God have mercy on our brothers and sisters caught between both sides in the Holy Land. May Our Lady deliver them from pain and iniquity.

Mr. Zmirak. Smashing piece. Please consider writing a piece on the Melkites influence at Vatican Two (a positive influence WAY out of proportion to their numbers).

I love their guts. The Melkites are, from what I know,amasing.

Have a Blessed Advent, brother.

Whot kind of madness is this now?........I like the fare of the Levant as much as the next guy but....Feta Cheese Cigarettes?

Why not end the historicist affair by inviting the local Gun Club to check windage and update the sighting on the Town Howitzer with a little artillery incoming right about the time the guests have hit the mid-point on the beloved and draining hooch bottles. Self Defense is next to ...well, it’s damn well next to imperative.

If there aint no Howitzer at the local Armory, a good old fashioned D8 dozing might do just as well. Don’t forget to line everybody up in the cold and check papers for a few hours before they get through the front door.

Before hand though, shake hands with that in law you think a supreme boor and announce that this will be the best Christmas Repast Ever, then smack the cretins drooling child while he’s not looking.

John Zmirak I congratulate on his literal good taste.  For though with respect to Near Eastern cuisine I am sunk deep in the Egyptian Night, still I can join our writer to commend goose, roasted on a rack in a roasting pan—a fowl foully neglected in Gringoland.  Just have a baster, not to baste, but just to suck the grease periodically out of the pan.  The only negative is that it will not feed a crowd.  Plum pudding, the delight of Anglophiles, can’t beat fruitcake, yet it’s fun to behold when the host pours brandy or 150 proof rum over it, dims the lights, lights a match, and sets it ablaze – provided two guests are on both sides, fire extinguishers in hand.

Less than thirty minutes ago, I destroyed everyone
with my first attempt at cooking original Mexican
dishes!....Ha-Ha.....While throwing down my favorite
bourbon.......(A bit heavy on the cayene pepper as I
hide out with my first cigarette.)....Had they drank as
much as I, they would have loved it!.....Ha-Ha.......But,
your article was funny and the timing was perfect! Now I
need a recipe for “Baked Camel Roast In Palm Leaves” to
experiment next time...............Happy Holidays!

These poor people suffer in kind from the collaboration of Christian Zionists in the US and the Israeli State. Maybe FOX will report on just who is stealing their Christmas… don’t bet on it.

I rushed to the Armenian grocery for the ingredients, and followed your instructions to the letter, with beautifully symmetrical results.

Yet try as I may, apart from smoldering fragments of sumac ,I can’t keep the damn things lit.

Maybe FOX will report on just who is stealing their Christmas… don’t bet on it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was the Romans that honored Sol Invictus (invincible sun) on December 25th. O’reillys straw-man war on Christmas is as lame as he is.

Throw in some belly dancers, and I’m in.
And Jewish belly dancers are more than acceptable as long as they’re authentic middle-eastern Jews like the delectable Paula Abdul (daughter of a Syrian Jew.)

It was the Romans that honored Sol Invictus (invincible sun) on December 25th.

The Acts of the Enrollment were kept in the Public Liberry in Rome and the early Christians showed them to early converts. Jesus was born on the 25th (Folks like you, barbarians, later sacked Rome and torched the liberry).

+++++++ Begin Quotes +++++++++

First Apology St. Justin Martyr

Chapter 34. Place of Christ’s birth foretold.

And hear what part of earth He was to be born in, as another prophet, Micah,
foretold. He spoke thus: “And thou, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, art not the
least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a Governor,
who shall feed My people.” Micah 5:2 Now there is a village in the land of the
Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born,as you
can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, your
first procurator in Judæa.

Against Marcion: Tertullian

And yet how could He have been admitted into the synagogue—one so abruptly
appearing, so unknown; one, of whom no one had as yet been apprised of His
tribe, His nation, His family, and lastly, His enrolment in the census of
Augustus—that most faithful witness of the Lord’s nativity, kept in the archives
of Rome

The Liturgical Year: Dom Gueranger

And firstly, with regard to our Saviour’s Birth on Dec. 25, we have St. John Chrysostom telling us in his homliy for this Feast, that the Western Churches had, from the very commencement of Christianity, kept it on this day. He is not satisfied with merely mentioning this tradition; he undertakes to show it is very well founded, inasmuch as the Church of Rome had every means of knowing the true day of our Saviour’s Birth, since the acts of the enrollment, taken in Judea by command of Augustus, were kept in the public archives of Rome.The Holy Doctor adduces a second arguement, which he founds upon the Gospel of St. Luke, and he reasons thus: we know from the sacred Scriptures that it must have been
in the fast of the sevent month (Lev 23.the 7th month, Tsiri, corresponded to
out Sept, beginning of October) that the Priest Zachary had the vision in the
Temple; after which Elizabeth, his wife, conceived St. John the Baptist; hence
it follows that that the Blessed Virgin Mary having, as the Evangelist St Luke
relates, received the Angel Gabriel’s visit, and conceived the Saviour of the
world in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that is to say March, the
Birth of Jesus must have taken place in the month of December.

+++++++++++ end quotes +++++++++++++

*There’s the Trifecta. Bible, Tradition,and Church ,all witnessing to the truth about Jesus being born on the 25th.

Y’all can worship the Sun. As for me and my household,we will worship the Son.

For a great meditation from the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem, by Fr. John Solana, LC, a great Legionary priest, go to the following:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3281071136559703180&q;="es+verdad"+solana&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

In Spanish, though, habibi.

Yes… a factual article.  No… not likely to be read, let-alone-appreciated by most Uh-mur-E-Kans, who -in their invincible, imperial ignorance- think of the antagonists resident in this criminally- oppressed section of the holy land simply as John Hagee’s righteous Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or “Jews” ... and their “evil” so-called nemesis (20th-century displaced persons/refugees/denizens/descendants of the original 1st-century A.D. New testament converts of Gaza and the West Bank) as “Hamas anti-Semites”, “AAARaaabs”, “Islamofascist terrorists”, “Christ-denying Moslems” and other absurdities… or as anything but what they really are… primitive, suffering Christians. Boobus Amerikanus’s materialistic perception of reality is in a very sorry state!

Here’s a parlor-game favorite for this kind of shindig:

If a guest makes a faux pas – punish ALL the guests. I know what you’re thinking: There is no justice in collective punishment. Know what? Who gives a damn? This is (for the purposes of the game! Haw!) the Middle East, and the guests are in a home that has been your’s “since time immemorial…” (Actually, you got it a few decades ago after threatening to burn down the house if the then-invader/homeowner didn’t turn it over to you.)

Oh… and when I say “punish” your guests, I mean punish “with severity”. Bulldoze their homes, destroy their crops, bomb them, snipe their children… grind them into paste. Never let them forget the boot heel on their necks. You’re the boss. They are… well… cattle.

Fun, huh?

As usual, JP Zmirak ahs written a respectful, cogent, and thought-proving article. I do, however, suspect that he would not support replacing European/Pagan Christmas rituals with those from Latin America.

What saddens me is the assinine comments by those who wish to turn this into an anti-Israel event. Whether it is lying about the ancestry of Arabs, ignoring Msulim antichristian activites, or confusing peace with Dhimmitude, almost every silly error possible come up. One wonders if the commenters have any recollection of Chirstmas in 1986 Bethlehem, under israeli control and prior to the Islamist-inspired Intefadah, and the bleak conditions today where Muslims are driving out Bethlehem’s Christian population, and using the remaining Dhimmi as human shields and propaganda for leftist authors.

This is not to say that Israel is by any means perfect here or that the theologically-anti-Zionist Christian Arab and Armenians don’t also spin.