The live broadcast of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is available on the web site at 9AM CST in the morning.

The British have some wonderful Christmas customs that have survived the incursion of Christianity, especially the Puritan party poopers. Stealing customs from the Celts, Germans, and Scandinavians, they have created a wonderful holiday that I fondly remember from time spent there.

The bird is a European robin that is featured on British Christmas cards, as it is a Winter bird in England, unlike the fair-weather laggard of the same name in America. It is bracketed by holly and mistletoe. All go back to the druids and solstice celebrations.

If you read the Harry Potter books you will get a taste, but not the full effect of a British Christmas. A full-on Christmas dinner is wretched excess to the n^th degree – Thanksgiving on steroids.

The BBC has the background on Father Christmas.

To put the Florida Panhandle in the ‘spirit’ the weather has provided us with: Tornado Watch, Flood Warning, High Surf Advisory, Coastal Hazard Statement [Rip Tides], Flash Flood Watch. You can’t have Christmas without Donner and Blitzen 😉

[For non-German speakers: Donner and Blitzen are thunder and lightning in German.]

Despite three attempts on its existence the Gävlebocken is still standing. There must be a lot of angst in Sweden for three different groups to attack a Christmas decoration. If they put their names up on the ‘Net I could tell them about some really offensive decorations that deserve to be eliminated, along with the factory that makes the plastic atrocities on display. If you think I’m being harsh, you haven’t lived next door to someone who has one of those inflatables with a pump that drones 24/7 from Halloween to the Super Bowl [the official end of the holidays for some people.] 😈

Yes, today is the celebration of the very untraditional Festivus.

If you celebrate I hope all of your grievances were aired and the airing did not involve the Festivus pole being used in an inappropriate fashion.