Free Republic

While it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, several Hollywood celebrities have revealed in the past how much they hate the holiday season. Some are tired of the many traditions. For Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus, however, it’s the fact that being single can put a damper on what would otherwise be a jolly celebration. In fact, Cyrus, 31, wrote the 2019 track “My Sad Christmas Song” to get her point across. Other stars simply would rather be thankful for what they already have instead of promoting consumerism

A Philadelphia suburb school district issued a memo instructing employees to remove Christmas-themed decorations and attire, following complaints from parents. The district later clarified that holiday displays are not banned, but employees should aim to create an inclusive environment. “As per Dr. Marseille” — Wagner Marseille, the superintendent of the Wallingford-Swathmore School District — “he has been receiving complaints from parents concerning District employees displaying ‘Christmas’ themed decorations and/or wearing clothing of the same nature,” the memo read. “If you have decorated your bus with anything specific to the Christmas Holiday or any other decorations relating to a specific religion,...

Conservative and political commentator Glenn Beck recently revealed to Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the Covid-19 vaccine was already in development since December 2019, months before the United States felt the full effects of the pandemic and at least two weeks before China confirmed its first official outbreak of coronavirus.Beck drew attention to the fact that gain-of-function research involving bat coronavirus samples began in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as early as 2015. It is a known fact that these experiments were being partly funded by White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr Anthony Fauci and other organisations...

Dr Michael Yeadon on Vaccine passports and top-up (booster) vaccines: [45:00 - 46:30] "Simply THINK. This system is being put in place using lies and it’s being put in place using lies for for some purpose and I believe that purpose is complete totalitarian control and I think the purpose of that is going to be mass depopulation. I cannot think of a single benign interpretation for the simple creation of these top-up vaccines let alone the lies that surround them and I’m absolutely terrified that the combination of vaccine passports and top-up vaccines is going to lead to mass...

A new independent study using analysis of excess deaths showed that our estimate of the number of excess deaths was consistent with what they found. Here are some quotes from the paper: Results from fitted regression slopes (p<0.05 FDR corrected) suggest a US national average VFR of 0.04% and higher VFR with age (VFR=0.004% in ages 0-17 increasing to 0.06% in ages >75 years), and 146K to 187K vaccine-associated US deaths between February and August, 2021. Comparing our estimate with the CDC-reported VFR (0.002%) suggests VAERS deaths are underreported by a factor of 20, consistent with known VAERS under-ascertainment bias...

Long lines everywhere, too much on the to-do list, the obligatory Christmas dinner with relatives who get on your nerves, and another Advent come and gone that you never quite got around to observing the way you hoped. It’s enough to trigger grumpiness and zap anyone’s Christmas spirit. But there’s a deeper reason why many of us don’t experience the Christmas cheer we long for and it’s this: our focus isn’t on the manger. In all the busyness and preparations, we forget what the feast of Christmas is really about and about how to tap into the joy and peace...

In October, Jeffrey Tayler wrote in Salon that the Qur’an “backs up jihad, suicide attacks (“martyrdom”), beheadings, even taking captive women as sex slaves.” This was singular for Salon, which usually whitewashes the truth about Islam and jihad and excoriates those who expose it as “racists” and “bigots,” but now it is clear why Tayler was able to get away with it: he is supremely hostile to Christianity. Here, he gives a characteristic Salon Christmas greeting: Jesus likely never existed, but Muhammad’s existence is well established. “Let’s make Bill O’Reilly’s head explode: We desperately need a war on Christmas lies,”...

Bah, humbug! A passenger was tossed off a plane at La Guardia Airport on Tuesday after flipping out — because airline workers wished him a merry Christmas. The man was waiting to board American Airlines Flight 1140 to Dallas when a cheerful gate agent began welcoming everyone with the Yuletide greeting while checking boarding passes. The grumpy passenger, who appeared to be traveling alone, barked at the woman, “You shouldn’t say that because not everyone celebrates Christmas.” ...

These historical humbugs rival Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch in their lack of Christmas spirit...

NORTH ANDOVER — First it was the menorah on the town common. Now it's the Merry Christmas sign on the fire station. The town has put an end to a longtime holiday tradition ordering firefighters to take down their homemade Merry Christmas sign from outside the fire station after people complained. The sign had been up for a week before it was taken down Friday. Fire Chief William Martineau said the sign was made by firefighters some 50 years ago and was never an issue before. "I think Christmas is officially a religious holiday. But to all of us, it...

Starry eyed children around the world are writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole, but this holiday season they'll not likely to get a response from Santa or his helpers. The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular effort begun in 1954 in the small town of North Pole, in Alaska's interior, where volunteers tackle up to 150,000 letters addressed to Santa. Postal Service officials cite privacy concerns loomed last winter when a postal worker in Maryland recognized a volunteer in the agency's Operation Santa program as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the...

The Episcopal Church is joining the Interfaith Immigration Coalition postcard campaign, aimed at sending a holiday message to members of the U.S. Congress. The message: "Help keep immigrant families together by supporting comprehensive immigration reform now." An action alert from the Episcopal Public Policy Network (EPPN) said its goal is to collect 10,000 signed postcards "and send a strong message to Congress that people of faith want to see action on comprehensive immigration reform." "Your participation in the Holiday Postcard campaign will help us remind Members of Congress that our broken immigration system is hurting immigrant families, and needs to...

Christmas is really a pagan holiday to celebrate the winter solstice and the end of the harvast. Jesus was probably born in late September. Even if Jesus was born on December 25th, an orgy of materialism showing friends and family how much you love them is not an appropriate way to celebrate his birth. Many Christians recognize this paradox, hence the emphasis to "put Christ in Christmas." This means evening devotionals about the birth of Christ, special candles, and other rituals. Yet this has the effect of elevating Jesus' birth above his death and resurrection. Most Christians do not...

A primary school teacher who left a class of 25 pupils in tears after she told told them Santa Claus did not exist has been fired.. When excited youngsters became rowdy as they talked about Santa, the supply teacher blurted out: 'It's your parents who leave out presents on Christmas Day.' The class of seven-year-olds at Blackshaw Lane Primary School, Royton, near Oldham, Greater Manchester burst into tears and told their parents when they arrived home. Mothers and fathers then complained about the incident and were sent a letter by the school saying the substitute teacher, who only worked at...

Astronomers have calculated that Christmas should be in June, by charting the appearance of the 'Christmas star' which the Bible says led the three Wise Men to Jesus. They found that a bright star which appeared over Bethlehem 2,000 years ago pinpointed the date of Christ's birth as June 17 rather than December 25. The researchers claim the 'Christmas star' was most likely a magnificent conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter, which were so close together they would have shone unusually brightly as a single "beacon of light" which appeared suddenly. If the team is correct, it would mean...

Merchants long have tried to lure shoppers into rising at ungodly hours to snare blockbuster bargains on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. But are the deals actually better? Turns out that often they are not.

An e-mail fracas at North Seattle Community College hits on why "the most wonderful season of all" causes us so much angst. Here in Seattle, the phrase "Merry Christmas" has been largely expunged from public discourse. Haltingly and awkwardly, we wish each other happy holiday; we talk vaguely about a holiday season; we plan parties that by all appearances look like Christmas parties, but we never call them such. This despite every indication that Christmas, at least the consumerist trappings of it, is alive and well. Every Starbucks sign hawks a peppermint latte; the sound of Barbra Streisand belting out...

Los Angelenos are the most generous people in California when it comes to giving to charities. Affluent people in the Southern California metropolis gave almost twice as much as their counterparts in the Bay Area and other parts of the state in 2004, according to a new report. The study was conducted by the San Francisco philanthropic research organization NewTithing Group, based on 2004 tax data, the most recent available. It found that of Californians earning $200,000 or more, the median income tax filer in Los Angeles County gave most generously, donating nearly $5,000. That was roughly 1 percent of...

Sodpoodle found to have falsified Ping List credentials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Almost a third of Americans plan to spend less on the holidays this year, mainly because they need to use their money for daily expenses, according to a survey released Tuesday. The Consumer Federation of America and the Credit Union National Association found 32 percent of shoppers want to spend less than they did during the 2005 holidays. About half of the survey's roughly 1,000 respondents said they would like to spend about the same. Only 15 percent intended to spend more. Video More video CNNMoney.com shows you how to properly tip for the holidays. Play video...