As the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world, Christmas is a time of produces many things — joy, happiness, gratitude, reverence. And numbers. Lots of peculiar, often large, numbers. Here are a few to contemplate this season: $35.03– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on real Christmas trees in 2013. $81.30– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on fake Christmas trees in 2013. 33,000,000 – Number of real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. each year. 9,500,000 – Number of...

Frank Capra’s ‘It’s Wonderful Life’ is one of the greatest movies of all time. It’s a Christmas classic and also—as I’ve always thought—a conservative classic, a film whose themes align closely with traditional conservatism. But not everyone agrees on the politics of Bedford Falls. Keith Miller and Chris Schaefer debate whether themes of the movie lean more liberal or more conservative. Naturally, I agree with Miller’s small government assessment: The movie exults in the way the Bailey Building & Loan...

From Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away: God told the world he was going to send it a king and the world waited. The world thought, a golden fleece will do for His bed. Silver and gold and peacock tails, a thousand suns in a peacock’s tail will do for his crib. His mother will ride on a four-horned white beast and use the sunset for a cape. She’ll trail it behind her over the ground and let the...

Parents spend a lot of time and money trying to get their children what they want for Christmas. The list written for Santa is poured over, gifts are wrapped, stockings are stuffed. But are you giving your child what she really wants? IKEA Spain wants us to think about our children’s wish lists a bit differently. ...

Grocery shopping is not a chore I enjoy. It’s a mundane task, and everything you buy you will have to soon replace. Then, when you finally get to the end of the chore, you look at the register and think, “HOW much??” It gets worse. You and I (American taxpayers) managed to “misspend” $2.4 billion this year on food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP.) How did we manage this? According to the USDA’s audit for...

In the latest video blog from For the Life of the World, Evan Koons offers Christmas greetings and a few timely reminders with his usual dose of humor. “He made himself nothing to be with us.” Indeed, by entering the Earth in human form, nay, in infant human form, born to the house of a carpenter, Jesus provides a striking example of the order of Christian service — of the truth and the life, yes, but also of the way....

In this mentary, Acton president and co-founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico reflects on Christmas, but also on the things weighing heavily on many hearts. Despite this being a joyful time, we are caught in perilous moment in history due to the meeting of various things: intellectual, financial, militarily, and theologically. President Ronald Reagan gave a similar address in 1981: Rev. Sirico says: How to get to the heart of the matter? That, as Shakespeare might say, is the rub. Yet,...

I heard Fr. Robert Sirico say once that most of us now carry more technology in our pockets than it took to put a man on the moon in 1969. If you remember that, you’ll also remember when a radio was a substantial piece of furniture and having a color television made you a very popular kid in the neighborhood. In the 1964 Sears Christmas catalog (if you don’t know what that is, ask your mother. Or your grandmother.), you...

In last week’s mentary, “The Worst Christmas Song Ever,” Jordan Ballor touched on the well-intentioned yet harmful message shared by “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” the 1984 song produced by the music group, Band Aid, in response to the famine that struck Ethiopia. Ballor describes the context and some of the song’s lyrics: The song describes Africa largely as a barren wasteland, ‘Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.’ It continues in this vein. Africa, the...

We know how God approached mankind: the surprising incarnation as a baby at Christmas.But how ought we to approach Him? Here is a wide range of 14 ways we often try, along with abenefit for each: Love the right things and you will find your way home to GodThink the right things and you will know the sovereign GodBelieve the right thingsand you will live at peaceObey, obey, obey and you will not go to hellWithdraw from the world and...