America just doesn’t handle them the way they used to. As in, at all. I grew up in retail. My father owned a drugstore in upstate New York and was as old fashioned as the next guy when it came to the rules of doing business. As in, Rule #1: The customer is always right. Rule #2: See Rule #1.

Unless, of course, he caught a customer shoplifting, in which case all rules and rights were suspended, including habeas corpus. Make an attempt to sneak out of his establishment with a bottle of moisturizer or a pair of sunglasses and prepare for the thunder of God’s own drums. I never heard him yell at his own kids the way he yelled at any young, incipient Artful Dodger who tried to skip the joint with a purloined Snickers bar tucked under his shirt.

As I got older, some of my classmates who sought the five-finger discount came to me directly, hoping I’d grab for them what they feared to take themselves. I trace the evolution of the '60s counterculture through their requests. When we were high school freshman, they wanted prophylactics and cough syrup. By the time we reached senior year, it was blank prescription pads and several hundred empty gelatin capsules, to be filled with who knows what homemade hallucinogen.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/22/corporate_america_no_complaints_considered/feed/ 37 The most insufferable Christmas song ever http://www.salon.com/2011/12/22/the_most_insufferable_christmas_song_ever/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/22/the_most_insufferable_christmas_song_ever/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10741831 When "Do They Know It's Christmas?" came out in 1984, I pretty much thought I was British. I dressed like the asexual keyboard player from the Cure, pretended to love everything Depeche Mode was singing about – because, you know, people are people – and pledged undying love for bands I read about in the obscure British magazines sold at Tower Records. (In fact, only since getting Spotify have I even heard an entire album by the Blue Nile and, it turns out they sound like every other band I pretended to like in the 1980s, except for Belouis Some, who were terrible on a whole other level.) So "Do They Know It's Christmas?" combined all of the greatest things in my world:

1. British bands.

2. British bands singing morosely.

3. British bands singing morosely about hungry people in Africa, a place I was familiar with primarily through playing Risk, but which I nevertheless felt a great passion for. We must get these people fed, the world kept telling my 13-year-old self, and therefore I, too, felt this very strongly ... for about two months, anyway, because puberty was making me very interested in a whole host of other things.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/22/the_most_insufferable_christmas_song_ever/feed/ 59 Why I still believe in Santa http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/why_i_still_believe_in_santa/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/why_i_still_believe_in_santa/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:15:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10658391 My eldest daughter, Lucy, is a natural-born skeptic. She rolls her eyes whenever anyone mentions astrology. She recently declared a gym teacher's command that students open their palms to receive energy from the universe "pointless." She laughs off my negativity-banishing feng shui gestures at home. This is a girl who says she believes in God, but doesn't "go for a lot of that stuff in the Bible." One who, for many years, insisted that Santa was not welcome in our home, because she only wanted presents from her family. And who, at age 11, suddenly finds herself wondering if this Christmas might be her last chance to believe in something.

Her younger sister has never wrestled with any similar spiritual conflicts. Open and trusting, Beatrice  happily accepts the existence of everything. Mermaids, fairies, unicorns, the baby Jesus in a golden-fleece diaper – you name it, she's all in. Yet the innocent realm of childhood fantasy can be a tricky place for parents to navigate. Do we let our babies believe in pixies? And if so, how do we handle it when they believe in monsters, too? There's no single right or wrong way to handle it. I know parents who are raising happy, secure children who've never thought of Santa as anyone other than a character in old Rankin-Bass productions. But although I've always tried to be honest with my daughters, I figure we spend most of our lives relatively magic-free. As a result, as long as my kids have been inclined, they've been allowed as much magic as they want for as long as they need it.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/why_i_still_believe_in_santa/feed/ 55 My first snowfall http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/my_first_snowfall/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/my_first_snowfall/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10470821 If countries have colors, then mine was yellow. I grew up in India in the late '80s and '90s. The roads were dusty, the air humid, the trees dry and wilting. And everywhere, there was the sun, blazing, relentless, spanning our whole world. It cast a bright yellow sheen on everything. The sky over us was the color of daffodils and canaries. I knew this well, even though I had never seen a daffodil or a canary, but had only read about them in my British storybooks.

Our prolonged summers made us long for rain. In our largely agrarian land, farmers prayed for rain to come nurture their crops. Lovers in Hindi movies broke into song when the heavens opened, schools shut early, trees turned green and the sky a gray that would not be considered charming in most places on earth. But for us, rain was a respite. And it was the only form of precipitation most of us would ever see.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/my_first_snowfall/feed/ 20 A Wild Night and a New Road http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/a_wild_night_and_a_new_road/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/a_wild_night_and_a_new_road/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10359761 She drives home with her fake RayBans on and the radio blasting. Power 96! Amy Winehouse or someone like that. This is Saturday, Christmas Eve, in South Florida, and, still, you could just die from the heat. At the light on Federal by the high school, she changes the station to oldies. The Stones’ “Miss You.” She cranks the volume up to twenty-nine. She sees a woman outside the Dixiewood Motel, wearing snug red shorts, a Santa T-shirt that says HO! HO! HO!, polyester antlers, and a Rudolph nose that lights up whenever a car approaches. There’s a toothless dude with an eye patch sitting on a plastic milk crate in front of Room 4. He’s feeding a red hibiscus flower to the absinthe-green iguana on his shoulder. A car pulls into the lot. One of those cars that looks like a lunch box. Rudolph prances to the car, sticks her head in the passenger-side window. Our driver hears the blast of a horn. The light is green.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/a_wild_night_and_a_new_road/feed/ 1 Pope defends Middle East Christians http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/eu_vatican_pope_new_year/ http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/eu_vatican_pope_new_year/#comments Sat, 01 Jan 2011 17:32:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/01/01/eu_vatican_pope_new_year Pope Benedict XVI urged Christians to remain strong in the face of intolerance and violence in a New Year's appeal Saturday that came hours after a bomb blast outside an Egyptian church killed 21 people as worshippers left Mass.

The pope condemned a widening campaign against Christians in the Middle East in his homily at St. Peter's Basilica, echoing comments last month in which he called a lack of religious freedom a threat to world security.

"In the face of the threatening tensions of the moment, especially in the face of discrimination, of abuse of power and religious intolerance that today particularly strikes Christians, I again direct a pressing invitation not to yield to discouragement and resignation," he said.

Benedict has repeatedly denounced a campaign against Christians in Iraq blamed on al-Qaida militants, including an October attack on a Baghdad Catholic church that claimed 68 lives, two of them priests.

The Vatican is very worried that a steady exodus of minority Christians from Iraq will permanently reduce their numbers and discourage the wider community of Christians in the Middle East.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/01/01/eu_vatican_pope_new_year/feed/ 79 Mistakes of the Dwyer Family Christmas newsletter http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/dwyer_family_christmas_newsletter/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/dwyer_family_christmas_newsletter/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 02:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/12/30/dwyer_family_christmas_newsletter Happy New Year to all friends and Dwyers out there in Dwyerland! Sorry to start off a bright and shiny new 2011 on the wrong foot, but its come to our attention that our annual Dwyer Christmas newsletter sent out last month contained a couple of humiliating misprints. For those of you returning from extended vacation and who have not yet read your back mail, we ask you PLEASE! do not continue reading. Instead open the attached file with the amended Dwyer Christmas newsletter.

First, to those who loyally read each of our bulletins over the holidays, we would like to apologize and address all those errors now which have created some harsh feelings and cringeworthy moments among many loved ones. Auto Correct has somehow been sabotaging the Dwyer household, mocking cherished memories from 2010. What should have been a proud moment for Dan and I, Garrett's acceptance to our alma mater, "... he will be attending Grambling in the fall," somehow printed out as "intending to get another giraffe in the fall." We wrote you that "Garrett had a terrific time this summer" but you read he was "stuck in traffic this summer." To clarify, it IS however true Garrett meet a nice Jewish girl. That was not a typo.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/31/dwyer_family_christmas_newsletter/feed/ 22 My blessed budget Christmas http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/broke_at_christmas_gift/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/broke_at_christmas_gift/#comments Sat, 25 Dec 2010 18:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//pinched/2010/12/25/broke_at_christmas_gift I was downsized from my job in October 2008 along with a few dozen others at the company. At the time I was let go, I had $35,000 in carefully accrued savings and an IRA with a little more than $8,000 in it. 

It's gone now, all of it. Two years of food, rent, lights, phone, food, rent, lights phone -- and before you know it, you're taking a can of coins to the supermarket and dumping them into Coinstar, that green, sticky refrigerator-sized machine that spits out a receipt you take to the checkout counter and pay for groceries with. You can get cash, too.

I had, naturally, cut back on all nonessential spending since the layoff. Like a lot of people in the country, I watched in disbelief as the economy fell off a cliff, banged into the side of the mountain, rolled a few times, then burst into flames at the bottom. The earth split open and what was left continued falling to hell, where, as far as I know, it's still smoldering. When I was laid off, Bernie Madoff was a respected investor living on the Upper East Side. That's how long ago it was. Nobody knew the storm that was coming.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/broke_at_christmas_gift/feed/ 50 Christmas bombs kill at least 38 Nigerians http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/af_nigeria_violence_2/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/af_nigeria_violence_2/#comments Sat, 25 Dec 2010 17:08:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/12/25/af_nigeria_violence_2 Multiple explosions in central Nigeria have killed 32 people and six others died in attacks by Muslim sect members on two churches in the north, officials said Saturday.

Police spokesman Mohammed Lerama said that 32 people died and at least 74 were injured in four bomb blasts Friday night that went off in close succession in different parts of Jos in central Nigeria -- a region violently divided between Christians and Muslims.

Manasie Phampe, the Red Cross secretary in Jos, gave slightly different figures and said that 52 people were injured, and that some of the injured were in intensive care at the Jos University Teaching Hospital.

"We have commenced investigations and are making efforts to calm people down," said Lerama.

Religious violence has claimed over 500 lives this year in Jos and neighboring towns and villages, but the situation was believed to have calmed down.

Nigeria, a country of 150 million people, is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The blasts happened in central Nigeria, in the nation's "middle belt," where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of fertile lands.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/af_nigeria_violence_2/feed/ 7 Home for the holidays: Soldier reunions http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/0_coming_home/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/0_coming_home/#comments Sat, 25 Dec 2010 14:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/12/25/0_coming_home America's military families often spend the holiday season the way they do the remainder of the year: away from their loved ones. But for a lucky few, there's a hard-won homecoming. The emotional impact of the returning soldier has been depicted by everyone from Norman Rockwell to Oliver Stone, but with today's flip phones and camcorders, families can record the moment themselves. The Web is flooded with these home-shot reunions, but no site is as thorough as Welcome Home Blog, which contains hundreds of these teary embraces. A quick shot of good feelings in the midst of two tough ongoing wars, the site gets thousands of daily visitors.

"Everyone knows that feeling, of finally seeing someone that they love come home," says UNC-Wilmington student Chase Holfelder, who started Welcome Home blog in May 2010 after a clip he posted went viral. Holfeder doesn't know anyone in the military; he's simply filling a need no one else had, and videos are sent in by military families all over the world. The joy of watching the clips, he says, "transcends political stance. It doesn't matter what you think about the wars."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/0_coming_home/feed/ 18 “It’s a Wonderful Life”: The most terrifying movie ever http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/its_wonderful_life_terrifying_movie_ever/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/its_wonderful_life_terrifying_movie_ever/#comments Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/12/24/its_wonderful_life_terrifying_movie_ever I don't care what your parents told you. "It's a Wonderful Life," that reassuring holiday spectacle, is really the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made. It's one of a handful of masterpieces directed by Frank Capra, an Italian immigrant who loved America because America saved him. Capra lived through the Depression, then through the rise of terrible ideologies. He knew how bad things could get. He knew, too, that the United States was not immune and this knowledge spiked his love with the worst kind of fear. The result was that special melancholy, blue shot through with black, that runs through his films, the best of which are parables that operate on various levels, some of which were probably unknown to Capra himself.

If you were to cut "It's a Wonderful Life" by 20 minutes, its true subject would be revealed: In this shortened version, George Bailey, played by a Jimmy Stewart forever on the edge of hysteria, after being betrayed by nearly everyone in his life, after being broken on the wheel of capitalism, flees to the outskirts of town, Bedford Falls, N.Y., where he leaps off a bridge with thoughts of suicide.

That's the movie: The good man driven insane.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/25/its_wonderful_life_terrifying_movie_ever/feed/ 146 When $70 bread is worth it http://www.salon.com/2010/12/24/christmas_panettone/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/24/christmas_panettone/#comments Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/food/francis_lam/2010/12/24/christmas_panettone "Dude, this was $70." I plopped down a loaf of bread. It was the second morning of my friend Chuck's visit, and this is how I greeted him.

To be fair, this was not just any loaf of bread, but a panettone, an Italian Christmas bread, airlifted from Milan. And to be fair, I got it as a holiday treat for my love, Christine, in part to atone for the time I ate half of her supermarket panettone and reclosed the box to make it look like I didn't do it. (It didn't work.)

Still, I felt a complex mixture of emotions. I mean, look: I just spent 70 bucks on a loaf of bread, a level of decadence embarrassing on its face. On the other hand, I was going to get to eat a $70 loaf of bread, and, well, that's pretty exciting.

But Chuck, I knew, would not judge me for my lavish irresponsibility. Chuck is maybe the only man in America who perfumes his home with $65 candles while wearing a 15-year-old T-shirt from a nosebleed-violent Los Crudos show. (They're pure hardcore punk rock, and they don't sing about raw fish.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/24/christmas_panettone/feed/ 32 My friends never visit me http://www.salon.com/2010/12/23/friends_dont_visit/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/23/friends_dont_visit/#comments Thu, 23 Dec 2010 01:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/since_you_asked//2010/12/22/friends_dont_visit Dear Reader,

I think I'm taking tomorrow off so this would be an excellent time to say that it's the holiday season now in case you haven't noticed and consequently I'm writing a lot about Christmas and if the word "Christmas" is getting on your nerves it's getting on my nerves too but not being a public school official I use the word anyway even though many things that are not Christmas are also happening this time of year and though it probably would be better and more honest and responsible to name them all I just refer you to a couple of sites to refresh your memory and your spirit, and mine as well.

I mean, it's a nice word, "Christmas," and has nice boyhood associations for me. 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/23/friends_dont_visit/feed/ 90 Open tabs: Christmas in the heart http://www.salon.com/2010/12/22/open_tabs_2/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/22/open_tabs_2/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/12/21/open_tabs
  • On the eventual effects of "privatisation."
  • Louie Gohmert (R-eal Piece of Work) on his experiences with "overt homosexuality" in the military.
  • Jim DeMint explains why it's sacrilegious to work a couple days before Christmas.
  • Montana juries are sick of enforcing marijuana laws.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/12/22/open_tabs_2/feed/ 2     How I came to dread Christmas http://www.salon.com/2010/12/19/how_i_came_to_dread_christmas_open2010/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/19/how_i_came_to_dread_christmas_open2010/#comments Sun, 19 Dec 2010 19:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/12/19/how_i_came_to_dread_christmas_open2010 My father loved Christmas. From the time I was very small, in the days after Thanksgiving I remember him towering over me with a huge smile and gleaming eyes, proclaiming, "It's less than a month 'til Christmas!" It was the most excited he got about anything. He always believed this Christmas would be the best, the answer to all his hopes and dreams, delivering joy to his world. 

    He never went to church, never spoke of God. But he turned Christmas into his own religious rite. He played carols loudly on the stereo. Every Christmas Eve he read the same three things: "little tree," by his favorite poet, e.e. cummings, from the same tattered volume he'd carried through the trenches of Okinawa; "The Night Before Christmas"; and the gospel according to St. Luke. As he read, he infused the words with the drama of a onetime actor. He finished on such a note of reverence that this phrase is the only thing I can quote from the Bible, "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/12/19/how_i_came_to_dread_christmas_open2010/feed/ 57     The lies I tell to keep Santa real http://www.salon.com/2010/12/18/keeping_santa_real/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/18/keeping_santa_real/#comments Sat, 18 Dec 2010 19:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/12/18/keeping_santa_real Christmas 2010 might be the last year my 9-year-old daughter believes in Santa Claus. That'll pressure the 6-year-old into disbelief, too, meaning our nuclear family will pass a phase in our own particular holiday culture that I'm not ready for yet. Next year is the year of middle school sarcasm and wanting $400 presents that everyone knows are made by techies at Apple and not toymakers employed by St. Nicholas.

    "Daddy, I'm looking at all of my fairy dolls and they all say 'Made in China' on them," says an inquisitive 6-year old, holding a Silvermist doll from Disney Fairies. The oldest doesn't pay too much attention, even though the doll was given to her by Santa last year. Instead, she glances up from a blank piece of paper while hunched over a box of colored pencils on the living room floor. She is writing her annual day-after-Thanksgiving letter to Santa Claus. We've been doing this since she was 3. Looking at her, I think that this is the last time we will share this moment as parent and child.

    "How should I start the letter different this year, Daddy?" she asks. We send letters to the Santa Claus Main Post Office in the Arctic Circle in Lapland, Finland. A real place. We even got letters back from them two years ago.

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