Free Republic

Brazilian tour guide Marcos Renan Fagundes de Macedo dresses up as Santa Claus every year to deliver toys to underprivileged children in São Paulo •The 32-year-old was on his way to deliver gifts on Sunday when his 1969 Volkswagen Beetle broke down •The married father-of-two had forgotten to turn off the headlights while he was handing out gifts in the Bertioga neighborhood of Vicente de Carvalho II •The car broke down in the middle of a highway and they were able to refuel it but then noticed that the battery had been drained by the lights •Despite being able to...

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly love, generosity and devotion exist and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy...

Dressed in a red Santa suit, white beard and rimless glasses balanced on his nose, Langston Patterson sits on a velvet couch and waits for his adoring fans. Some call first to make sure he will be there. They come from Palmdale, Thousand Oaks and San Bernardino, driving past many shopping malls with Santas, but none that look like him.

A Christmas celebration - Obama style...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I just read another op-ed ripping Romney to shreds. You know, Romney's out there saying that Obama really had a great bribery operation going. And Bobby Jindal just went nuts when Romney said that. In fact, here let me grab this. Let me find them. This is Romney on Wednesday, conference call, campaign donors. ROMNEY: It's a proven political strategy, which is give a bunch of money from the government to a group, and guess what, they'll vote for you. Let me tell you what I would do if I were a Democrat running four years from...

NEW YORK—Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, the heiress who spent the last 28 years of her life in oblivion after what prosecutors alleged in a pair of sensational trials were two murder attempts by her husband, died Saturday at age 76. She died at a nursing home in New York, her children said in a statement issued by family spokeswoman Maureen Connelly.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2007 – The Alaska National Guard is bringing Christmas a month early to children in remote Alaskan villages, some whom might otherwise not get to see a Santa Claus or receive a holiday gift. Santa and Mrs. Claus disembark from an Air National Guard C-130 Hercules aircraft that brought them to Togiak, Alaska, Nov. 13, 2007, for Operation Santa Claus. Photo by Sgt. Karima Turner, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Guardsmen from the 144th Airlift Squadron are slated to fly a C-130 Hercules aircraft from Kulis Air National Guard Base to Kotlik, Alaska,...

Feliz Navidad in Houston — Carlos Segura, 13, greets Pancho Claus (Richard Reyes), passing out toys today in east Houston with the Latin Fantasy Car Club.

A suburban mall suspended all visits with its Santa Claus Tuesday after learning a photographer taking pictures of children on St. Nick's lap was a registered sex offender, police said. "Knowing that a registered sex offender was potentially working with children at the Santa Claus display we quickly wanted to check into it," ... Yeoman was listed as a "lifetime notification" offender on the Indiana Sheriffs' Sex Offender Registry for a 1992 conviction of child molestation. He served six years of his 10 year sentence...

A 12-year-old New Hampshire boy who wanted to jolly up his junior high dance by dressing in a Santa suit instead got a lesson in political correctness when his Scroogelike principal turned the student away, fearing he might offend his classmates.

[What] prompted Fidel Castro to order the Christmas decorations dismantled... was the light display forming the number 75. That's how many political dissidents Castro rounded up in March 2003 and threw into Cuban jails. At their trials, these librarians, journalists and peaceful political activists received sentences of up to 28 years. Now a loosely connected international movement of librarians is refusing to forget their Cuban colleagues. One inspiring example comes from the town of Vermillion, South Dakota, whose public library is sponsoring the independent -- that is, not government-run -- Dulce Maria Loynaz Library in Havana. The Loynaz Library was...

Some people no doubt raise an eyebrow that North American Air Defense Command, or NORAD, for the 49th consecutive year is undertaking the annual task of tracking the global progress of Santa Claus starting Dec. 24 and continuing through the early hours of Christmas Day. Rest assured that Santa certainly knows who you are and has duly placed you upon the infamous "naughty" list. And so close to his yearly visit. Tsk. Tsk. "Our tax dollars at work," various of you have been heard to comment. "Shouldn't they be keeping an eye on North Korea?" others have asked with dripping...