The media's annual Christmas tradition

Michael Gove:

Eggnog lattes on sale at Starbucks? Feature-length M&S commercials? There’s one invariable sign that Christmas is almost upon us – a story about how Bethlehem is suffering at the hands of wicked Israel.

It has become almost as much a feature of seasonal journalism as stories about how Nativity plays are being subverted and commentaries on how commercialism is snuffing out the true meaning of the festival.

This year we’ve already had our first exercise in demonising Israel for its treatment of Bethlehem with the graffiti artist Banksy enjoying extensive coverage for his trip to decorate the security barrier near the town with his work. The message of Banksy’s work and the coverage it has generated is the same: oppressive Israel has snuffed the life out of the town where the Prince of Peace was born. Herod’s spirit lives on, even as the spirit of Christmas is struggling to survive.

Via HonestReporting.

Happy, yet sad

The story of "Merry Little Christmas," which started out being "hysterically lugubrious," but has lightened up over the years.

Judy Garland's version


Frank Sinatra's version

Everything old is new again

The first Christmas trees were artificial.

Most early artificial trees used feathers. The 1913 Sears, Roebuck catalogue offered feather trees ranging in size from 17 to 55 inches. Stores also sold trees with needles made of raffia, a fiber derived from the leaves of a tropical palm. According to The Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest artificial Christmas tree still on active duty is a small raffia tree from the 1830s owned by a family in Wiltshire, England.
Small, conical “bottle brush” trees used materials such as boar bristles or horsehair and typically came with built-in ornaments and a factory-applied coat of simulated snow. In the 1930s manufacturers of Christmastree lights (themselves an artificial substitute for the traditional candles) sold pre-lit tabletop trees made with cellophane and, later, Visca, a type of rayon fiber. Around the same time, the Addis Brush Company, which manufactured toilet brushes (and is still in the brush business), began making large artificial trees using its toilet-brush equipment.

The weakest link

Frosty the snowman.

Frosty the Snowman was always the weak link in the children's Santa-Rudolph-Frosty fantasy. Santa-- well, you bought into him without question. Flying reindeer were harder to believe, but if Santa was to make all those deliveries in one long night, he'd need a magical transport, right?

But Frosty? A talking frigging snowman animated by a stage magician's hat? That one even stupid kids gagged on. And it made them question Santa.

I know I personally found out Santa wasn't real when I questioned the Frosty the Snowman bullshit. I just wanted my Mom to confirm this idiotic snow-golem was fake, but she took the opportunity to also tell me Santa wasn't real either.

Santa? Santa? Santa's not real?!?

I underwent this trauma all because of my strong doubts about Frosty the Abominable Snowjob. Slightly less plausible than even the Tooth Fairy. (And no one cared if the Tooth Fairy was real or not anyway.)