Maybe you have to live in the bleak midwinter to get it. Maybe you have to see the countryside in its ash-white purity to understand—the landscape burnt-over by the dead indifferent cold. Maybe you have to wonder, as you wander out under the distant stars, what it would mean to live in a universe…
Danny Heitman on a pocket-sized collection of Christmas cheer.
We call use a little faith and hope in our lives.
Danny Heitman on the 1842 visit left the novelist profoundly unhappy with America and its capital.
B.D. McClay on the Muppets adaptation of Dickens’s classic tale of redemption.
Roy Moore's "Jewish lawyer" voted for Doug Jones. You remember the trainwreck where Kayla Moore brought up their Jewish lawyer as a rebuttal to charges of anti-semitism? He voted for Doug Jones. Not only that, he raised money for him, too!
Among the many reasons to give the book Scalia Speaks for Christmas are its collected speeches on religion. And of these speeches, my favorite is “Being Different,” which the justice gave in 1992 to the Judicial Prayer Breakfast Group, an informal gathering of judicial officers in the Washington,…
From time to time I’m forced to confront the ugly little corollary to my heart-leaping, car-singing, year-round love of Christmas music. Forced usually by Muzak, and more times than ought to be strictly necessary by enthusiastic choirs at midnight mass, I admit that there are Christmas songs that I…
From time to time I’m forced to confront the ugly little corollary to my heart-leaping, car-singing, year-round love of Christmas music. Forced usually by Muzak, and more times than ought to be strictly necessary by enthusiastic choirs at midnight mass, I admit that there are Christmas songs that I…
Is it perverse to find ghost stories relaxing, even restful? Compared with the grim realities of the news and the appalling horrors of the last hundred years, even such outstanding classics as M. R. James’s “Count Magnus,” Sheridan Le Fanu’s “The Familiar,” and Algernon Blackwood’s “The Listener”…
It should go without saying that America is a Christian nation. It was founded as such and you could fairly say that there would not be an America today if America had not been Christian from the start. Go back and look at the Founders—today’s secularists wouldn’t believe some of the stuff George…
The staff of THE WEEKLY STANDARD and contributors weigh in on the most pressing holiday question: Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?
On this holiday micro episode, the Substandard discusses A Christmas Carol (apparently based on a book). Which version is your favorite? Who's the best Scrooge? And could the best version not even be called A Christmas Carol? Listeners' note: The Substandard is off next week so we encourage you to…
Santa hasn’t even begun to pack his sleigh and already an NFL head coach, two general managers, and three coordinators have been shown the door, along with numerous head coaches and athletic directors cashiered at Power Five football programs. Plus an NFL owner just agreed to give himself the boot…
Last week, in a bit of viral marketing genius, Netflix tweeted this:
Americans really don’t care about a “war on Christmas” anymore.
What to watch tonight. If you're looking for something new and interesting to put on tonight, check out Errol Morris's Wormwood tonight on Netflix. It looks fantastic. The Times gave it a positive review, saying:
The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is currently engaged in a legal battle with the city’s Metro system. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has declined to run Christmas ads from the church. The ad design is fairly subtle in its suggestion of the Nativity—an outline of shepherds…
Very few songs have joined the Pop Christmas Canon in the last forty years with only two at present being considered for inclusion, in my estimation: The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" and Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne." Both differ from most of the other songs in the oeuvre by the fact that…
Die Hard is a Christmas movie. We know this because the American Film Institute’s Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland—honestly, one of the great cultural institutions of the Washington area—screens it as part of its Holiday Classics series each December. (Though I would argue that Die Hard II…
As we celebrate this Christmas season (or this “holiday,” for Christ-haters), I don’t wish to be a killjoy to the world. But reflecting on the year gone by, it’s hard not to notice that we have lost a few of our favorite things: Tom Petty, political moderation, our dignity.
Manafort, Paul Manafort. As folks comb through the Manafort papers, some interesting things are popping up. Like the fact the Manafort had three valid U.S. passports. Now, cyber security experts are hinting that Manafort's password for file-sharing sites was "bond007."
In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, Fred Barnes talks about the DC swamp most in need of draining-the Department of Justice. And then host Eric Felten makes a batch of the essential American Christmas drink, Tom and Jerry.
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on celebrating Christmas in Washington.
This Christmas, you may find time for some holiday reading between church, opening presents, drinking eggnog, and watching the cable TV marathon of A Christmas Story. THE WEEKLY STANDARD humbly provides some links from our archives, in no particular order, to just some of the terrific stories and…
O Festivus! O Festivus! Brighten up the most depressed of us!
Almost two decades ago, shortly after moving to New York City, I was set up on a blind date—a nice Jewish lawyer my aunt had met at her synagogue. Shortly after the small talk ended, he told me that he had just finished registering a complaint with his employer, a midtown white shoe law firm. "They…
Flocking. No one outside the millinery trade—ladies' haberdashery—should ever have occasion to use the word, but there it is: a category of artificial Christmas trees. You can get your tree flocked, or unflocked. Made of green nylon, like AstroTurf in the Astrodome, or made of metal, like pink…
On a recent episode of the Weekly Substandard podcast, co-hosts Victorino Matus, Jonathan V. Last, and Sonny Bunch discussed their favorite Christmas movies, including 1983's A Christmas Story. While Jonathan isn't a fan of the film, millions of Americans tune in every Christmas Eve and Christmas…
Growing up in mitte middle-class New Jersey, I spent much of my adolescence riddled with an unbecoming status anxiety. I was forever worried that not having the right clothes, or the right backpack, or the right sunglasses, would mark me as not belonging to the smart set. The fact that there was no…
Growing up in mitte middle-class New Jersey, I spent much of my adolescence riddled with an unbecoming status anxiety. I was forever worried that not having the right clothes, or the right backpack, or the right sunglasses, would mark me as not belonging to the smart set. The fact that there was no…
The WEEKLY SUBSTANDARD Podcast with Sonny Bunch, Jonathan V. Last, and Victorino Matus discussing Die Hard and other Christmas classics. Does anyone like eggnog? Plus the Substandard Holiday Gift Guide!
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior editor Andrew Ferguson on his recent cover story "Jingle Hell" and why you can't escape Mariah Carey. And be sure to enjoy the last-minute Christmas savings on Jonathan V. Last's series of Virtues books published by our sponsor, Templeton Press. Order the…
As college campuses shut down for winter break, the Maoist insanity that gripped American higher education this fall hit a new high-water mark. At Harvard, little laminated posters began appearing in the student dining halls with instructions on how students should discuss sensitive political…
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Jonathan V. Last on the upcoming STAR WARS movie, and his new book, The Christmas Virtues: A Treasury of Conservative Tales for the Holidays.
In the city where I live, one of the pop music radio stations shifts to an all-Christmas music format beginning in . . . oh, I don't know, late August?
Christmas these days is signaled not by the music played in shops and the wreaths hung along lampposts, but by the increasingly heavy load of catalogues that begin arriving in the mail late in October. Pity the poor mailman, having to lug such stuff around. These catalogues give recycling a bad…
Whenever I feel a twinge of despair over America’s challenges—a not infrequent occurrence—I ask myself a simple question: “What year or decade would you like to return to?” It’s a useful exercise for anyone harboring undue pessimism about the future or gauzy nostalgia for the past. Americans have a…
It seems like the Christmas season starts a little earlier each year. A couple years back I was shocked when Costco put out Christmas items the week after Halloween; now the Christmas decorations are on sale weeks before trick-or-treating. And this year, even the War on Christmas has come early.
Christmas doesn’t really begin until Christmas—Christmas Day itself, that is. And I don’t mean just in the way the Christian churches lay out the season: the whole 12-days-of-Christmas thing, if you remember. And I know you do, because everyone remembers the song about the partridge in a pear tree,…
An estimated 90 million of us will drive 50 miles or more during this holiday season, and recent years’ gnashings of teeth at the pump are being replaced with smiles. The price of gasoline is down 36 percent since April, to a national average of around $2.40 per gallon, with some cities reporting…
Some 140 million bargain-hunting customers will descend on retailers on Thanksgiving Day, so-called Black Friday, and throughout next weekend -- or at least those who haven’t shopped already or by early next week will head for the shops. Not so long ago most stores remained closed on Thanksgiving…
Once again, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut is on the case. Last week, his heart ached for fans of the Buffalo Bills who would not be able to watch their team’s game against the Miami Dolphins because the NFL & the FCC were blacking it out. Retribution, it seems, for the fans’ failure…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on Christmas, Obamacare, and the gift that keeps on giving.
The Scrapbook is delighted to commend to readers a new ebook from our contributing editor Joseph Bottum. Nativity: A Christmas Tale “re-imagines Melchior, the Wise Man who brought gold, as a wealthy cancer patient adrift in the American Midwest, picking up a menagerie of strays as he fights his way…
Years ago, when Americans began visiting Europe in significant numbers, they invariably returned with trophies ranging from cashmere sweaters (Britain), silk scarves (France), several inches on their waistlines (Italy), and assorted knick knacks. And with stories of the sullen London shop staffs…
The White House has not even officially introduced the 2013 White House Holiday Card yet and already Monday night copies were listed for sale on eBay for as much as $200. The card is quite elaborate based on the standards of previous years.
Go into almost any shop and hear Christmas carols and read signs trumpeting enormous discounts. Unusual, since the scramble for discounts traditionally begins after, not before, the first turkey has made the ultimate sacrifice to celebrants of Thanksgiving. By the end of next week, 45 million…
In Geneva, the famous “Pink Star” diamond fetches $83 million at auction, almost double the price ever paid for such a stone, and in Arkansas, Walmart lowers its sales outlook for the holiday season. That might be a metaphor for the holiday shopping season, where grouchy retailers are predicting a…
President Obama, who is vacationing with his family in Hawaii, visited the Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay to wish everyone there a merry Christmas.
According to a statement from the South African government, Nelson Mandela will "spend Christmas Day in [a] hospital."
President Barack Obama said this evening in a statement to the press that "the American people are a lot more sensible and a lot more thoughtful and much more willing to compromise and give and sacrifice and act responsibly than their elected representatives are. And that's a problem. There's a…
The White House misspelled Santa Claus twice, according to a recent transcript of President Barack Obama's remarks at the national Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
Our contributing editor and former colleague Joseph Bottum, now resident in his native Black Hills of South Dakota, has (we think unexpectedly) added Christmas Laureate to his distinguished résumé. His Kindle Single The Christmas Plains was a big hit last season, and is now published in…
For China’s communist leaders, Christmas is a time for repression. Liu Xiaobo, the writer, activist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, was sentenced to 11 years for “incitement to subversion of state power” on December 25, 2009. The indictment listed several of his essays, as well as his role in the…
ABC News: "Obama Administration to Delay New 15-Cent Christmas Tree Tax"
The boss claims that this was slipped under his hotel room door in New York late last night:
The Dream Machine