Christmas

Don’t you just love all those classic holidat TV specials? This is the Rankin-Bass version of “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

Pope Benedict XVI delivered his traditional Christmas Day blessing Friday, looking tired and unsteady but otherwise fine hours after being knocked down by a woman who jumped the barrier at the start of Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

For the first time in the Vatican’s long history, midnight mass on Christmas eve will be celebrated two hours earlier, at 10pm.

Even in deeply Christian Samoa, Christmas promises little joy for the thousands trying to rebuild their lives after September’s devastating tsunami.

In a town in Virginia where a key Civil War battle was fought in 1861, the battleground this year has moved to the courthouse and the prize being fought over is Christmas.