If you are looking to celebrate the solstice or yuletide and don’t want to get involved with the Christian holiday here are a few things you can use: a Yule log, The Tannenbaum or Fir Tree, Mistletoe, Holly, Ham, and Wreathes. There is no need to get into what happens to wrens, or the role of the European robin. Also, the local authorities would probably get upset if you tried to have a bonfire.

These are all part of the Nordic/Teutonic solstice celebration long before the missionaries arrived with Christianity.

The only real Christian symbol is the Crèche, so if you don’t put up that scene and you avoid stars and angels in the tree, you are celebrating an ancient northern European winter festival.

This is why the Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas: they could smell a dodge to justify enjoying yourself.

As for the chubby elf in red – pure commercial propaganda. Come on, the standard outfit is based on Coca-Cola ads, which is why it is red and white.

Do not adjust your blog, HaloScan does not want to play tonight.

Normally this happens at around midnight [EST], but it is occurring at the moment. They must be upgrading again.

Success is also affecting Gravatar. They are upgrading and you can’t add or alter anything at the moment. You may have noticed the “lazy G” for people who don’t have a registered gravatar. That’s part of the V2.0 upgrade coming “real soon now.”

I keep hearing people like John McCain, who are supposed to be informed about the armed services of the US, talking about sending more troops to Iraq. It is really annoying for a very simple reason: THERE ARE NO MORE TROOPS!

If you go to the cupboard, it is not only bare, it is gone, as it the pantry it was in – zero, nada, nil, zilch, nothing.

To maintain, not increase but maintain, the current level of troops they have had to extend deployments, violate the rules on time between deployments, “borrow” people from other missions, violate the rules for the Reserve and National Guard.

Drop by your local military base and you will see civilian security people on the gate because the military doesn’t have the military policemen left to staff their own gates. Civilians are guarding convoys, because there are no military personnel available.

You should have demanded an increase in the military after 9-11, John, but you didn’t. The military is stretched to the limit because a bunch of idiots decided to test their “theories” during two wars, and unless something changes we could lose Afghanistan. We have lost Iraq, but there is a chance that Afghanistan might be saved if we concentrate the necessary resources there.

CNN has the Associated Press story: Seattle airport removes Christmas trees to avoid lawsuit

After consulting with lawyers, port staff believed that adding the menorah would have required adding symbols for other religions and cultures in the Northwest. The holidays are the busiest season at the airport, Betancourt said, and staff didn’t have time to play cultural anthropologists.

Hanukkah begins this Friday at sundown.

“They’ve darkened the hall instead of turning the lights up,” said Bogomilsky’s lawyer, Harvey Grad. “There is a concern here that the Jewish community will be portrayed as the Grinch.”

Rabbi Bogomilsky wanted a menorah added among the Teutonic solstice symbols, and yes, Mr. Grad, Rush and O’Reilly will be “thundering” about this attack on symbols sacred only to followers of the ancient Teutonic gods that were introduced to the English speaking world by the German consort of a British queen in the 19^th century and copied by American magazines.

While the “thundering” of the media voices will not be the same as the thundering of the hooves of Cossack horses that gave rise to the term “pogrom”, it will be bad enough in its own way.

I might add that threatening lawsuits is not exactly friendly, nor is it indicative of a “real holiday spirit.”