Peace on earth. Goodwill. Christ is born in Bethlehem. All that sort of stuff.

Two months ago, Israel “confiscated” around a thousand acres of Palestinian land adjacent to Bethlehem, a short distance from the illegal colonial settlement of Etzion. Bethlehem farmers were told to clear off to hell or to the Palestinian equivalent of Connacht and not to come back if they knew what was good for them. Any problem with that they could take to the (Israeli) courts.
The same offer used routinely to be made to native Americans. Savages filled with stern rectitude, some of them our own ancestors, fervently believed that they had a God-given right to the land on which the indigenous people had lived for thousands of years. This being so, exterminating the natives, far from being a crime or a sin, was no more than obedience to the almighty. Virtually without exception, Christian pastors endorsed this view – the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”.
Likewise now, Zionists believe that, 3000 years ago, God gifted them Eretz Israel – the land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank – to be held in sacred trust for all eternity.
The Palestinians around Bethlehem were given 45 days to lodge legal objections. To date, none have been upheld. The Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz described the Bethlehem land grab as “the latest in a series of plans designed to attach the Etzion settlement block to Jerusalem and its environs.” That is, to incorporate another swathe of Palestinian territory into Israel.
Russia had the support of the majority of the local population when it annexed Crimea last March but was nevertheless swamped in global condemnation and its leader Putin projected as a monster out to crush all who stood in the way of his megalomaniac ambition.
Israeli boss Netanyahu, on the other hand, had no fear of any such negativity when he declared to Western journalists in July that Israel would “never” accept Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank.
“I think the Israeli people understand now (that) there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
There goes the land-for-peace idea which has linchpinned every plan and proposal for agreement in the region for half a century.
So sing a hymn to Bethlehem, where hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
The Lebanese paper The Daily Star reports that most of the dispossessed of the Bethlehem area worked in olive groves or tending sheep. Shepherds used to be held in somewhat higher regard in those parts.

There may still be time for you to vote for Best Xmas Record Of All Time, so I am putting in a word for Suge Knight’s ‘Xmas on Death Row’, the one with Santa in the electric chair on the cover, featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg’s moving anthem...”On the first day of Xmas, my homeboy gave to me/A sack of the Krazy glue and told me to smoke it up slowly/On the second day of Xmas, my homeboy gave to me/A fifth of Hendog and told me to take my mind off weed...”
And so on towards the Twelfth Knight.

The problem I have with Xmas is that, every year, there’s a certain element tries to drag religion into it. The true message of Xmas is that we should eat, drink and be merry and buy family and friends pressies they don’t really want.  
This is the moment we turn the cold corner of winter and we can set our faces towards spring and sunshine and the miracle of new growth, when we can break open the stores of food and drink and celebrate the joy of survival.
That’s the way it was for the hundreds (literally) of gods who came before Christ, allegedly born on or just after the winter solstice. The gods were invented to account for the mysterious pattern of the seasons. Naturally, the ideological pickpockets of early Christianity filched the tale so their new-fangled god would fit in.
We know now there’s no need for gods to explain this or any other natural phenomenon. So rejoice! It’s us half-cut hordes surging around the shopping centres who represent the True Tradition.

And that’s that. Have to rush off and try to speed-read the books I was given last year before people arrive and ask me what I’d thought of the tome they’d taken such care to select.
If all else fails in these circumstances, I recommend you murmur, “Yesss...It has a marvellous indefinable quality...”