Well, we knew our Christmas card wasn't exactly traditional when we sent it out last week, but we had no idea it would get the reaction that it did. In the past we used to sit around a table at Christmas and sign physical cards for our various contacts--authors, artists, etc. In today's Web 2.0 world, we've move to creating and sending out an e-card (sorry, U.S.

We need some of the love, peace and joy that Jesus brought to earth here at USCatholic.org (at least based on the comments on Bryan's blog). So here are some fun Christmas links: If we are going to have nativity scenes in public places, we're going to have Festivus poles too.

For a few Christmases, our extremely unmusical family would attempt to sing "The 12 Days of Christmas." It was painful to listen to, but it inevitably turned into a good opportunity for laughter—such as when my Polish grandmother sang "three Polish hens" rather than French hens. Turns out we could have been making a mockery of a secret Catholic catechetical tool.

Here are some very Catholic--and very non-Catholic--gifts: After Michelle Newcomb’s 4-year-old son said he wanted to be a priest, the Indiana mom decided to create a game just for him. Interest in her game grew, and now The Priest Game has been reproduced for sale.

When I first imagined a 108-foot Christmas tree and 40 other smaller (just 50 feet maybe?) trees adorning St. Peter’s Square and the rest of the Vatican, I couldn't help but wondering if Pope Benedict wasn’t that green after all. How old must a 108-foot Christmas tree be? How many acres of Austrian forest were decimated for the pope?

The war on Christmas has gone up a notch from heated rhetoric to plundering. It seems that outdoor nativity statues, as well as menorahs, are often stolen. So, I learned in this NPR piece, people are taking a defense step, putting GPS on Baby Jesus. Indoor nativities, thank God, are a bit safer.

There was a big Christmas display two blocks away from the house I grew up in until age 6. Every year, even when we moved out of the state, we came back to watch Santa and his sleigh rise up a pulley system in the spotlight. As impressive as that display is, it just got blown out of the water by the Holdman's display in Utah.