7 Christmas Traditions to Bring Back This Year

 Intellectual Takeout   

. . . "Caroling: Fortunately, this tradition hasn’t been completely lost. Still, it’s not common for people to march about from door to door singing Christmas songs. Most neighborhoods don’t operate that way anymore. But why not?" . . . 

"In his beautiful essay “A Remaining Christmas,” author Hilaire Belloc reminds us of the importance of intergenerational traditions that surround and adorn holy days like a wreath. Christmas traditions keep us grounded in our bodily human nature, Belloc explains. “Man has a body as well as a soul, and the whole of man, soul and body, is nourished sanely by a multiplicity of observed traditional things,” he writes.

"Christmas traditions that repeat year after year offer us a glimpse of eternity, helping us transcend the changes, sufferings, and losses that occur with each passing year. “[T]here is this great quality in the unchanging practice of Holy Seasons, that it makes explicable, tolerable, and normal what is otherwise a shocking and intolerable and even in the fullest sense, abnormal thing,” Belloc writes. “I mean, the mortality of immortal men.”

"He goes on to note that all the vicissitudes and trials of every year can become part of a larger redemptive narrative when linked by traditional holy days and their celebration in the same way every year:

[A]ll the bitterness of living—become[s] … connected in the memory with holy day after holy day, year by year, binding the generations together; carrying on even in this world, as it were, the life of the dead and giving corporate substance, permanence and stability….

"Christmas traditions are about a lot more than mere sentimentality, Belloc teaches. They’re precious things, not to be thoughtlessly discarded.

" 'Unfortunately, many Christmas traditions have been lost and one must search them out, brush them off, and rebuild them. Here are seven Christmas traditions to consider bringing back this year." . . .  More...

Walker Larson holds a BA in writing and an MA in English literature. Prior to becoming a writer, he taught literature and history at a private academy in Wisconsin. He is the author of two novels, Hologram and Song of Spheres. When not working on his acreage or spending time with family and friends, he blogs about literature and education on his Substack, The Hazelnut.

Miranda Devine: Lawlessness Is a Choice

Imprimus  

"The intense blowback against Trump’s efforts to restore law and order rams home the point that it is a deliberate choice by progressives to preserve lawlessness in their cities."

"While being interviewed on a recent podcast, Texas Democrat Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett decided to opine on crime, a topic on which she apparently considers herself to be an expert. Her nutty conclusion was this: “Just because someone has committed a crime, it doesn’t make them a criminal.”

"I can see how this logic would have a wide range of uses for politicians: “Just because someone told a lie, it doesn’t make them a liar”; “Just because someone took a bribe, it doesn’t make them corrupt.” It’s a bit like the thought experiment: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” If a crime is committed and no one is responsible, was there actually a crime at all?

"Of course, it’s nonsense. A criminal is defined precisely as a person who has committed a crime. But when Crockett chooses her own definitions, she is simply echoing a progressive shibboleth that has turned blue cities across the country into lawless hellholes. It holds that people who commit crimes have no agency—that they are helpless victims of circumstance. Therefore, any attempt to hold them accountable by arresting them or putting them in jail is unjust—it further victimizes them.

"The obvious result of this logic is that criminals are emboldened and their real victims become helpless hostages to lawlessness.

"It is a short step from Crockett’s logic to the justification of defunding the police as a way to “make communities safer.” That communities become safer by having fewer police is, of course, a lie, but defunding police is what progressives have been doing since the anti-cop, BLM-Antifa riots of the “Summer of Love” in 2020.

"As a former police reporter, I’ve seen how soft-on-crime policies hurt the very people progressives pretend to care about. It’s precisely the most vulnerable in our big cities who need the most policing and have the least resources to protect themselves from mayhem.

"Living in New York City off and on over the past three decades, including in the pre-Mayor Rudy Giuliani era when it was a dystopian hellscape of crime and no-go zones, it’s striking how quickly soft-on-crime policies at the state and local level destroy your day-to-day sense of safety. Progressive criminal justice “reforms,” such as defunding the police, ending cash bail, refusing to prosecute misdemeanors, letting thousands of convicted felons out of prison early, and slashing the prison population, are the most obvious contributors to the escalating violent crime problem in blue cities.

"In 2014, Bill de Blasio was elected Mayor of what he boasted was “the safest big city in America.” He championed all sorts of progressive policies, from bail reform to decriminalizing offenses such as public urination and marijuana possession—and eventually the New York City Council defunded the NYPD to the tune of $1 billion.

"As predicted by everybody with any understanding of human nature, it did not take long for the city to become scary. There was a surge of mentally ill homeless people accorded the so-called freedom to sleep on the streets, and open-air drug bazaars popped up all over the place. This was followed by a surge of violent crime, including a spate of people being pushed in front of subway trains. Shoplifting became so normalized that convenience and drug stores had to lock up toothpaste." . . .  More...

VDH: The West Is Slouching Toward Open Season on Jews

 Victor Davis Hanson

"Jews celebrating Hanukkah were just slaughtered by Muslim gunmen on an Australian beach, in an imitation of the October 7 massacres. An inert Europe is canceling Christmas celebrations out of fear of threats of violence from Muslim minorities."

"Victor Davis Hanson: So, we have this mass murder in Australia, and then you ask yourself, is he an ISIS plant? Did he try to coordinate it online with other violence that day? But that all said, when you put the Australia thing and the Brown [University] thing and the [Rob] Reiner killing all in a 48-hour period, it kind of shocks Americans.

"Like, they’ve lost control. We’ve lost control of the American narrative. It’s kind of tragic.

"When people in Australia, to take an example, when they comment on Bondi Beach, which we’ll get to in a minute, they usually say two things: “We’re going to have gun control.” They have gun control there. It’s much stricter than California. But ask themselves, why did they allow somebody they knew had ISIS ties to have six guns? Yet, they’ll double down on that.

"And then the second thing they’ll always do is they’ll say, “Well, we’re going to look at extremist groups, like white nationalists and maybe, I don’t know, white supremacists.” Or, “We’re going to investigate Islamophobia.” That was the wrong thing to say.

"[Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese] should have said, “We have open borders, and we can’t vet people, so we’re going to take a time out until we get our house in order, so we don’t let people in who have a desire to kill us.” I’m so tired of these Western bureaucrats who say, “This is not who we are. We don’t tolerate this.” Well, what are you going to do about that?

"And then always gun control or, “Well, we’re going to have a special task force for antisemitism and Islamophobia.” But they never tell us the data, as I said earlier. They know the data. The data does not support the idea that Islamic citizens, residents are the objects of hate crime.

"But why don’t they just say, “We’re going to make sure that this never happens again, and we’re going to want to warn everybody out there. If you point a gun at somebody in a crowd, and we hear a shot, you’re going to go down.”

"But they never talk like that. That’s only in the movies that show that the American people and Western publics want that, so Hollywood will supply it. But in the real world they don’t get it. I’m not talking about vigilantism. "

"If you look at the hate crime [statistics]—and it’s very hard to find because people in these blue cities don’t want to report it to the FBI—it’s mostly Jews who are 3% of the population. No, there are only six million, so maybe 2% of the population, they account for about 40 % of violent hate crimes. And they’re almost never the perpetrator. And Muslims are overrepresented, both as victims, but more importantly, as perpetrators." 

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Many American public schools have become perverse, left-wing failure factories, putting the nation at risk.

American Greatness

Being stupid in America doesn’t have to be an ongoing condition, and for the sake of our children and the country’s future, things need to change—ASAP!

. . . If schools aren’t emphasizing the basics, what are they teaching instead?

"Sex and gender nonsense, for one. The Heritage Foundation discloses that 16 states force transgender lessons on children. The organization’s “Gender Ideology as State Education Policy” report highlights the education standards and frameworks of states that encourage gender ideology, defined as “the subordination or displacement of factual, ideologically neutral lessons about biological sex with tell-tale notions such as ‘gender identity,’ ‘sex assigned at birth,’ and ‘cisgender.’”

"The National Education Association, which holds enormous power over the nation’s teachers and students, plays an outsized role in sex indoctrination. At its most recent national convention in July, the NEA instructed teachers on the nuances of so-called “neopronouns and xeopronouns,” while also instructing them on ways to subvert conservative “villains” and their own “internal oppression.”

"In Seattle, schools ask students as young as ten years old probing questions about gender identity, according to internal documents obtained by National Review. “The survey results are then shared with a group of third-party organizations for research purposes, including Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute and the local county government. Other regions of the country distribute similar surveys under various names.” . . .

Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network—a nonpartisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.

Cognitive dissonance for Tucker Carlson?

Bob Weir  

"That’s why it’s a bit baffling to me that he would suggest he’s being deplatformed when someone wonders where his loyalties lie.  If he can pose questions about our ally’s motives, we should be able to question his."

"Just when it appears that the Republican Party has become unbeatable after the re-election of Donald Trump, and the attainment of majorities in the House and Senate, we’re seeing the beginnings of a fracture that could shatter the GOP’s hopes for the midterms and the 2028 campaign for president.  Tucker Carlson, once a highly rated conservate commentator with his Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, from 2016 to 2023, was canceled after Fox was sued by Dominion Voting Systems because of alleged defamation statements Carlson made on his show.  Fox ultimately settled with Dominion for $787.5 million.  Since leaving Fox, Carlson has hosted a very popular podcast, The Tucker Carlson Show.

"During the past few years, I’ve been an avid fan of his show, just as I was when he was on Fox.  Yet for several months lately, he seems to have made a U-turn in his support of our country’s strongest ally in the Middle East.  Although he contends to be a supporter of Israel, he refers to it as a “tiny, inherently insignificant country.”  He tells his viewers that the U.S. spends too much money in a foreign country that, geopolitically, is not at all important to our nation.  He goes on to say that China and India combined represent more than a third of the world’s population, and our relationship with them has gotten worse because of our relationship with Israel.

"While Tucker was smugly dismissing Israel’s importance because, according to him, the Israelis have no natural resources, Benjamin Netanyahu was announcing the approval of the largest export deal of liquefied natural gas in the country’s history with Egypt, valued at about $35 billion.  That deal occurred shortly after Israel made a deal to sell its Arrow 3 missile defense system to Germany for $6.5 billion.  One wonders how Tucker can possibly conclude that Israel is insignificant." . . .

Muslim migration to Japan ‘doesn’t exist’

 D.H. Lee

"Thinking Westerners know that the response to declining Western civilization lies not in mimicking an exotic Eastern country, but in rebuilding their own homeland." 

. . . "Anyone awake since 9/11, or even within the past few weeks, will see that Muslim immigration to Western countries is an ugly counterpoint to the West’s religion of multiculturalism and diversity.

"There are those who laud Japan’s low-crime, high-trust society due in part to ethno-cultural homogeneity.  Thus, they say, there is no way that Japan will adopt the West’s destructive secular religion.

"However, most foreigners do not recognize that the Japanese have already embraced multiculturalism and diversity as tightly as any Western leftist.

"Indeed, Japan has allowed numerous Muslims to obtain citizenship.  Japanese media state that the number of mosques nationwide as of July 2025 is 160.  The number of Muslims in Japan has expanded almost fourfold over a 20-year period.  As of 2024, there are 420,000 Muslims in Japan, with the majority coming from overseas.  Indonesia sends the largest share of Muslims to Japan, followed by Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Malaysia.  The remaining number of Muslims are Japanese converts, mostly young Japanese women who converted on marrying a foreign male Muslim.  Muslims in Japan have stridently demanded that Japan adapt to their religious requirements." . . .  More...

Minnesota in the Civil War

 Minnesota played a significant role in the Civil War, contributing approximately 25,000 soldiers, which was about half of the state's eligible male population, and participating in key battles  across the country.

Troop Contributions  

"When the Civil War began in 1861, Minnesota was quick to respond to President Lincoln's call for volunteers. The state sent about 25,000 men to fight for the Union, which represented a substantial portion of its population at the time. This included the formation of 11 infantry units, 4 cavalry units, and 4 artillery units. Notably, the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first regiment to offer its services to the Union, and it played a crucial role at the Battle of Gettysburg, helping to hold the line against a Confederate assault. 

Walk the Charge of the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg, Resulting in 82% Casualties

Why isn't Minnesota's sacrifice at Gettysburg better remembered? (Audio)

Interesting to note that there was no Minnesota when any of her troops were born, yet this regiment made Minnesota historic. TD

Minnesota in 2025:

What Walz doesn’t want you to know about Minnesota

Women cheer the start of the caliphate and sharia law in New york.

Brave, strong girl. Yet liberal women say nothing and you have some stupid, liberal women in NYC welcoming Sharia. They don't have a clue...

Women cheer the start of the caliphate and sharia law in New york.

"Former hostage Romi Gonen is speaking out about the sexual abuse she endured while held by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza.
"She was assaulted by 4 different men, including a doctor assigned to treat her injuries & a cameraman who filmed her for propaganda
"Feminist & human rights… pic.twitter.com/z8aLvfAkof

— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) December 26, 2025

Victor Davis Hanson: The West Is Slouching Toward Open Season on Jews

In this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Sami Winc dissect Australia’s reaction to the Hanukkah massacre and how the West flicks aside antisemitic violence.

Witness to President Abraham Lincoln's Assassination Speaks

Freyzel Productions

"Here is a walking tour of Fords theater in Washington DC, and we will be listening to an eyewitness account of what happened the night of the Lincoln assassination. #abrahamlincoln #history"

Witness to President Abraham Lincoln's Assassination Speaks:

"This is a video filmed in 1930 of a man who was in Ford's Theater when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. He was sitting in what was known as the orchestra section, which was the ground floor seating section. He was also standing on the porch to the Petersen House when Lincoln was carried inside."

Another account by this witness: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17qL7bc9y2/

British observer with Lee's army said Southern women spoke with the magnolia accent while the men spoke with a British accent. Later videos of aged veterans at reunions seem to bear this out., The Tunnel Dweller

Muslims in Indonesia Show Christians What They Think of Them

 Robert Spencer 

. . . "It can happen here, and it will, if Muslim migration into the West continues, for among those migrants will inevitably be some Muslims who believe that they must express Islam’s violent, aggressive, supremacist, expansionist character in their new land."

"Indonesia has a reputation for being a “moderate” Muslim nation, but the wind in the Islamic world as a whole is blowing in the opposite direction, as a group of Christians has just discovered."

"Morning Star News, which tracks the persecution of Christians worldwide, reported Tuesday that “as police looked on, Muslims in West Java Province, Indonesia on Dec. 14 formed a human wall to block Christians from attending a Christmas service, according to local media.”

"Notice that it has now been nearly a quarter-century since 9/11, and while we have seen heroic individual Muslims such as Ahmed al-Ahmed, who tackled one of the Bondi Beach jihadis, we have never seen any large-scale Muslim action against terrorism. We have never seen Muslims form a human wall to block an Islamic jihad attack, or to stop a woman from being abused in accord with the direction to “beat” disobedient women in the Qur’an (4:34). But forming a human wall to prevent Christians from celebrating Christmas? No problem.

"Morning Star News noted that Muslims “from outside Jayasampurna village, Serang Baru Sub-District, Bekasi Regency near Jakarta blocked the congregation of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestant Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestant, HKBP) from celebrating Christmas at a prayer post near the Green Cikarang housing complex.”

"Local cops and a goggle-eyed crowd watched as “dozens of Muslim men and women holding hands to form the human chain, making anti-Christian comments and shouting the jihadist slogan ‘Allahu Akbar [God is Greatest).’” One of the most mistranslated phrases in the entire world, “Allahu akbar” does not actually mean “God is greatest,” or the difficult-to-contest alternative “God is great,” which is the establishment media’s favorite way of misrepresenting what is actually being said." . . .

Muslims allied with Democrats and Tim Walz will likely go from being the "oppressed" to the "oppressor" with help from all liberals who feel the weight of guilt over being "white".  Does this woman frighten you a little bit?  TD

Gabbard suggests prominent Muslim group wants Shariah law, New Jersey city fires back   "Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claimed at a recent Turning Point USA AmericaFest event that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called for Sharia Law in the U.S. 

" 'Earlier this year, there was a conference that was held representing organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR, which issued a call to action to use American legal and political systems to implement Sharia law," she declared.

"Gabbard said the group’s ideology is “antithetical to the foundation that we find in our Constitution."

"Gabbard specifically criticized the city of Paterson, New Jersey, which calls itself the first Muslim City. Gabbard said the town is working to implement Islamic principles in the local government. 

"Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh disputed Gabbard’s claims and asked her to apologize. 

"Selaedin Maksut, the executive director of CAIR's New Jersey chapter, also disputed the remarks and said they place Muslim residents at risk.

" 'We condemn Tulsi Gabbard’s remarks as dangerous and inflammatory lies. By falsely portraying Islam and Muslim communities as threats to American freedom, she engages in reckless fearmongering that endangers real people," he said." . . .

2025 Rear-View Awards

 American Thinker  

"If hindsight is 20/20, then 2025 was a year where irony is produced by algorithms and politicians think diplomacy is a TikTok trend.  To toast our survival is the annual Rear-View Awards, the only column where irony is not just a category, it is the entire piece."

. . . "Metaphor of the year: Hollywood director Rob Reiner, the onetime foil to Archie Bunker, was apparently murdered by his son, proving that sitcom dysfunction can mirror life and be “All in the Family.”

"Best market correction: Hunter Biden is no longer getting $400,000 for his artwork. He is down to $100 bucks to spray-paint obscenities on a Tesla.

"Stat of the year: The New York Times ran a story on how foreign travel to the U.S. is down due what the Gray Lady calls the Trump Slump. This is believable when you consider that for the last four years our number one tourist attraction was the Rio Grande.

"Question: When will scientists admit that the climate has been changing long before humans invented SUVs, plastic straws, or had opinions?

"Cover-Up: Jake Tapper’s book, “Original Sin” exposes the media’s four-year whitewash of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.  The canard that Biden was sharp, the border secure, Trump colluded with Russia, and Hunter’s laptop was fake, Tapper reveals what Washington long knew: Biden was unfit for office as early as 2017. The book recounts one particular moment of confusion when at a Beverly Hills fundraiser, Biden failed to recognize George Clooney and told Obama how much he loved him in Driving Miss Daisy.

"The Oxford Word of the Year is actually two words: “rage bait” because apparently “click bait” wasn’t emotionally ruinous enough. Linguists use “rage bait” for anything that divides or offends.  Last year’s phrase was “brain rot,” the term for scrolling ourselves into mental mush. Together, they sum up digital life: outrage sparks engagement, algorithms fan the flames, while burning a hole in your cornea.

"All in a name: As of this writing, the U.S. Navy destroyed its 5th Venezuelan drug boat. The boat didn’t have a chance with its name: Coke Zero.

"Best laugh: During warm‑ups for the 2025 WNBA All‑Star Game, players wore shirts stitched by Asian slave labor that read: “Pay Us What You Owe Us”, a bold slogan for a league so cash‑strapped it can barely afford the thread." . . .

. . . "The Confirmation Cup: In 2025, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner ditched a 140‑year ritual and refused to toast the president, an unexpected move that validated Donald Trump’s longtime complaints about media bias." . . .

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