Joy of Christmas

Archive for the ‘Christmas News’ Category

I stumbled across it one December evening, a Christmas haven with not a strand of lametta, plastic holly leaf or red velvet reindeer with glitter antlers in sight.

It was the early 1990s and I was in Strasbourg to cover a conference of excruciating dullness. So I played hooky, losing myself in the medieval streets between the black-and-white timbered houses until I found myself in a crowded square.

Wooden stalls, strung with fairy lights, lined its perimeter, and braziers glowing fierce orange were scattered across it. The scent of cinnamon and cloves, escaping from wooden vats of mulled wine, kissed the cold air.

Church bells chimed periodically; I am sure carols were being played, and, yes, there were chestnuts roasting too. Every seasonal cliche was present and correct. My love affair with Christmas markets was instantaneous and enduring.

Back then, the markets were one of Europe’s best kept secrets. No-frills flying had yet to open up the Continent and a weekend jaunt was a costly affair. Now, for many of us, a trip to Cologne, Barcelona, Munich, Budapest, Prague or Lille, to buy the sort of decorations and craftwork we’re convinced we can’t buy anywhere else (although most are made in China), is part of the pre-Christmas ritual.

Even The Archers has endorsed it. Kenton and Kathy rejected the charms of Borchester last week to sip glühwein in front of Vienna’s imposing town hall, and potter around the nearby stalls.

Millions of listeners were probably wishing they were there, too. It is a world away from the brash, grasping materialism of the British high street at this time of year, and that is certainly part of the appeal of the markets.

The smaller ones, in Cracow or Salzburg for example, are also a reminder of a more innocent time in our lives. A time when the Christmas School Fayre or church bazaar was the social event of the year; when lopsided mince pies baked by mums were not considered to be a health hazard, and the headmaster with a stick-on cotton wool beard masquerading as Santa was not assumed to be a paedophile. Of course there is a commercial imperative to the Christmas markets but it is low-key and made more palatable by a combination of nostalgia and kitsch.

There is, I think, another reason why we have embraced Europe’s Christmas markets so wholeheartedly, and it is the unashamed display of a joyous Christian festival.

The tackiest of Nativity scenes, garish cribs, angels, Advent candles and calendars – of the religious variety rather than those with a Disney copyright – are piled high, with classier representations in glass, wood and porcelain. There is no expectation that a non-Christian will be offended by these offerings, and none seem to be. Indeed, the fact that so many of the markets take place in the shadow of great churches – the Gothic masterpiece known as the Angel of Strasbourg or the Cathedral of St Nicholas in Ljubljana – enhances the experience for those of all belief systems who are sensitised to the point of madness to “upsetting other faiths”.

In Britain we’re well-rehearsed in the “Winterval v Christmas” debate. We welcome the school Nativity play that has morphed into a hybrid celebration of Diwali, Hannukah, or Russian Orthodoxy. We may balk when we read that children’s choirs are banned from singing traditional carols in shopping malls, and that Santa has been replaced by a “more inclusive pixie” in a school in Brighton. But if the end result is a multicultural society at ease with itself, then so be it.

The galling reality is that the practitioners of other faiths don’t care how we celebrate. They accept the Christmas story as just that, an entertaining story. They consider the bank holidays that mark it to be a bonus, and think we’re mad to neuter our celebrations in the way we do. But we remain consumed by fear of causing offence, and the unthinking, politically correct, “Christianophobic” jobsworths who run our institutions are to blame.

And so we have the ludicrous situation reported this week whereby travellers to Bahrain – an Islamic country – find the airport fulsomely decorated for Christmas, with Santas in abundance, while O Come All Ye Faithful blasts from the duty-free electronics store. At Heathrow, there are minimal decorations and no carols in case Muslim passengers or airport employees are offended.

We like to think we invented Christmas. We didn’t, of course, but we mixed and matched the best bits from other countries with pagan midwinter practices and Christian traditions. Charles Dickens then consolidated the lot in A Christmas Carol, one of the great achievements of British culture, according to the critic D J Taylor. How sad it is that to get our seasonal fix, we now have to look elsewhere.

Mount Snow will be jolly this weekend when as many as 500 men and women deck out in snowy white beards, black boots and red suits lined with white fuzz with the goal of breaking the Guinness Book of World Records for most Santa Claus impersonators in one place.

This will be the area’s second attempt to break the record currently held by Liverpool, England, with reportedly 3,400 Santas.

Last year, despite poor weather, 107 Santas showed up to be counted.

This won’t be the only group this weekend trying to break the record. A group in Ireland will try to gather 10,001 Santas on the Walls of Derry on Sunday.

Liverpool attempted to sustain its record, collecting a reported 6,000 Santas last weekend for the Liverpool Santa Dash.

The tough one to beat, though will be Las Vegas, which also held an event last weekend, the Las Vegas Great Santa Run, which reported 7,269 Santas.

Organizer Melissa Husby said the group would do it again next year, hopefully with even more Santas. While this number seems to be the highest yet, Husby said it could take at least six months to hear from Guinness.

Celebrate the Valley, Inc., the event organizers, aren’t expecting to meet these numbers quite yet, but plan to develop a solid base of Santas that come every year to build up to the numbers necessary to win the record.

“Liverpool took five years to get where they are,” marketing coordinator Celeste Dwyer said. “Can you imagine if we beat Liverpool? Little old Vermont? That’s our goal.”

The Santas who do participate will be responsible for putting presents under the trees of local needy families. The money raised from the event benefits the Holiday Giving Tree, which asks local churches and schools to nominate a family in need. More than 65 families this year will be gifted food, clothing and other gifts for the holiday. “The concept is to have something under the tree,” Dwyer said.

Last year the Santas event donated $1,000 to the cause. This year they are aiming to double that.

Another part of the strategy to win the record is by offering perks to participants, including a long list of events on the mountain and in the area all weekend.

Visitors can spend Saturday after the walk participating in a cookie tour, a scavenger hunt or an activity challenge.

As it goes without saying that Santas must feed their cookie craving, 10 local inns will host a cookie tour, where the Santas can go from inn to inn, sampling the homemade delicacies and admiring the holiday decorations.

For Santas looking to slim their figures, the Claus Cup Challenge lets them go to different real estate companies and choose a physical or mental challenge.

Local schoolchildren will also display their gingerbread house handiwork at an exhibit at Memorial Hall, asking visitors to vote for their favorite. The winning house will win the children a pizza party.

Anyone dressed as Santa (they stress that this means full garb) will get a $25 discount on a ski lift ticket and a voucher for $25 off at another time from the ski resort. Many local inns, restaurants and businesses in the Deerfield Valley will be giving discounts to registered Santas as well.

CHRISTMAS carols are now being played more often, hotels and other establishments have begun adorning their facades with glittering lights and soon every household will follow suit in the spirit of the holidays.

But the high cost of electricity on the islands may be like the Grinch who stole Christmas.

This month, the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is charging residential customers 30.2 cents per kilowatt hour.

Commercial establishments will be charged 34.4 cents per kwh while the government will be billed 34.9 cents per kwh — the highest power rates ever imposed in CNMI history.

CUC spokeswoman Pamela Mathis said, depending on volts and watt-demand, Christmas lights typically cost 1 cent to 4.8 cents per kwh.

The Icicle “100” lights will cost you 1 cent per kwh while a regular string of mini tree lights would cost 4.8 cents per kwh.

Lighted Christmas trees should not cost that much if you use the fiber optic type.

Mathis said a 7-ft-tall fiber optic Christmas tree would cost consumers just 1.4 cents per kwh.

A frosty ornament lighted tree would cost 1.8 cents per kwh.

A regular lighted twinkle-tree constant would cost more at 5.9 cents per kwh.

“Costs will decrease a bit if the resident uses 1,000 kwh or less per month,” said Mathis.

70,000 lights dance to music at the Senske showcase of lights at the corner of Deschutes and Quay in Kennewick.

Senske specializes in landscaping, pest control, but in the winter they specialize in home décor and lighting.

The lights are synchronized to five classic christmas songs playing in a continuous loop. The music is broadcast over the radio on 101.7 fm and there are also some speakers here. The lights are programmed with the same computer software used in major theme parks.

Apart from the lights, Senske is going “green” featuring all energy-saving “LED” lights.

LED lights use about 90 percent less power and are supposed to last longer. The down side however is they cost 6 to 8 times more than regular light bulbs.

The animated light show costs about 40,000 dollars.

It starts at 5 pm and goes until midnight every day.

Nintendo’s video game console Wii was the most searched-for product in November, according to a survey of British online shoppers released yesterday.

With less than three weeks to go before Christmas, online search analyst Hitwise said the Wii was well ahead of rivals such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

The Wii, which features a motion-sensitive controller that players use like a tennis racket, golf club or baseball bat, has enjoyed strong sales since its launch last year.

Nintendo’s handheld games device the DS came second in the top 10 list of searches.

In third place were Ugg boots, the chunky sheepskin boots worn by a host of celebrities, including Kate Moss, Sienna Miller and Kylie Minogue.

The highest traditional Christmas toy was Lego at number four, while Bratz dolls were at five.

Apple’s much-hyped iPhone came in sixth and its iPod ranked seventh.

Another doll, Barbie, was the eighth most searched product, followed by the iPod Nano and the Xbox 360.

‘Let me tell you about the very rich,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. “They are different from you and me.”

“Yes,” Ernest Hemingway is reputed to have responded, “They have more money.”

Fitzgerald’s observation is certainly borne out in survey of what the world’s super rich plan to spend their money on this holiday season. A custom-made, jewel-encrusted saddle for a pony, a $30,000 couture dress for a four-year-old and a $200,000 restored classic Camaro are just some of the items on the shopping lists of those who don’t have to pinch pennies.

According the 2007 holiday spending survey by Elite Traveler (a lifestyle magazine distributed aboard private jets and mega-yachts) and the Prince and Associates market-research group, the super rich, untroubled by the subprime mortgage crisis or pretty much anything else, plan to increase their holiday spending over last year by anywhere from 17 to 67 per cent across a broad range of categories.

But first, let’s be clear on exactly who was being polled. They totalled 843 individuals around the world contacted through lawyers and financial advisers. Of those surveyed, around 270 were the super rich (referred to as the “elite affluent” in the survey) who had a net worth of $10-million or more (and often a great deal more). The remainder were their relatively poor cousins, the “mass affluent,” whose net worth was a paltry $1-million to $9.9-million.

More than 60 per cent of the elite affluent said they will be travelling by private jet during the holiday season – which presumably means their luggage won’t get lost – and 28 per cent will use the jet for private shopping.

More than a third will be giving “jet cards” as gifts to their family and friends (perhaps some of those poor souls scraping by on less than $10-million). The cards start at $40,000 for 10 hours of flight time.

Oh, what the heck, we’ll take two. It’s Christmas, after all.

“Clearly, the super rich are not impacted by the subprime crisis that has other sectors of the economy nervous this holiday season,” Douglas Gollan, president and editor-in-chief of Elite Traveler, said in a statement.

Mr. Gollan noted, “The super rich segment will be the most important source of business for providers of luxury goods and services as the ‘mass affluent’ trade down and con-serve. … The private-jet set is absolutely going about their spending in a business-as-usual way and … as our survey shows, spending considerably more.”

But considerably more on what? Well, on average, the super rich will spend $152,400 a person on jewellery this year (up 67 per cent from 2006) and $39,300 on electronics (up 53 per cent).

Further expenditures will include $487,900 on yacht charters (up 19 per cent), $86,200 on villa rentals (up 23 per cent), and $31,100 on wines and spirits for entertaining (up 39 per cent).

But, it being Christmas, they’ll also be giving $116,300 to charity (up 23 per cent) and spending $10,200 on gifts and services for their pets.

The so-called mass affluent, meanwhile, plan to be far more careful with their cash, spending $995 on their pets, $4,900 on jewellery, $3,300 on electronics and exactly nothing on yacht charters.

Not surprisingly, zero per cent of the super rich said that rising gas prices would affect their holiday travel plans.

Every holiday is a festival of obsessive-compulsive behavior, but none more so than Christmas. In America, single minded repetition is a big part of what makes the yuletide bright. Think of all the things you’ve done over and over and, yes, over again: the tree decorating, houselight stringing, card mailing, gift buying, stupid Santa hat wearing. And of course the ritual family trip to see a holiday show everybody’s seen every year since anybody can remember.

For many, that show is “A Christmas Carol.”

Though it may not be impossible to gauge how many productions of “A Christmas Carol” will be performed around the nation this season, it’s a bigger job than I’d care to undertake.

A quick survey suggests stagings, professional or amateur, blanketing the states like Christmas lights in Sauganash. It will be given lavishly this year at places such as Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and danced by high school students in Leelanau County, Mich. Doolee.com, the theatrical database, lists no fewer than 82 English-language stage adaptations by everyone from the late drag artist Charles Ludlam to Patrick Stewart and Israel Horowitz.

This popularity is nothing new. Charles Dickens’ tale of an embittered moneylender named Ebenezer Scrooge was a hit from the start. Originally a novella—written, illustrated, and rushed into print over the course of a few weeks to satisfy a debt—it famously sold out its first press run of 6,000 copies (at five shillings apiece) in the days between Dec. 17 and 25, 1843.

Dickens himself devised an adaptation for public readings that helped make him, as Dickens scholar Philip Allingham has put it, the Victorian era’s “Ringo Starr and Leonardo DiCaprio and Margaret Atwood all wrapped up in one.”

Scrooge’s spirit-guided rediscovery of his humanity (like the matriarch in George Barker’s classic wartime sonnet, he moves “from mourning into morning”) has been in heavy demand and multiple media ever since. The first film version appeared in 1908; the many televised tellings include “A Flintstone Christmas Carol,” from 1994; and it’s reported that Jim Carrey will voice Ebenezer (along with the spirits of Christmas past, present, and future) in an animated rendition scheduled for 2009.

It’s fitting that “A Christmas Carol” should have become the focus of so much of our holiday OCD, since it’s often cited as one of the major reasons we observe our modern Noels the way we do. The story is widely seen as a watershed in that it took the Bethlehem, if not the Christ, out of Christmas—relocating it to snowy Victorian London; transferring its focus from church ceremony to home celebration, from prayer to good deeds, and from the religious miracle of a divine baby’s birth to the secular one of a self-pitying old man’s rebirth. Naturally we obsess on it every Christmas—for many of us by now, it is Christmas.

You can see it performed this year (and, no doubt, next) in a variety of incarnations, including the spiffed up, the pared down, the jived out,

For one Wichita Falls nonprofit, the best gifts at Christmas come with a “To” but not a “From.”

“We’re blessed with a lot of donations this time of year,” said Becky Browning, marketing director of the Wichita Falls Faith Mission, “but the anonymous ones show the true spirit of what Christ’s love is for all of us.”

Browning found herself Tuesday sorting through a bunch of brand-new toys that had been dropped off at the mission just an hour before – from someone who didn’t leave his name.

“That’s the Christmas spirit, something that came out of the goodness of his heart,” she said. “Not all donations are out of the goodness of someone’s heart. But an anonymous seems to always be.”

The toys came in response to the nonprofit’s plea for Christmas gifts for the younger Faith Mission clients, homeless children who would otherwise not receive a present this year. Several children have been “adopted,” Browning said, but 58 names remained on the list Tuesday.

If those children aren’t adopted, “what we’ll do is do the best that we can.”

She relies not only on the generosity of individuals, but Browning will receive donations from several groups after the adoption period is over, calling to ask if they can be of any help.

“Our phone has been ringing off the hook,” she said.

On the hook, a bunch of new coats someone dropped off earlier in the season, leaving no contact information, no way for Browning to personally thank the donor. That doesn’t lessen her appreciation – quite the opposite.

Such serendipitous donations do a heart good.

“Absolutely,” she said, “especially when you see that their generosity may have come out of some extreme circumstance they’ve experienced and now they want to ‘pay it forward,’ like the movie, give back because someone gave to them.”

The smallest gift can also warm a heart.

While nonprofits survive on collectively large donations, they realize the bulk of the contributions will be hundreds of “little” ones.

“Bigger is not always better,” said Tricia Golding, marketing coordinator for Hospice of Wichita Falls. “Some of the most wonderful things that happen to us here at Hospice are when people give just $10,” the donation price for a “bulb” on the annual Tree of Light.

“There are those individuals who give $10, and you know they’re doing without something else, just to be able to give. Hospice made such a difference in their lives.”

And as the parable teaches us, “That $10 for them might be like someone else giving $10,000,” Golding said. “The blessing is in the giving.”

Sheila Catron, executive director of the Children’s Aid Society, loves to see new items donated to her youth shelter. However, she won’t turn away gently used items.

“We get a bunch of used things this time of year when people clean out their closets,” said Catron, who was sorting through a box of donations Tuesday. “So it’s always a big help to us to get anything.”

But those she serves – homeless, abandoned, abused and/or runaway children between the ages of 18 months and 17 years – are thrilled to get something new.

On Thursday, the children will be treated to a coat party, where each will get a new coat.

“And we want you to keep the tags on them,” she said. “They love to get things with tags, because that shows it’s just for them.”

Often arriving at the shelter with little more than the clothes on their backs, the children are quickly supplied with necessities and a few items to make their lives as “normal” as possible.

For the younger children, that’s called a “lovey,” a teddy bear or blanket to call their own. For the older ones, that may be a radio for their room, some gadget they see the “normal” children have.

“They all go to public school here,” said Catron, who sheltered some 700 children over the past year, nearly 300 new to the system. “It’s not like they live away from everyone else and can’t see what other children have.”

One thing on Catron’s own Christmas wish list is a new van.

“That would be such a blessing,” she said. “We have so many children that we can’t transport them all at the same time. We have to take several trips to get them to one place. A new van would keep the children together, and we wouldn’t always be late for things.”

Nonprofits that center their biggest fundraising campaigns around the holidays capitalize on the spirit of giving, when individuals give out of the goodness of their hearts to those they may never meet.

“Our biggest donation time is Christmas, with the bulk of our contributions during the month of December,” said Catron. “That really does make our year, because we are able to live off those donations long after Christmas.”

Doris Ingram looks forward to it every year.

So do her children.

“It’s a really Merry Christmas tradition for the children,” said the director of the Ben Donnell day-care facility of Child Care Inc.

Twenty of the day-care’s toddler-aged children were visited Tuesday by none other than Santa Claus himself.

But this wasn’t your granddad’s Santa Claus; this was his Dutch representative, Sinterklaas, who came to the day care with members of the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program Dutch detachment.

“This is our way of saying we are part of your community,” said Lt. Col. Willem Van Gaalen, commander of the Dutch detachment at Sheppard Air Force Base.

Gaalen said that in the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas’ Eve is the chief occasion for gift-giving, much like Christmas morning in the United States.

“We call him Sinterklaas, which is really close to Santa Claus,” said Van Gaalen. “The message is the same.”

The Saint Nicholas’ Eve holiday takes place Dec. 5, and usually includes a visit by Sinterklaas who arrives on a white horse with his gold staff in one hand and his big book of names on the other, bringing gifts and holiday cheer to all the children.

Yani Van Santen, a member of the Dutch detachment, said that the age-old tradition behind the visit by Sinterklaas is based on a special birthday celebration.

“The old story is that Santa Claus was bishop and on his birthday he gave presents instead of receiving,” Van Santen said.

And much like the traditional Santa Claus, the children flocked to the white-bearded fellow with the gifts.

“They look forward to this every year,” said Ingram, as a young boy ran up to Sinterklaas to receive his present.

“This present is especially for you,” Sinterklaas said as he shook the boy’s hand.

Ingram pointed out the good relationship that exists between the daycare and the Dutch detachment.

“We give them all the names of the children and they bring the gifts,” she said. “We don’t ask for anything in particular.”

Through the involvement of the Dutch detachment at Sheppard, Sinterklaas has visited the Ben Donnell day care for more than 25 years, bringing gifts and holiday cheer to countless families.

“We have a good relationship with the Ben Donnell day care and its families,” Van Gaalen said. “All the families like it.”

But in the end it is all about the children to Van Gaalen.

“It’s great to see the kid’s faces happy,” he said.

IT’S the season to splurge. Whichever way you look at it, the Christmas shopping season is the retailer’s dream. Australians last year spent a record $23.7 billion in December alone, according to the Cashcard Retail Activity Index, while a Galaxy report earlier this year attributed some $9.8 billion of this directly to Christmas gifts.

Indeed, if Australian shoppers follow the example of last year, some 200 million items will be purchased to be passed on as gifts this Christmas season.

Sure, socks, underwear, sweets and booze will account for a fair whack of this, but electronics goods are also likely to be a popular gift item under Christmas trees this December 25.

Most of these will no doubt be compact, personal gadgets: cameras, phones and music players. Digital cameras, for example, have already enjoyed a sales renaissance in Australia after a slump last year recording a 9 per cent increase in sales this year.

Similarly, sales of portable music players have had a heady few years, and because such players have become cheaper, have stacked in more memory and become more feature-rich, sales are expected to remain strong.

In 2004, market tracker GfK says, the consumer electronics market grew by some $300 million, and in 2005 by a further $400 million. Last year it got close to the $1.6 billion mark in Australia, tracking at close to a 22 per cent increase over Christmas.

All that money wasn’t spent on small personal goods. Plasma and LCD screens, for example, last year started to become a popular luxury Christmas purchase. The trend is expected to continue as such screens get cheaper, along with peripheral equipment such as players, media centre technology and content to go with them.

High-definition players and consoles are now close to the retail sweet spot of $600-$700, putting them within reach of those who want to make the most of their high-definition screens.

This year also marks the first Christmas when all the major games makers will have new-generation equipment.

Nearly all games equipment makers have recently cut the prices of their consoles to make their offerings more affordable.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 console, for example, which also doubles as a standalone Blu-ray player, can be bought for $699. Its initial $999 price tag deterred casual buyers. Microsoft, which estimates that up to 45 per cent of its games business is done over Christmas, has in turn cut the entry price on its Xbox 360 console to $399, putting it on even terms with Nintendo’s Wii console.

Another trend of the past few years is the growth of online shopping. With shopping centres becoming ever more crowded as November gives way to the December crushes, it seems more and more Australians are opting to shop from the comfort of their home offices or work desks.

Internet analyst Hitwise, for example, has already shown growth over the past month in Australian internet traffic using online merchants.

For the week ending November 24, websites in the shopping and classifieds category made up 6.34 per cent of web traffic, slightly more than the 6.17 per cent for the same time last year.

Online auction website eBay Australia dominates the sector, with 28.74 per cent market share, followed by eBay’s US website, Amazon.com, Trading Post Online and Emailcash Australia.

Other websites attracting attention include DealsDirect, oo.com. au and Peters of Kensington.

Hitwise says some of the most popular search terms have been “iPod Touch” and “Halo 3″, indicating where a lot of this year’s gift planning is turning.

The growth in online shopping may be attributed to some people turning away from traditional shopping for gifts.

A recent Galaxy poll commissioned by eBay Australia reveals that 93 per cent of respondents find Christmas shopping stressful.

Reasons for their stress include crowds, long queues, parking hassles and spending too much.

“It’s one of the main reasons why people are shopping online,” eBay Australia spokeswoman Sian Kennedy says. “There’s also the fact that you can go to David Jones and buy what someone else is going to buy – it’s not something unique. The good thing about eBay is that we’ve got lots of interesting things, like collectables, that people really want.”

There has been a big increase in activity, both buying and selling, leading up to Christmas, Kennedy says, and she expects a second wave to begin on Boxing Day.

“We always have hundreds of people logging on to the site trying to sell unwanted gifts that they’re never going to use.”

In biblical Bethlehem, Santa makes his rounds in cool shades.

The dark sunglasses are a Palestinian addition to Santa’s traditional garb of red suit and black boots, meant to ensure that children in the tiny, tight-knit Christian community in Jesus’ traditional birthplace don’t recognize the man bringing them presents.

Each year, volunteer Santas fan out across Bethlehem and the nearby West Bank Christian communities of Beit Jalla and Beit Sahour to deliver presents to the homes of children in the community. And for a change after years of conflict, there is a spirit of optimism, with tourism boosted by Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts.

One of this season’s Santas is Khaled Rishmawi, 21, a Greek Orthodox Christian. He said he volunteered “to give back the joy Santa gave me as a child.”

“Every child must feel the joy of Christmas because they don’t have much joy. Their joy is when Santa Claus brings them a present,” he said.

Rishmawi is delivering about 50 presents purchased at Yasmina’s Gift Shop in Beit Sahour, owned by a distant relative, Hana Rishmawi. Popular items include Lego blocks, remote-controlled cars for boys and dolls for girls.

For the shopowner, these are good times. Tourism was ravaged by seven years of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians. But this year, the number of visitors is up following last week’s pledge to resume of peace talks.

In Rishmawi’s shop, families spend up to $50 (€34) on each gift, even if they have to pay in installments.

He said his business grows a little every year, a small miracle considering that Christians are a diminishing minority — just 2 percent of the West Bank’s 2.4 million residents. Economic hardship — the result of years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and growing Muslim fervor have fueled the Christian exodus.

In October, 40,000 tourists entered Bethlehem, the highest number in years, in buses passing through a checkpoint gate in the separation barrier. Although tourists don’t stay long — an average of two hours — it’s still one of Bethlehem’s better years since the second Palestinian uprising began in 2000.

“If the politics goes to ruin, tourism goes to ruin,” said George Juha, a local restaurant owner.

This year’s mini-boom has given Hana Rishmawi a dose of holiday cheer, but it also has been a source of stress. For the past 20 years, he dispatched about six Santas to deliver presents to more than 100 children. He said the operation has become so complicated that he’s thinking of scaling back.

Rain wets the presents — and it always seems to rain on Christmas, residents say. It also muddies the roads and causes aging cars to get stuck or break down. Once they reach the children’s houses, Santas are often shooed away because “the children are asleep, can you come back later?”

“It’s a headache,” he sighs.

A tired Hana Rishmawi has already told parents that they can choose between a home-delivered present, or his preference: picking up the gift from a hall decked-out with Christmas decorations, where his son will play cheery music, and a Santa will be on hand to take photos with the kids.

While the red-suited Santa is largely a Western custom, it has become one of the most beloved Christian traditions in the West Bank.

Bernard Sabella, a 62-year-old social activist, said when he was a child, he’d wake up to candied nuts, chocolates and balloons on Christmas.

“When we’d ask where the presents came from, our parents said Baba Noel, but we never saw him,” Sabella said, referring to Santa by his Arabic name. Father Marwan Deidis, 33, had a visit from Santa throughout his childhood Christmases.

Most of Rishmawi’s Santas have been young male relatives, though there have been a few women and Muslims in the bunch.

Santas follow strict rules: They’re expected to ring a hand-held bell, call the children’s names, take a photo, and — occasionally — remove the fake beard and dark sunglasses to reassure teary children that there’s nothing to fear.

The government of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad says it will spend $100,000 (€68,000) decorating Bethlehem and nearby villages — double what rival Hamas spent on the town when it was in power last year.

The prime minister also promised a $1,200 (€820) cash bonus to broke shopkeepers to keep their stores open for the next six months, starting with Christmas season. The arrangement will begin in Bethlehem, and spread to other West Bank towns, said Khuloud Deibas, the tourism minister.

The streets have names like Candy Cane Lane, Christmas Boulevard and Mistletoe Drive.

Bigger-than-life statues of Old Saint Nick and red buildings with green roofs are everywhere.

And the Christmas tree in the lobby at Santa’s Lodge hotel is never taken down.

Welcome to Santa Claus, Ind.

There’s the Silent Night Café, Lake Rudolph Campground and RV Resort, Frosty’s Fun Center Miniature Golf and Arcade and Santa’s Medical Center.

And Crystal Buehler, general curator at the Santa Claus Museum, plays Christmas music year-round.

Every day is Christmas Day in this Southern Indiana burg of 2,200 – a number that has more than doubled since 1990.

“The town oozes holiday spirit,” describes Melissa Miller, executive director of the Spencer County Visitors Bureau. “There are no grinches here.”

Especially now, when residents and businesses put on their holiday best. On Saturday and Sunday , the village stages its annual “Christmas in Santa Claus Festival,” highlighted by Santa’s horse-drawn sleigh ride and parade and a free, 15-mile auto tour through the 12 holiday-themed and lighted neighborhoods of Christmas Lake Village, where many of the town’s residents live.

Settled more than 150 years ago by German immigrants the settlement originally was known as Santa Fe (spelled Santa Fee). But when the town of about 50 applied for a post office in 1856, it had to change its name because there already was a Santa Fe, northeast of Kokomo.

Now, just how the townsfolk settled on the name of Santa Claus has been lost to legend. But the tale Buehler prefers to recite is the one about the town meeting to choose a new name on Christmas Eve in a one-room log church. Allegedly, a brisk winter’s wind blew the door open, and the sound of sleigh bells was heard in the distance. An excited little girl shouted, “It’s Santa Claus!”

Santa Claus, Ind.? Has a nice ring, doesn’t it? Summit over.

Now at its fourth location at the north end of the Kringle Place mall, the world’s only post office bearing the name of Santa Claus receives more than a half-million pieces of mail a year – about 10,000 of them from children addressed to Santa and the rest from adults wanting the Santa Claus, Ind., postmark on their Christmas cards. Every year since postmaster general James Martin did it in 1914, volunteers (they call themselves Santa’s elves) have sent hand-written replies from Santa to the children.

According to postmaster Marina Balbach, the post office usually gets about 13,000 pieces a month.”We do more than that each day during the Christmas season,” she said.

The post-office’s claim to fame has not been without controversy. In 1931, U.S. postmaster Walter F. Brown attempted to force the town to give up its name to ease the load of the mail the post office received around Christmas. But with the support of Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley, who sent Brown a four-foot wide postcard carrying the Santa Claus post office cancellation, and the Indianapolis News, which asked its readers to send letters of protest to the paper, Santa Claus was saved.

Newspaper clippings chronicling the controversy, plus photos, memorabilia and letters to Santa dating back to the 1930s, fill the Santa Claus Museum, two doors down from the post office. Exhibits in five rooms detail the history of the town and its post office and the evolution of Santa Claus Land to today’s award-winning Holiday World, which draws a million customers a year. There’s a table for children to use to write their letters to Santa.

Visitors approaching the town from the north (Indiana 162 off I-64) will first notice the massive Holiday World complex and its famous wooden coasters dominating the skyline to the west.

Take a right at the junction of Ind. 162 and 245 to follow Christmas Boulevard into town. Veer slightly to the left on 245 and travel a one-tenth mile to the town’s original 22-foot-high Santa statue, dedicated “to the children of the world” in 1935.

The statue sits on a base in the shape of a star, symbolic of the star of Bethlehem. The 40-ton statue is faded and crumbling. A glossy fiberglass replica stands in front of the new Santa Claus Town Hall.

Continue south on Ind. 245 for about a half mile past the old statue to the site of the original downtown Santa Claus, where Santa’s Candy Castle is located. The original Candy Castle, dedicated on Dec. 22, 1935, was one of several buildings in Santa Claus Town, purported to be the nation’s first theme park. Kevin Klosowski restored and re-opened the candy shop and its museum in 2005. The candy shop claims to have the world’s largest selection of candy canes.

The 35-year-old entrepreneur says he “dropped out of corporate America in Chicago” to rebuild and preserve Santa Claus Town, with plans to recreate the Toy Village and Santa’s Workshop for a “whole new generation.”

“I love it here,” said Klosowski. “It’s quiet. It’s safe. It’s friendly. I have three kids 7, 5 and 2 and I have a choice of two four-star schools they can go to. I love the family values here.”

No grinches either.

It would take the magic of Christmas to stay warm outside in the cold we saw this weekend. Hundreds of people managed to, waiting in line to board a Green Mountain Railroad train that’s been renamed. Conductor Brian McGregor chuckles, “It’s ‘The Polar Express!’”

The Polar Express is a beloved Christmas book for children, and now a movie, too. In the story, a little boy’s love for Christmas is re-kindled.

Now, communities bring the tale to life with celebrations. In Lyndonville, a train was bound for “the North Pole,” just a couple of minutes from the Freighthouse store and restaurant. All it took was a ticket and and some more holiday magic.

The Freighthouse sold 1,200 tickets for this weekend’s Polar Express rides, which included readings of the book, carols, and small presents from Santa and Mrs. Claus. The business will donate the proceeds to community groups.

When asked what he was most looking forward to about his ride on “The Polar Express,” Mason Castle beamed, “Excitement!”

Rylie Nichols was excited to ask Santa for a camouflage bb gun. She promised she was nice this year, and not at all naughty.

“The Polar Express” departs from several communities across our region, including from Burlington December 15th and 16th. That event is a benefit for the Vermont Children’s Trust Foundation.

Kids bring books to that Burlington event, where they’ll benefit the Children’s Trust Foundation’s literacy programs and the group’s abuse prevention efforts.

All is well for Christmas in the new Gilded Age.

“It’s very, very strong in my market,” said Doug Turner, president of Millionaire’s Concierge, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based business that provides fantasy trips, exclusive vacations and five-star gifts for big spenders around the globe.

“My business is doing better than it ever has,” said Mr. Turner, whose business was dubbed by Oprah Winfrey as a personal “yellow pages for the rich and famous.” ” I’m dealing with a sea of money here with plenty of people who have plenty of cash and have nothing to do but spend it.”

This week, Mr. Turner sold a $200,000 fantasy trip for five to the Super Bowl, complete with private jet travel, first-class accommodations and VIP access to the event and its exclusive, celebrity-studded game parties. He also sold tickets for a walk-on role on the popular television show “Desperate Housewives,” as well as a drive in a Formula One race car and several rides in a fighter jet.

“There is no bad economy in my world,” Mr. Turner said, explaining that he is limited only by a client’s imagination and wallet. “It’s a great Christmas. The rich are getting richer and everything is just more, more, more.”

Upscale retailer Neiman Marcus reports similar interest in over-the-top gifts. For the past 81 years, the company has published the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book, a catalog of pricey specialty gifts and experiences to satisfy the most particular of buyers. The company once offered a private concert with Elton John for $1.5 million, which was snapped up by a bride looking for entertainment for her wedding reception.

Already this year, Neiman’s exclusive $110,000 his-and-her’s chocolate portrait — done in Bosco syrup by international artist Vik Muniz — has sold “to a man looking for a unique gift for his mother,” said Ginger Reeder, vice president for corporate communications at the Neiman Marcus Group.

Also sold out, a full month before Christmas, are 50 limited-edition Lexus IS F sedans. At $68,000 each, the gift includes a half-day of driver training at the Skip Barber Racing School.

In the retail trade they call it “Black Saturday”.

It is the first Saturday in December; many consumers have just got their final salary of the year and they quickly realise they’ll have to blow a sizeable chunk on Christmas presents.

And the seasonal stress sets in.

Oxford Street, teeming with shoppers at this time of year, is surely a place to be avoided if you find it all a bit overwhelming?

Everyone else seems to be ambling along while you are on a frenzied mission to get your presents and get home as soon as you can.

But the mood has been lifted here this Saturday by the absence of traffic – meaning those shoppers have more room to continue at their snail’s pace.

Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street are closed to cars and buses for one day only.

At Oxford Circus, quite a few bemused shoppers congregate at the traffic lights, only to realise they don’t have to wait to cross the street.

The tide of shoppers is free-flowing, leaving the pavements a lot less clogged up than usual.

This was a pleasant surprise for Anthony, a British businessman who lives in Iceland.

“I’ve been saying for years they should make this area permanently pedestrianised,” he says. “I usually avoid coming into London at this time of year and do my shopping in the US.”

Street entertainment, free drinks and gifts and plenty of people giving out information do seem to be making for a more civilised shopping trip.

But most people say they were unaware of the pedestrianisation, so they would have come anyway.

Amanda and her mother Trish emerge from a very crowded Top Shop on Oxford Circus laden with bags. Surely they must have got a free gift for their trouble?

“I did get one, though I had to spend over £100 to get it,” says Amanda.

She seems fairly pleased with her freebie – blue woolly mittens – and admits she might be thrifty enough to parcel them up as a Christmas present for somebody.

“But I spent £48 in there and I didn’t get a free gift,” says Trish, “so I’m going to go back in there and slap somebody! No, I’m joking!”

The store’s style adviser manager, Tanya Sharpless, says every customer should get a free gift as staff are handing them out in the queues.

The store does seem well geared up for the volume of people, with no shortage of staff around, and chocolates and water on hand in case they feel dehydrated.

As for trade, Tanya says there has been “a higher footfall in the store today”. More people through the doors, in other words.

“We try to make the experience as nice and as positive for them as possible,” she says.

“It’s good to offer customers one day at this time of year when everything is about them.

“People who come to London know it’s the busiest time of year, but they do seem to be having fun today and making the most of their pay packet.”

Beth Hughes, who is 15 and from Northampton, is grabbing a drink between purchases. She says she is enjoying her first shopping trip to London.

“I thought the crowds would be a lot worse,” she grins. “And I did get a free drink.”

Jace Tyrrell, from the organisers New West End Company, which represents West End retailers, says businesses and consumers seemed to welcome the event. “The idea is to treat people like VIPs – and the crowds are coming in.”

He says they are expecting shoppers to spend over £100m on this day alone.

He countered suggestions that it would cause traffic chaos outside the zone.

“This is the third year we’ve done it, and we work with Transport for London and warn taxi drivers to make sure there are no major transport issues as a result.”

Every year at this time for the past 20 years or so, the Sikeston Public Library staff get into the spirit of the season by offering Fine Free Week.

From now through Dec. 15, for every overdue library item returned in usable condition, patrons can bring in a new toy or nonperishable food item, and the fine will be forgiven.

According to Sue Tangeman, library director, this is a great opportunity for patrons with overdue materials to take advantage of Fine Free Week and help out those less fortunate than themselves at the same time.

“It is a win-win situation for everyone. Some of our regular library users take this opportunity to drop off items to contribute to the community,” Tangeman said.

The amount of donations during Fine Free Week varies from one year to the next, Tangeman said. However, she estimated between 75 an 100 items are collected each year.

A lot of people who respond have something barely overdue and just forgot to bring it back, Tangeman said.

“If you have five things overdue for two years, and you bring in five cans of corn, it puts you in good graces with the library,” Tangemen said.

Fines stop at the item’s cost, which is variable, Tangeman said.

Tangeman said people in the community know to look for the event each year. The library staff also also sends out letters to people who have items overdue, some as long as a year.

“It also seems like once people see the sign (about Fine Free Week), that will call attention to others,” Tangeman said.

The items and overdue materials should be brought into the library so the right patron can be credited, Tangeman said. The toys and food items collected will be used locally.

Even if they don’t have overdue books, some people also use the library as a drop-off point to make donations, Tangeman said.

“It’s a unique way for everyone to benefit,” Tangeman said. “The library gets the items back. The patrons are cleared of their fines, and it helps families in the community.”

It’s a holiday tradition — the annual photo with Santa, a professionally made memento of the season.

In fact, the tradition started in Puget Sound.

It was in 1943 that Art French, a Seattle sports photographer with an office across from the Fredrick and Nelson’s department store, decided it was a good idea to capture the meeting of Santa Claus on film. French’s company, Arthur and Associates, claims to have launched the longest running Christmas tradition in the country.

In 1992, after the closing of Fredrick and Nelson’s, the company began sending out Santas to malls across the Puget Sound region, including the The Commons mall in Federal Way.

Not just anyone can be Santa’s photographic stand-in, though. It takes a special breed and special training.

“We run a Santa University,” said “head elf” Hillard Viydo. “We remind them of the names of the reindeer, to never promise anything but to never say no, and (to have) good listening skills. For the individual who portrays the character, it’s a real passion.”

Many of the Kris Kringle impersonators are retired teachers, like Bill Fischer and Einer Thomsen, or Santa Bill and Santa Einer as they are referred to, respectively.

Santa Bill has been working at The Commons mall for 15 seasons as Santa after a friend at Arthur and Associates referred him.

Over the years, Santa Bill has picked up a few tricks for dealing with those children who are less than enthused about their Santa encounter. A soft voice and eye contact usually works for him.

“I’m a people person, a retired teacher, so I’ve been around kids my whole life,” Santa Bill said. “I like the age group, seeing their eyes light up, watch them think and come up with what’s really important. I really enjoy seeing the happiness of the children and the parents.”

Of course there are those occasional kids who act up and pull Santa’s beard. Santa Bill, like almost all of Arthur and Associates’ Santas, doesn’t use a theatrical beard anymore.

This was not a company-ordered change. During the mid-1990s, the Santas began this change on their own, bypassing the professionally-coiffured yak hair beards that the company offered for their own natural beards.

Santa Bill starts growing his beard out in August to get the full beard by the holiday season.

Santa Einer starts growing his beard just a bit earlier, in July, and has been a Santa for 14 years, starting after his retirement from teaching.

“I’ve learned to use a nice quiet voice for the little ones that don’t want to talk to you,” Santa Einer said. “I’ll lean down and talk to them and in a couple of minutes, I’ve got them in my lap.”

A relative Santa newbie, Oscar Peterson is only in his second year at Arthur and Associates. He has been doing Santa jobs for six or seven years, starting after his wife gave him a Santa Claus suit for his birthday, Dec. 22.

“It’s delightful to talk to the little kids and parents,” Santa Oscar said. “Even some big kids come by, those in their 20s, and that’s kinda neat.”

Santa Oscar admits there are just some kids who aren’t going to like seeing Santa up close and personal.

“There are those that are crying and nothing is going to stop them so sometimes you try bringing them back several times and that usually works,” Santa Oscar said. “Usually there are problems with kids 15 months to 3 years.”

Santa Oscar’s work often follows him home though.

“I have to avoid wearing red during September through November,” Santa Oscar said, who lets his natural inch-long beard start growing out in July. “Once though, I was in a museum in Kentucky and one little kid kept coming over. I didn’t even have a full beard at the time.”

For many families, the Santa photo is a family tradition, one that doesn’t change with the age of the kids. Oftentimes when college kids come home, mom will send them to get their picture taken with Santa, Santa Bill said. Or whole families will often come on Christmas Eve — large families of 15-20 — and get one big photo taken.

And for those kids who cry, these Santas know just the trick.

A British politician is to raise the issue, of what he calls, “rising Christianophobia” in “some” local communities, in a parliamentary debate tomorrow.

Mark Pritchard has secured a 90 minute Westminster Hall debate in which politicians of all parties are expected to debate the issue.

Mr Pritchard said, “The roots of Christianity in Britain go back to the first century. Yet today there appears to be a reluctance by some public bodies and institutions to recognise our nation’s Christian heritage and history.”

He added, ” My debate will seek to encourage greater community cohesion and inter-faith understanding by recognising the many benefits the Christian faith has brought to Britain, benefits to science, the arts, music, architecture, philosophy, and philanthropy, down the centuries. Such benefits are to be celebrated not scorned or ridiculed”.

Mr Pritchard said that he would “seek to slay the fashionable dragon of political correctness” which was “assaulting” the nation’s Christmas traditions.

SEX TOYS top the list as the ultimate red-face Christmas gift, followed by diet pills, self-help books and personal hygiene items like tampons.

Aussies are clueless when it comes to Christmas gift-giving and we are more than happy to re-package dud gifts, a new survey reveals.

A study by online shopping network lastminute.com.au reveals the top 10 weirdest, wacky and downright rude Christmas gifts people have embarrassingly received in front of their families.

Receiving a stripper on Christmas Day comes in at number five of the top 10 most inappropriate gifts, followed by men’s clothing given to a woman, and an unwanted pet.

Marie Cortazzo, who works in an adult department store, said sales did increase over Christmas as couples bought sex toys and adult products for each other.

“They always ask us to gift wrap it discreetly though,” Ms Cortazzo said.

“We have really elderly people come in and buy toys too. We have great fun here over Christmas.”

Ms Cortazzo said it was not uncommon for parents to buy vibrators and stimulators for their sons or daughters for Christmas.

“It’s true, they do. There’s all sorts of families out there,” she said.

And according to Aussie shoppers an acceptable amount to spend on your loved one varies depending on their importance.

People said they would be happy to splash $220 on their husband or wife and $180 on a boyfriend or girlfriend.

We spend $100 on mum or dad and $35 on our best friends and aunty or uncle.

If the budget is lean this Christmas. fear not. Almost 60 per cent of respondents supported the art of re-gifting, and more than half admitted to giving a gift to someone they had already received from another.

And if Christmas sneaks up on you again this year, the best excuse according to the survey as to why you are stooge at Christmas is:

“Your present is extra special and I had to order it – it’ll be on you doorstep any day now”.

Clinical psychologist and sex therapist Dr Anna-Marie Taylor said giving a Christmas gift was a sacred thing and sex-toys and diet pills should not be under the tree.

“If you are giving it under the Christmas tree it is definitely not appropriate. It is bringing something private into the public domain of the family,” Dr Taylor said.

Dr Taylor said giving strange gifts was demeaning to the person receiving them and showed a lack of thought and care for the receiver.

“It brings Christmas down,” she said.

And if you think giving your wife a sex-toy for Christmas will light the fire in the bedroom, according to Dr Taylor you may get a rude shock.

“A sex toy is quick way of pleasing someone, a strange and weird way of pleasing someone. Good sex is all about giving. The good lovers know that good sex is about giving of yourself and getting the other person turned on, therefore a gift that makes someone uncomfortable is for you not for them.”

Forget the North Pole.

Santa Claus and his elves should set up shop in Kyrgyzstan to optimize the delivery of Christmas gifts to 2.5 billion homes worldwide.

That’s according to Swedish engineering consulting firm SWECO, which calculated Santa’s optimal journey based on a range of factors from the Earth’s rotation to which areas of the planet are most densely populated.

The perfect location, SWECO found, is in the mountains of the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, near the border with Kazakhstan.

“By starting his journey there, Santa can achieve the most efficient around-the-world trip to distribute Christmas gifts,” SWECO said Tuesday. “He can eliminate time-consuming detours and avoid subjecting his reindeer to undue strain.”

SWECO said Santa could reach every home on the globe from that location in 48 hours — providing his sleigh can maintain an average speed of about 21 million kph (13 million mph) and that each stop takes no more than 34 microseconds. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

“That is probably why we’re never able to see Santa, because he is just so super fast,” SWECO consultant Johan Larsson said.

NORTH POLE, Alaska – It’s early December here, and Mr. and Mrs. Claus are certainly busy.

For starters, there are all those visitors who have dropped by their spacious white-and-red house to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him exactly what they want for Christmas.

In the back, the elves – including dozens of extra little hands hired for the season – are rushing to get thousands of personalized “Letters from Santa” delivered to the local post office.

Outside in temperatures that have already dipped below zero, four of Santa’s reindeer are taking it all lying down in their pen, seemingly oblivious to the all-night mission they will once again be asked to fly in just a few weeks.

This is not the North Pole, of course, but the interior Alaskan community of the same name, 14 miles south of Fairbanks at 64.5 degrees north latitude – just south of the Arctic Circle. Not surprisingly, holiday banners, candy-cane street signs, and other Christmas-themed decorations remain up throughout the year.

And the star attraction in this low-slung community of about 1,800 is the rambling, 55-year-old emporium at 101 St. Nicholas Drive known far and wide as the Santa Claus House.

Like most of North Pole’s 100,000 annual visitors, my wife and I and our 5-year-old twin daughters came to visit the Clauses during the summer – in our case, over the Labor Day weekend, when more than just a hint of snow already hung in the gray northern sky.

We had no trouble finding it, not with the world’s largest Santa statue (42 feet tall and weighing 900 pounds) standing sentinel outside and an equally supersized two-dimensional image posing next to a 30-foot-tall, red-and-white- striped “north” pole.

Having already stocked up on T-shirts, stuffed animals, and other standard Alaska-themed merchandise at previous stops, we bypassed those items for the much larger Christmas Shoppe in back. Just as the promotional materials promise, it is indeed “Christmas every day.” Carols drifted through the air, while White Christmas, the 1954 Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye movie, plays continuously on an elevated TV monitor.

We had scarcely begun surveying row upon row of holiday merchandise, including some distinctly Alaskan items – Eskimo nativity sets, beaver-pelt pillows, and birch bowls – when the jingle of sleigh bells heralded the return of the jolly old homeowner himself, back from a coffee break. Attired in his traditional white-trimmed plush red suit, he climbed into his equally plush chair, and our girls, suddenly stricken with shyness, were his first photo-op customers ($5 with their camera, free with ours).

They were followed by a German couple in their 60s who could not quite make up their minds how seriously to take this distinctly American encounter, and two thirtysomething newlyweds from California who were a little shy about telling the old married man exactly what they wanted.

Any hopes Santa might have had for an afternoon nap went up the chimney with the arrival of a bus full of post-cruise seniors from Minnesota who had few qualms about either plopping onto his lap (mostly the women) or standing alongside (mostly the men).

While the grandparents dashed off their just-bought postcards so they could be stamped “Santa’s Official Mail” and placed orders for the Santa Claus House’s trademark “Letter from Santa,” we slipped outside to check on Dasher, Blitzen, Comet and Cupid. None of the four domesticated caribou looked the least bit flightworthy, but then they still had four months to get in shape – or so we explained to our daughters.

Placards attached to spruce trees explained the historical origins of such Christmas traditions as the 12 days, the candy cane and the Christmas tree – unexpected notes of serious religion in an otherwise constant chorus of commercialism.

If nothing else, the Santa Claus House comes by its commercialism honestly. Situated along a marshy creek known as Fourteen-Mile Slough, the site was homesteaded in 1944 by Bon Davis, who named the soon-to-be-established whistle-stop on the Alaska Railroad for himself.

The development company that bought out Davis renamed the settlement North Pole, to attract a toy manufacturer that could label its products “Made at the North Pole.” But given North Pole’s high shipping costs and shallow labor pool, no toy manufacturer ever materialized.

But Conrad and Nellie Miller, homesteaders from Washington state who had settled in Fairbanks in 1949 with only $1.40 to their names, did.

Miller, a traveling fur trader who had taken to dressing up as Santa Claus when calling on native villages in the winter, decided that North Pole – sitting between two growing military bases – would be the site of his own permanent trading post.

As the company story goes, Miller was building a wall one day in 1952 when he was recognized by one of the native children he had visited. “Hey, Santa Claus,” the boy called, “are you building a new house?”

It was a marketing match made in frontier Alaska, and Miller promptly ran it up the North Pole. A half-century later, and thanks to quantum leaps in transportation and communication (especially the Internet), plus the 1983 arrival of that fiberglass Santa – who started off life as a prototype for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair – the Santa Claus House is an institution, securely in the hands of the Miller children.

Toting some truly unique early Christmas gifts, we repaired to our rental sleigh and headed back to Fairbanks. As we drove north out of North Pole, I couldn’t help but marvel at the resourcefulness and determination of those territorial pioneers – and ponder the ultimate mystery of the Santa Claus House:

If every day here really is Christmas, when do they hold their “after Christmas” sale?

Grinning widely, Carissa and Trevor Matovina posed for their picture with Santa, then huddled with the “Jolly Old Elf” for some serious Christmas wishes talk while Mrs. Claus listened in.

It was all part of the annual Breakfast with Santa on Saturday, a Lowell-area tradition for about 24 years sponsored by Zeta Chi Chapter of Tri Kappa.

That tradition includes a special Christmas ornament for each child visiting Santa. This year’s ornament was a cleverly decorated dog biscuit.

With their new onaments in hand, Carissa, soon-to-be 8, and Trevor, 6, the children of Brandi and Ron Matovina, of Lowell, headed for the cookie booth where youngsters were already busily decorating with icing and sprinkles.

“The parents like the cookie booth, too,” Sue McQuiston, of Tri-Kappa, said. “They like the children doing it here and not at home.”

Nearby, McKenna Smith, 10, of Hebron, and her friend Sara Whiteley, 10, of Lowell, were putting the finishing touches on Christmas pages they had colored. When asked what she likes best, McKenna said, “I like the coloring. I like the donuts. I like it all.”

Ray and Denise Smith, McKenna’s parents, said they were part of three generations at Saturday’s event. McKenna’s grandmother, Donna Ingram, of Hebron, said she was attending the Breakfast for Santa for what she believes to be her 23rd year.

The morning included breakfast, a visit with Santa, face painting, a bake sale, craft items and vendor booths.

Not a joke: A Hoffman Estates man was actually dragged by a car while defending his Christmas lawn decorations from vandals.

Phillip OBrill proved he really isn’t messing around when it comes to the award-winning holiday lights display on his lawn. He and his wife discovered up to eight diabolical vandals “stomping, ripping and breaking” his holiday decorations to pieces the other night. He stood in front of one of the vehicles as the hoodlums tried flee the scene, thinking that they would stop. The offenders must have been hopped up on PCP or those date-rape toys or something, though, because they ran the homeowner down. He got caught in the windshield wiper and was actually dragged down the street; at one point his foot was even run over.

He ended up spending a little time in the hospital to have his foot mended, but OBrill says there’s nothing the ne’er-do-well imps could have done to dampen his Christmas spirit. He said the cost of the damage was around $1,000, but his friends and neighbors are going to help him restore the lawn to its former glory. While his warm holiday feelings remain as strong as ever, he still said he was surprised by the attack, explaining:

“You always have problems with them putting the animals in compromising positions and stuff like that, but I’ve never had damage like this.”

We are inspired by OBrill’s Christmas spirit, and the Whoville mentality of his neighbors. Hopefully the culprits will think about all the damage they’ve caused and their hearts will grow ten sizes.

What do your kids want for Christmas? Maybe a Nintendo Wii, a flat screen tv, or a Dora the Explorer playset. But have you ever wondered about gifts from long ago? Here’s Tom Gerhardt with more.

North Dakota became a state in 1889, but I’m about to show you a Christmas present from before that time. In this months edition of Inside History, a look back at what past generations of North Dakotan’s woke to find under the tree. This table of toys represents one hundred years of gifts given by North Dakotan’s at Christmas. There are stories behind each one. The Christmas spirit was alive and well in the Burn family of Mott around 1910. A fire destroyed their farm, but not their kindness

But that winter for Christmas the neighbor lady made her a pair of mittens and her folks went to town even though they’d been burned uplost everything and bought her this toy doll house

Tom:”This box of log maybe something you’d find under the tree todaybut have you ever wondered about what would have been under the tree 100 years ago? This bank is the oldest toy dating back to the 1880′s. Gay Gidly’s family lived near Glenburn

Mark:”What it is is a toy mechanical bank. You put your coin in the eagles beak and then as you press down on the snake the eagle moves forward dropping the coin in the nest underneath the little eaglets

And here’s a toy many boys can relate toa Tonka truck donated by the Westbrook family from Lehighnear Dickinson

Obviously, like many of our toys, its been well loved. Its got a little bit of paint blotches, a little bit of rust on the wheels and the cab has sort of come off. You can still go out to the toy stores today and find brands the Tonka brand, classic toy everyone remembers them. And to help kids put together their Christmas wish lists….take a look at this…

You notice their 1895 catalog they have little toy wagons and of course sleighs for kids coasting sleds all the things that were available in 1895 out here in North Dakota. Did you see some of those prices? Times have changedbut the thrill of opening presents has not. Maybe a gift you get this yearwill one day end up on display at the Heritage Center

A few local bikers brought some smiles to children’s faces on Sunday afternoon.

Riders from the Northwest Arkansas chapters of Bikers Against Child Abuse and Arkansas Bikers Aimed Toward Education gathered at the Donald W. Reynolds Boys & Girls Club to hand out toys to some little ones who might not get a Christmas this year.

Daniel Pearson, a spokesman for the local chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse, said each biker brought a toy for a boy and a girl.

“We make sure that the children get them,” he said.

Around 200 children filled the gym at the Boys & Girls Club. There were smiles, laughs, leather jackets and tattoos. Pearson said the children’s happiness made the whole day worth it.

“More than likely these kids won’t get a Christmas at all,” he said. “This is their only chance.”

Children lined up alongside tables of gifts and got a picture with Santa once they had received their presents. Some bikers walked around with bags of stuffed animals handing them out to the ecstatic youngsters.

The event not only gives bikers a chance to give back but also gives them a chance to shake the stereotype of the riders, said “Tiny”Jim Hegna, a spokesman with the local chapter of Arkansas Bikers Aimed Toward Education.

“Everyone’s got that hard image of bikers, and this is something we can do to change that,” he said. “I think we get more out of it than the kids do.”