Christmas Notate Bene

Here are a few things you might want to take a look at this Christmas:

• The graphic is from Jan Brett. Her site has lots of great decorating resources.
• Of course, our own Christmas tree is the most beautiful. It’s decorated with small white lights (someday I’ll tell you why they’re called Italian lights) and lots of small ornaments—some from our childhoods, some representative of our lives and interests (dogs, musical instruments, food), and some presents from my wife’s students over the years. However, Alexandra of All Things Beautiful bids fair to be the blogosphere’s equivalent of Martha Stewart (in the beauty and perfection sense, silly) with a very beautiful tree of her own.
• Three Christmas verses
• Three apocryphal nativity narratives
• Dean has linked to the most famous of all non-gospel Christmas stories. But there are some other great Christmas stories you might like to look at:
  • Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant
  • Boz gives us Mr. Pickwick’s Christmas
  • L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

  I’ll, of course, be reading Roads by Seabury Quinn.

• My best Christmas recipes
• The funniest Christmas post I’ve read so far this year is Fafblog’s last minute shopping tips. Although iowahawk’s Yuletide news niblets isn’t far behind.
• My daybook entry for Christmas 2004
• My favorite Christmas post this year has been from Iraqi blogger Hammorabi. He wishes us a Merry Christmas and gives us some passages from the Qu’ran which deal with the birth of Jesus (He and Mary, His mother, are venerated by Muslims, too). This is my favorite:
  

  Then, We sent after them Our Messengers, and We sent Isa – son of Maryam, and gave him the Injeel (Gospel). And We ordained in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy.

  Something for all of us to remember. Although Muslims don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus they do accept the virgin birth as a sign that there is no limit to the power of God.

Merry Christmas, everybody! God bless us, everyone.