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Christmas doesn’t have to be the most stressful holiday of the year. You’re totally allowed to take shortcuts, especially if you’re playing host. 1. Decorate upside-down waffle cones to make Christmas tree desserts. 2. Make “Elf Cookies” using Cheerios

I can’t imagine living in Ferguson or any of the other hot spots where the massive protests/riots are going down. Especially, if I had a family. And double especially if I was a single mom with kids. Good grief. I can’t fathom the fears that smack must spawn in the noggin of the concerned parent. Yep, if I dwelt in any one of those locales, with my family, I’d be so on edge regarding the well-being of my brood I’d make Scott Stapp look like a chillaxed Gandhi smoking some strong ganja. Look, wherever one comes down on the Ferguson...

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., Dec. 1, 2014 – The North American Aerospace Defense Command’s NORAD Tracks Santa website, http://www.noradsanta.org/ , launched today featuring a mobile version, a holiday countdown, new games and daily activities and more. The website is available in eight languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese. Official NORAD Tracks Santa apps are also available in the Windows, Apple and Google Play stores, so parents and children can countdown the days until Santa’s launch on their smart phones and tablets. Tracking opportunities are also offered on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+. Santa followers just...

Christmas has been about excess since Jesus was in the manger. So why stop now? The sanctimonious, the puritans of all stripes, and the killjoys in general raise the issue annually. Knock it off. Christmas has been commercialized since year one of the “Current Era.” Blame it on the Three Kings. They started the gift-giving right in the manger. Casper, Melchior, and Balthazar “presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” And that’s the way it’s been ever since. In Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge has been visited by Marley’s ghost and undergoes a magnificent change of heart,...

All is Calm, All is Bright…Really? Maybe This Video Will Help By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe video below was produced by the Archdiocese of Washington for our “Find the Perfect Gift” Christmas outreach. It is an attempt to refocus Catholics and non-Catholics on the truest and most perfect gift of Christmas, Jesus Christ. It also invites each of us to give the perfect gift, the gift of our very self to God and to one another.The video illustrates well a problem that we can all have at Christmas: hectic, hurried lives, made even busier by “holiday” requirements and traditions. These traditions,...

Click Here for video Cats VS Christmas Trees ... the battle continues! Even though I knew we couldn't leave the Christmas tree up this year because it would be dangerous and Marmalade would more than likely eat something he shouldn't… Marmalade is currently going through chemotherapy and fighting cancer so I decided to put it up anyway so he could have some fun! As you can see from the look of joy and mischief on his face it was well worth the effort :)

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Waiting for peace; hoping for joy; anticipating something wonderful. All of creation waits in earnest for the time of salvation. It is this time of year when we think about how the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing since the day a voice shouted in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!” John the Baptist - the prophet who baptized men in rivers - proclaimed that the long-awaited Messiah was coming to baptize them with fire. He was born for advent—born to tell the news: “The morning light from heaven is about...

I hope that you have not forgotten what it was like to be a 10-year-old kid on Christmas morning. Now add to that you are a kid in a hunting and shooting family. You have been wishing, hoping, and praying that you will see that new gun under the tree. Can you remember this? Think of Ralphie in A Christmas Story. A lot of our hunting traditions are going by the wayside; I hope that this one has not. I think it does a kid good to hope for the present he or she desires with all their little...

What do they sing at a snowman's birthday party? Freeze a jolly good fellow Why does Santa have three gardens? So he can 'ho ho ho'! What does Miley Cyrus have at Christmas? Twerky! Knock, knock Who's there? Arthur Arthur who? Arthur any mince pies left?     What do vampires sing on New Year's Eve? Auld Fang Syne Why did Santa's helper see the doctor? Because he had a low "elf" esteem! What happened to the man who stole an Advent Calendar? He got 25 days! What kind of motorbike does Santa ride? A Holly Davidson!   What...

Florida police officers responding an emergency call last Saturday arrived at an apartment to learn the call was placed by a 2-year-old playing with the phone. The officers also discovered a home scarcely furnished and young children without any traces of holiday cheer. “Initially, the girls kind of waved, but it wasn’t the normal reaction we get from kids,” said Boynton Beach Police Officer Terrence Paramore, 27. “They weren’t smiling. It seemed like they weren’t happy at all. They were missing something.” After the officers stepped outside to speak with the children’s mother, they asked about the family's plans for...

The last one is both sad and hilarious a the same time.

The Christian holy day of Christmas, the birthday of Jesus, has taken on worldwide dimensions, celebrated in some fashion by Christian and non-Christian alike I receive Free Inquiry magazine monthly even though I never subscribed to it. The magazine is read by atheists who prefer to be called “humanists.” The Council for Secular Humanism that publishes the magazine has “Affirmations of Humanism” that begin with the assertion that they are “committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.” I try to apply reason to everything I write...

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) — Florida’s Capitol will have a new holiday decoration this year. The Satanic Temple will be among its nativity scenes and secular presentations. It’s for Festivus, a non-commercial festival “for the rest of us,” is close to coming back as a 6-foot stack of empty beer cans. The Florida Department of Management Services this week approved the proposed holiday display from the Satanic Temple, which a year ago was rejected because the agency said its proposal was “grossly offensive.” The temple’s entry was one of five displays that got approval to be put up in the first-floor rotunda...

The worst Christmas song ever isn’t actually a Christmas song. It’s just a song that uses Christmas in the hook and was popular when it was released. So Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas” gets played every year starting at the end of November. Every year, I think that the awfulness comes in part from the refreshed shock of dreadful lyrics I’ve not heard in 11 months. Instead, my loathing of the song grows through the season and year by year. So as it starts playing on repeat—and the 30th anniversary edition regales us with two versions this season—a...

December, a time for choral concerts, band performances, orchestra recitals, cocktail parties, holiday markets, family gatherings and final exams. Almost everyone is overbooked and overworked, exhausted and running on empty. Busy schedules lead to being away from home one night after the other, to the detriment of family dinners, early bedtimes and balanced meals. The temptations of food and drink are too enticing to ignore. Rich food, sweet succulent desserts and holiday cocktails tantalize our taste buds and lead us into temptation and indulgence -- and then to nights of unsound sleep. In my case, I often awaken the next...

Rev. Franklin Graham, son of world renowned evangelist Billy Graham, said the last few decades in America have witnessed an increased hostility towards “the sacred nature of Christmas,” a stripping away of religious references in the public square that is “at its root and core” a “war on Christ and His Followers.”“The war on Christmas is a war on Christ,” said Rev. Graham, a “hatred” against a culture that celebrates the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh as a baby 2,000 years ago, and anticipates his second coming when, as a “conquering King,” He will “cast Satan and unbelievers...

Police summoned to Wisconsin home where youngsters called 911 for Santa.MAYVILLE, Wis. (AP) — Two young brothers from southeastern Wisconsin are likely hoping they haven't landed on Santa's naughty list after police showed up at their doorstep. The boys, ages 3 and 6, thought the best way to get in touch with the North Pole was by phone. And for youngsters of that age, their Christmas lists could be considered an emergency.

This year we’re bringing a snowy Canadian Christmas to a community in the Dominican Republic. It’s a holiday miracle! Heartwarming Christmas advert sees airline deliver dream presents to town in the Dominican Republic Airline debuts ‘Spirit of Giving’ advert, bringing gifts to the Caribbean WestJet employees tricked residents into sharing their holiday gift lists Volunteers then threw a community party, bringing presents and snow