True meanings of Christmas

There are certain Christmas traditions that seem like they’ve been with us forever, from putting aside December 25 to celebrate the birth of the sun, to our collective worship of the great god Woden.

On second though, maybe things have changed more than we like to admit.

“The History of Christmas,” a new e-book by Wyatt North, recounts the history of many of the Christmas traditions we take for granted, showing how so many of these customs are as amorphous as they are joyous.

Here are just some of the treasured beliefs North helps shed a bit of Christmas light upon.

AP

The Rockefeller Center tree — slightly taller than Martin Luthor’s original Christmas tree.

CELEBRATING ON DECEMBER 25

North points out that early Christians in Europe “were part of an agrarian, pagan culture,” and that their early traditions included a post-harvest winter celebration called Saturnalia which “paid homage to the gods who ruled all aspects of sowing, planting and harvest.”

Consisting of “feasts, festivities and festivals” that included “conspicuous indulgence” and “raucous behavior,” Saturnalia took place in mid- to-late December to “honor the god of the sun, Saturn.”

Several other pagan celebrations — including one praising the birth of “the unconquerable sun” and another that worshipped “Mithra, the god of fertility, who was the son of the sun” — took place on the birth date of their gods, December 25.

Early Christian converts, writes North, were torn between the massive (and enjoyable) pagan feasts they had come to know and the life of relative moral austerity to which they were committing. As such, Christian celebrations often carried pagan elements over from their prior beliefs.

Understandably, this caused dissension between strictly religious Christians and those with a more lax and nostalgic approach, especially as some Christians continued worshipping the sun. North tells of how, in the 5th century, “Pope Leo lamented in a sermon that upon entering the basilica to celebrate Christ’s nativity, worshippers turned on the stairs to face the rising sun and bowed.”

When an 8th century English bishop was “horrified” by the “pagan debauchery” he saw over Christmastime in Rome, he wrote to Pope Zacharias, who in turn unleashed a barrage of cruelty and violence in order to curb the practice, establishing a tradition of Saturnalia horror that lasted for centuries.

But within this, the holiday also evolved, with 1103 seeing the introduction of the Old English phrase “Cristes-Maesse,” meaning the Mass of Christ. That phrase eventually morphed into the word we know today.

While the celebration itself remained controversial for centuries, so too was the date of this worship, as North reminds us that “the exact date of Christ’s birth is a controversial topic.” December 25 had been revered by early pagans, but Christians long settled on January 6 as their day of “epiphany, meaning God’s manifestation to humanity.”

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Time’s up for holiday shopping procrastinators

Last minute shoppers like Josette Tyne are in luck this year.

With a long weekend before Christmas, retailers want to make it easier for procrastinators to finish their gift buying. Macy’s for the first time is keeping all its stores open around the clock from Friday until Sunday at midnight. Toys “R” Us and Walmart Supercenters will be open non-stop until Christmas Eve.

Even those retailers skipping the all nighter still have added extended hours often as late as 11 pm or midnight. Coupled with a flurry of last minute promotions, they hope to lure shoppers, many of whom have been largely sitting on the sidelines since Black Friday.

Tyne, 33, just starting her shopping this week at Aventura Mall, armed with a list of about two dozen people and the presents they wanted. The list would have been longer if the Fort Lauderdale resident hadn’t limited it to the kids in her family.

“I’ll probably be shopping every day from now till Sunday,” said Tyne, as she wheeled the youngest of her three boys around H&M in a stroller before heading on to Game Stop, Urban Outfitters and BCBG. “Whatever catches my eye. Luckily the kids usually like everything I get. I’m the awesome Auntie.”

A Consumer Reports Poll released earlier this week found that with just five shopping days left until Christmas, a whopping 68 percent of shoppers — a projected 132 million Americans — have yet to finish their holiday shopping.

With an early Thanksgiving leaving an extra week until Christmas and a long weekend before Tuesday’s holiday, shoppers have felt little need to rush. They also haven’t found December deals to be quite as compelling as the November sales.

Based on disappointing sales trends earlier this month, ShopperTrak said Wednesday it was cutting its holiday sales forecast. The company, which counts foot traffic and its own proprietary sales numbers from 40,000 retail outlets across the country, now expects a 2.5 percent sales increase to $257.7 billion, down from the 3.3 percent growth it initially predicted. The National Retail Federation is sticking with its prediction of a 4.1 percent sales increase.

Online sales trends are more encouraging, up 13 percent to $35 billion from Nov. 1 through Dec. 16, according to comScore, an online research firm. But that pace is below the forecast of 17 percent for the season.

“It’s coming down to the wire,” said David Bassuk, managing director and co-head of the retail practice at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm. “It’s going to require retailers to be more aggressive with their promotions than they were hoping heading into the weekend.”

While the economy is certainly in a better position than it was during the recession, many consumers still feel uneasy this year about their financial future. Some are worried about the U.S. job market and others fear the stalemate between Congress and the White House over federal “fiscal cliff’’ that could lead to tax increases and less disposable income for shoppers.

That was the case for Latonya Jones, on the hunt for bargains at Aventura Mall, coupon-loaded iPad in hand.

“I wasn’t going to buy anything this year, because I wanted to save money,” said Jones, 39, of Miami Gardens, who was shopping with her daughter Richelle, 12, this week in Macy’s. “But then I changed my mind.”

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Great-grandmother leads annual Miami-Dade, Monroe toy drive

Beginning in August, Bunchy Gertner puts aside her social life, her needs and even her great-grandchildren to head over to the “North Pole,” the place where she stores, wraps and distributes thousands of toys destined for foster care children in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.

“This is top banana,” said Gertner referring to the nonstop volunteer work she has done for the past 16 years. “Every kid will get a gift and — even if it’s just for a moment — they will know that someone cares.”

It’s Gertner who dedicates her time to planning and execution of the toy drive that will distribute 3,400 gifts to the children under Our Kids, a non-profit agency that provides foster care and related services in Miami and the Florida Keys.

“She focuses solely on the toy drive and lives to match the right toy with the right child,” said Fran Alegra, Our Kids CEO. “I don’t have staff that would be able to dedicate the time that she gives to this.”

Over the years, 78-year-old Gertner has not only given every foster child a gift, but she has made sure that everyone receives a good quality, age appropriate present.

“I think I have 3,400 children,” said Gertner. “Thank God I didn’t give birth to all of them and they’ve all left the house. But I feel like they’re all mine.”

Gertner has even made it her mission to look after the children who are aging out of foster care and are considered independent living. For these teens, she prepared a gift that includes a comforter, sheets, pillow cases, hand towels, bath towels, glass wear, pillows, dishes, pots and pans.

“They have no money when they leave foster care,” said Gertner. “I give them what a mom and dad would give a child who was going off to college or going off on their own.”

In order to raise money and collect presents, Gertner has relied on about 50 sponsors, who are responsible for collecting gifts. She distributes the first names of children with their age, gender and ethnicity to provide each child with an appropriate gift.

“I became a beggar. I got down on my hands and knees and begged everyone that I met,” said Gertner. “I write letters, I make phone calls and ask if they would want to help or if they know anyone who would want to do it.”

Once she receives the gifts from the sponsors, they are taken to her North Pole, which this year is an empty store donated by Gulfstream Park.

There, she sorts the presents that come with a specific child’s name by agency and begins wrapping the gifts that she receives with no specific name.

“I couldn’t do it alone,’’ said Gertner, who refers to her helpers as elves. “If it weren’t for the people helping me wrap and the sponsors, I wouldn’t have a toy drive.’’

On any given 10-hour work day, the volunteers, which range in numbers from a handful to two dozen, show up to wrap and sing holiday songs.

“This is better than staying at home in bed all day,” said Rivly Breus, a student at Florida Atlantic University. With a little experience under her belt from wrapping at Macy’s, Breus decided to Google a way she could volunteer her talents.

“It was hard for me growing up so it’s good to be able to shine a light on others,” Breus said.

Some come with no experience, like Gonzo Gonzalez, who often has to patch the spaces where he didn’t use sufficient paper.

“I didn’t have it easy growing up, but at least I had my parents,” said Gonzalez, who wrapped about 30 footballs on a recent Sunday. “It’s good to be able to give back. The kids who don’t have parents are not expecting anything.”

Although, Gertner does not give the presents directly to the children for privacy reasons, she is satisfied with knowing that there is a child at the end of every present. She said she will continue to do it until she can’t anymore.

“I know in my heart that what I do is enough,” said Gertner. “When I go to bed I know that I have fulfilled my mission and done my job well.”

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Suicide bombers attack mobile phone firms in Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) – Two suicide car bombers attacked the offices of mobile phone operators India’s Airtel and South Africa’s MTN on Saturday in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano, killing themselves but no civilians, police said.

Islamist sect Boko Haram has previously targeted phone firms, blowing up telephone masts and offices, saying the companies help the security forces catch its members.

“The one who hit the Airtel office was shot by military men before the bomb exploded … at the MTN office the car rammed into the fence but no civilians were killed,” Ibrahim Idris, the chief of police in Kano, told Reuters.

Airtel Nigeria’s parent company Bharti Airtel, India’s top cellphone operator, gave no immediate comment.

The national emergency agency confirmed the bombing and said it was not aware of any civilian casualties. The security forces have played down the death toll in previous bombings.

At least 2,800 people have died in fighting in the largely Muslim north since the sect launched an uprising against the government in 2009, watchdog Human Rights Watch says.

The sect wants to impose strict Islamic law on a country of 160 million people split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.

The group has previously targeted churches on Christmas Day and security has been increased in all the major northern cities, although security experts say given the scale of Christian worship in Nigeria they cannot protect everyone.

Kano, Nigeria‘s second largest city after the southern commercial-hub Lagos, was the site of Boko Haram’s most lethal attack which killed at least 186 people in January in coordinated bombings and shootings.

(Additional reporting by Isaac Abrak in Kaduna; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Janet Lawrence)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Gal’s best laid plans thwarted

It just wasn’t her lucky night.

A gorgeous swimsuit model who hoped to have sex before the Mayan-predicted apocalypse failed to seal the deal on “doomsday” eve.

Niki Ghazian, 30, earlier this week had declared to The Post, “I don’t want to die on a dry spell!” and hoped to hook up with someone before the predicted hour of doom yesterday morning.

But the sexy LA resident said she didn’t take home any men at an end-of-the-world bash at a West Hollywood club Thursday night.

“I wasn’t looking for a random hook-up,” she insisted.She added she never meant to imply that she would bed a stranger.

NIKI GHAZIAN Californication nixed.

“People are calling me a whore now,” she said. “It’s just unfair. I just went out and had fun. I wasn’t going out to get laid.’’

On Tuesday, Ghazian had said that with the threat of doomsday looming, “Everybody should go out feeling satisfied. If the world’s gonna end, why hold back?”

She went out to a yacht party the next night with pals, but went home alone.

Dozens of men flooded her Twitter and Instagram accounts with messages offering to spend the last night in bed with her.

But she took none of the guys up, and instead spent the whole night with female pals at Greystone Manor Supperclub in West Hollywood, she said.

An ancient Mayan calendar had predicted the end of the world would strike at 6:11 a.m. yesterday.

Additional reporting by Amy Stretten in LA

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Investors shuffling assets ahead of fiscal cliff

Some citizens aren’t waiting to find out if the White House and Republicans in Congress will be able to reach a last-minute deal to pull the country away from the “fiscal cliff.”

They are selling securities while capital gains tax rates are still low or transferring millions into trusts for the benefit of children and grandchildren before estate tax laws become more stringent. Others are getting out of the markets and parking money in less risky accounts.

Miami financial planner Cathy Pareta has been counseling her upper middle class clients — “the Johnsons, not the Rockefellers” — on whether to adjust investment portfolios, accelerate income or realize capital gains sooner than planned.

“Some people are going to get hit hard,” said John Bacci, a financial planner in Linthicum, Md., who has gone down his client list and run projections on what higher taxes would look like for them. He’s looking at tax-friendly alternatives for some clients, such as annuities or rental property.

At year’s end, the country will leap off the “fiscal cliff” unless politicians reach a compromise on mandated spending cuts and the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts.

For most investors, the expiring cuts will mean that the tax rate for long-term capital gains will rise from 15 percent to 20 percent. Dividends also will no longer be taxed at 15 percent but treated as ordinary income, which could mean a tax rate as high as 39.6 percent. And individuals with multimillion-dollar estates will find much more of their money subject to the federal estate tax.

Estate planning lawyers say the demand is so intense that they are putting in grueling hours to set up trusts.

“It’s very stressful. We are working day and night,” said Diana Zeydel, an estate planning lawyer with Greenberg Traurig in Miami. “Were doing three times what we normally do for end-of-the-year planning.”

Zeydel said many of her clients waited until after the elections in November to gauge how the political tide would affect their future finances. This gave them little more than a month to make major decisions about their wealth.

Most observing the political jousting in Washington expect taxes will go up even if the political leaders reach a deal — they’re just not sure how much. Many aren’t taking any chances.

Jim Ludwick, a financial planner in Odenton, Md., said one client in his late 50s cashed out stock and bond funds totaling $1.7 million not long after the election and stashed the proceeds in a money market fund.

The client, anticipating a market plunge due to the “fiscal cliff” and other issues, said he spent his entire working life building up a nest egg and wouldn’t have time to wait for his portfolio to recover, according to Ludwick. The client fears it won’t be safe to re-enter the stock market for another year.

“We have a number of clients who are taking capital gains this year, expecting that if they wait until next year, they will have to pay higher taxes on those same gains,” said Daniel McHugh, president of Lombard Securities in Baltimore. Some of those clients are realizing six-figure gains but are still willing to take the tax hit now, he said.

Of course, the downside is that the stock market could take off, and these investors will miss out on even higher gains, McHugh said. But, he added: “Given the state the economy is in, that’s a very small risk.”

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Bay of Pigs invasion veterans mark 50 years since release

In the days before Christmas 50 years ago this weekend, 1,113 Bay of Pigs fighters captured by Fidel Castro’s forces and imprisoned for 20 months were finally released to a heroes’ welcome in Miami.

The first planeload of POWs arrived at Homestead Air Force Base on Dec. 23, 1962. Gaunt and betrayed by the John F. Kennedy administration, members of the proud Brigade 2506 were bused to Miami’s Dinner Key Auditorium, where waiting relatives engulfed them with hugs at a massive reunion that made front-page news. Five days later, JFK and his wife Jackie would be at the Orange Bowl to welcome them, too.

On Saturday, the 50th anniversary of those pivotal days will be observed as surviving brigade members — now in their 70s and 80s — hold a and 11 a.m. Mass and reunion at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Little Havana.

The release of the men was the one bright spot in the disastrous April 1961 CIA-backed invasion to overthrow the two-year old Castro government. Yet the fighters’ return also sent the somber message that exiles would not reclaim Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis that October had set the course of U.S.-Cuba relations until today.

Back then, it was sinking in: The Cuban exile community was in Miami to stay.

A defeated Jose Andreu, now 76, the first brigade member to sign up for the invasion, was among those who arrived home that bittersweet day.

“My wife to-be was there to meet me, along with my sister and my father,” Andreu said. “I remember hugging and crying. After leaving the auditorium, I remember being so hungry I went to a Royal Castle and my girlfriend bought me, I think, 18 small cheeseburgers.”

Among the young people waiting at the auditorium that day in 1962 was a teen-aged Ninoska Perez Castellon, there with her family to welcome her brothers and uncle, all brigade members.

“I remember being in that packed auditorium ... I can truly say as a child I viewed those men as my first heroes. I still do,” said Perez-Castellon, who grew up to become one of Miami’s most influential radio personalities.

Perez and her family still have black-and-white snapshots of the joyful reunion, showing her late grandmother proudly hugging her son.

The behind-the-scenes negotiations that finally led to the release of the brigadistas 50 years ago this week were the stuff of Hollywood movies. They involved months of haggling with Castro by everyone from a former first lady to a high-profile diplomatic negotiator who led the group that finally succeeded — a group of the prisoners’ mothers, wives and fathers who made up the Cuban Families Committee.

Their effort resulted in a now-forgotten 7,857 exodus of Cuban refugees, many relatives of the brigadistas, who arrived in cargo ships at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale from December 1962 to July 1963.

Two women in the committee played key roles — one in Cuba, motivated by a mother’s love; the other in Miami, seeking to free her husband.

Havana socialite, Berta Barreto, whose oldest son, Alberto Oms Barreto, had been captured during the invasion, made the initial contact with Castro and promised that the ransom he had set for the men would be paid. Years later, her second son, Pablo Perez-Cisneros Barreto, wrote the definitive book on the negotiations called After the Bay of Pigs, soon to be published in Spanish. “What my mother and the others managed to do, with no experience in high-level negotiating, was extraordinary,” Perez-Cisneros Barreto said.

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Facebook tests $1 fee for messages to non-friends

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook says it is testing a service that will charge users $ 1 to guarantee that messages they send to people they are not connected to arrive in users’ inboxes, rather than in an often-ignored folder called “other.”

Launched in 2011, the “other” folder is where Facebook routes messages it deems less relevant. Not quite spam, these include messages from people you most likely don’t know, based on Facebook’s reading of your social connections. Many users ignore this folder.

Now, users will be able to pay $ 1 to route their messages to non-friends. Facebook said Thursday that it is testing the service with a small percentage of individuals — not businesses — in the U.S.

“For example, if you want to send a message to someone you heard speak at an event but are not friends with, or if you want to message someone about a job opportunity, you can use this feature to reach their Inbox,” Facebook said in an online post. “For the receiver, this test allows them to hear from people who have an important message to send them.”

The company says charging for messages could help discourage spammers.

In October, Facebook unveiled another feature that lets users pay if they want more people to read their updates. For $ 7, users can promote a post to their friends, just as advertisers do.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jennifer Lawrence Fashion Time Warp

"It" girl Jennifer Lawrence is getting a lot of attention this year, and with good reason! 

The recent Golden Globe nominee has proven herself worthy of the big-screen hype thanks to the box office success of The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook. On top of that, the beauteous bombshell has become a fashion-forward phenomenon.

Related: Five Things You Don't Know About Jennifer Lawrence

Join us as we look back at Jennifer's best and worst looks of red carpet past.

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Storm brings heavy rain and wind to NYC, with regional travel delays expected

Dan Good

A storm system has brought rain and wind to the region, with travel delays expected across the northeast today.

Better bring the umbrella.

A storm system brought gusty wind and heavy rain to the northeast this morning, making for a messy New York City commute - and likely causing travel delays across the region.

A scaffolding collapse shut down a section of Bay Parkway in Brooklyn, while flooding is reported on I-278 East.

The storm also flooded roadways in New Jersey, forcing officials to close lanes on I-287 southbound in Harding Township, Morris County, as well as NJ 35 northbound in Old Bridge Township, Middlesex County.

Officials are urging drivers to slow down on bridges due to the high winds.

According to weather.com, rain should fall until the early afternoon, but the wind should continue, likely leading to widespread air delays.

The cold front's potential impacts caused NWS to issue a high wind warning for the region. NWS meteorologists expect wind gusts in the city to reach up to 55 miles per hour tonight. There's even a chance for snow.

The storm should drop temperatures into the 20s during the next few days, worrisome cold for city residents and Christmas travelers.

Newark Liberty International Airport officials issued a weather statement this morning stating that travel disruptions are likely - and urging travelers to contact their airline to check on flight statuses.

The same storm system dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of the midwest.

AP

The storm system is seen on a NOAA satellite image.

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