“That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!” Charlie Brown was depressed about the commercialization of Christmas, the undue emphasis on “things.” He went to see his friendly neighbourhood five-cents-a-session psychiatrist, Lucy. The therapy she advocated was involvement in an activity with other people. So Charlie Brown became the director of the Christmas play with […]
Finding the Real Santa Claus
My grandfather makes a perfect Santa Claus. He is a jolly, musical fellow who still has a twinkle in his eye. When my mother was a child, every Christmas she wondered why her dad was always coincidentally at church choir practice the exact same time that Santa appeared for a visit. Each time he would […]
OttawaWatch: Van Loan, Mulcair and Christmas
“We are going to fight hard in all of these by-elections. It’s the only way I know how to do politics. I don’t concede anything to an adversary – ever.” * * * Those were NDP leader Thomas Mulcair’s words, as quoted in a Canadian Press story by Murray Brewster on October 21. They followed […]
Pope Benedict XVI says Jesus was born years earlier, the Christian calendar is wrong
The Pope is stirring up discussion surrounding Jesus’ birth just in time for Christmas. In the final part of his three-volume work on the life of Jesus called Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, Pope Benedict XVI claims that the Christian calendar is based on a mistake made by the sixth-century monk Dionysius Exiguus (“Dennis […]
An ‘old-fashioned’ Christmas?
Gilded ribbons, tapered candles and decorated wreaths around the hearth. A return to a more traditional Christmas seems to be where our recession-weary minds are wandering. It’s time to remember and relive the good old days. This is the approach the stores are taking as they stock their shelves: traditional colours, Victorian scenes, evergreen wreaths, […]