Girl gets anti-capitalist note instead of iPod for Christmas

Her father got the iPod from Wal-Mart and it wasn't the only iPod that was replaced with a note:

A little girl thought she was getting an iPod for Christmas but ended up getting a rude surprise. She got the box but when she opened it up, she found a surprising switch: the iPod had been replaced with a bizarre note.

The note reads in part "Reclaim your mind from the media shackles."

The whole note:

Reclaim your mind from the media shackles. Read a book and resurrect yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage go to your nearest Apple Store.

How arrogant of this person to think that their note would have any impact at all. Why does he/she think that their own mind is free? Isn't she/he imprisoned by their own hatred of capitalism or consumerism that they would steal an iPod to make a point? That they would steal the joy away from a child's Christmas morning. How sick is that?

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Teenager arrested for stealing Jesus outfitted with a GPS

Maybe this will put a stop to this annoying Christmas tradition.

At 6:45 a.m. Thursday, a village employee noticed that the statue was missing. Building maintenance supervisor Gus Arnold logged on to the monitoring system and saw that it was taken from the manger at 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Arnold homed in on Jesus' location and called the sheriff's office to get it back.

Jesus was in a home on Suellen Circle, in a neighborhood across the street from the Nativity scene.

Deputies knocked on the door Thursday morning. When a woman answered, they saw the statue face-down on the living room floor.

The woman's son directed the deputies to the alleged culprit.

The simple spur-of-the-moment prank landed an 18-year-old suburban Lake Worth woman in jail, charged with a felony. Danielle Santino told deputies she took the statue and dropped it at a friend's house, then left.

[...]

Santino's friend, 18-year-old Fernando Silva, was initially arrested but cooperated with deputies and was released. Santino turned herself in and was booked into Palm Beach County Jail with bail set at $3,500. She is charged with a felony for taking an item valued at $800, plus $400 for the GPS system.

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Mary is changed to Lucy in order not to offend non-Christians

This is in Britain where the Queen is the head of the church:

For decades, children have enjoyed singing about the little donkey which is said to have carried the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem.

But one group of young singers was ordered to change the traditional lyrics of the Christmas song - because they were said to be "too religious".

Instead of "Little donkey, carry Mary safely on her way", the youngsters were told to sing "carry Lucy" for fear of offending non-Christians. The incident, at the school's Christmas concert, appears on a new calendar alongside 11 other examples of extreme political correctness from around Britain.

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OK, so let me get this straight, they don't want to offend non-Christians who are attending a Christmas concert? These people appear to be too dumb to be involved in educating children.

It brings a tear to the eye when you see...

A wish fulfilled at Christmas :-)

Christmas in Iraq

Let's pray that this continues:

Thousands of Iraqi Christians made their way to church through checkpoints and streets lined with blast walls, many drawing hope from a lull in violence to celebrate Christmas Mass in numbers unthinkable a year ago.

Death is never far in Iraq—two separate suicide bombings north of Baghdad killed at least 35 people and wounded scores more. But the number of attacks has fallen dramatically in the past few months—the U.S. military says by 60 percent since June.

"We did not celebrate last year, but this year we have security and we feel better," said Rasha Ghaban, one of many women at the small Church of the Holy Family in Karradah, a mainly Shiite district in downtown Baghdad where many Christians live. "We hope our future will be better, God willing."

[...]

Muslim clerics—both Sunni and Shiite—also attended the service in a sign of unity.

"May Iraq be safe every year, and may our Christian brothers be safe every year," Shiite cleric Hadi al-Jazail told AP Television News outside the church. "We came to celebrate with them and to reassure them."

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Stolen Baby Jesus Returned

Remorseful?

It may not qualify as a Christmas miracle, but residents are grateful that a baby Jesus figure stolen from the town's nativity scene a year ago has been returned.

The miniature figure and the manger that held him were stolen last December from the nativity scene off Highway 36 in Brazoria, about 55 miles south of Houston. They were mysteriously returned sometime last week.

Merry Christmas to our troops!

Thank you for your sacrifice and your desire to service and protect this country.

Carol of the Bells

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of our readers and those just passing through. I hope you have a very nice day spending time with your family and friends and that you don't overindulge :-)

I'm waiting for my husband and teenage daughter to get up so we can open presents. I already opened mine weeks ago (my very wonderful Vaio) so I have no surprises under the tree :-) My joy will be in watching the faces of my daughters reacting to the surprises I have for them.

I also have to wait for breakfast since it's a family tradition to have french toast and bacon Christmas morning. I can't tell you what I'm having for dinner because my dad reads the blog occasionally and I don't want to spoil the surprise but I can tell you that I'll be making cheese fondue. We only have it once a year and it's soooo yummy. It's what I look forward to each year. The last couple years I've forgotten an ingredient. Last year it was the worcestershire sauce, one year it was bread. My poor husband had to go out for all hours looking for an open store to get it which is not easy since everything is closed Christmas. He found the bread at an Italian restaurant and the worcestershire sauce in an Asian market. This year I checked the list of ingredients to make sure I have them all.

I was going to give you the recipe but my husband just got up and we got my teenager up so we're off to open presents. I'll try to put it up later. I'll leave you with my favorite Christmas video clip:

Woman stabbed husband over Christmas present

Some people can't handle the stress of Christmas:

A woman stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife following an argument that began when she accused him of opening a Christmas present early, authorities said Friday.

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Baby Jesus to get a GPS

They should sell those baby Jesus figures with a GPS already installed since so many of them get stolen. Another solution is to buy the inflatable Nativity scene. There's no way to get the baby Jesus without stealing the whole thing.

A statue of the infant Jesus on display near Miami in Florida is being fitted with a Global Positioning System device after the original figurine was stolen.

[...]

The original vanished three weeks ago, despite being bolted to the ground.

[...]

A Jewish lawyer, Jeffrey Harris, from Cincinnati, who read about the theft on the internet, has donated the new Jesus figurine in the Founders Circle area of the city.

That was nice! He did it because he liked the Christmas spirit.

Severed pigs heads placed in Jesus's cradle

Sick, very sick:

Two front yard Nativity Scenes had baby Jesus replaced with severed pigs heads. It sounds like something out of a horror movie but it happened at two homes in Northwest Eugene.

"It was disgusting," says resident Shannon Cooper. "We can't even understand where a person would come up with an idea like that." Shannon and her husband Ron are reacting to a severed pigs head. It was an unexpected and unwanted addition to their front yard nativity scene placed in the cradle where a missing baby Jesus was supposed to lay.

Just down the street, David Stahl's family discovered the same thing. "It just makes you sick. it's beyond disgusting," says Stahl.

Police are investigating these as "biased crimes" which are essentially the same as a hate crime because they are targeted at a specific relgion, gender, or race. Lieutenant Scott Fellman of the Eugene Police Department says, "This is a religious display and it's entirely possibly this happened because of that."

The Stahl's put away their creche and the Coopers bought a new Jesus. The vandals have one.

Hand Bell Hero

Try it out. The bell ringers didn't like me too much.

(via the king of the timewasters)

The Breakdancing Jesus

Um...well...um...I can't quite get what is the point of the video. Is it implying that Mary didn't give birth to Jesus but was a fully grown man who came to earth from heaven?

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McCain's Christmas ad

As long time readers (I know that we have a couple) know, I'm not a McCain supporter at all but I thought his Christmas ad was quite moving and it made me tear up. Allahpundit thinks he might have been pandering to Christians, reminding us that he was one of us but I don't care if he was, I thought it was moving and was a wonderful story to share this time of year.

Scott Ott singing Christmas carols

It's kind of annoying that someone can be so brilliantly funny and have a really good singing voice to boot. Go sing along with Scott Ott (if you can remember the words :-)

Obama's Christmas ad

Ahhhh! It's so cute! Obama's family is lovely. I think he wins the Christmas ad contest for the cuteness of his daughters. And he brilliantly covered everyone by having his daughters say, "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays." (I'm just going to ignore the whole "stake in each other" bit.)

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John Edward's "Christmas" ad

Um...he says "this is the season" and there's a Christmas tree so I'm assuming this is his Christmas ad but he's talking about veterans and no seasons greetings or anything else. It was blah.

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Hillary's "Christmas" ad

Well, even though it doesn't mention Christmas, I'm assuming it's a Christmas ad:

Isn't Hillary a thoughtful gift giver? Giving us so much with our own tax money.

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Nativity scene used in electronics ad

It's ticked off some Christians. So, what do you think?