Christmas Story

It's not exactly in keeping with the holiday sprit, but ... A double feature of locally produced horror films is set for tonight at the Hamilton Arts Collective, 5440 Harford Road. Jamie Nash and David Thomas Sckrabulis' Two Front Teeth features a zombie Santa Claus, a dangerous flying creature with a glowing nose and a conspiracy-obsessed tabloid writer. Chris LaMartina's Book of Lore, named best horror feature at September's ShockerFest International Film Festival, focuses on a dead girlfriend, the ensuing murder mystery and a town's sordid past.

JOHN SNYDER ALWAYS enjoyed visiting his grandmother, Anna Snyder, in the Allegany County town of La Vale. Sitting at her kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee, they would exchange stories of family life, now and long ago.Over the years, Snyder came to appreciate the rich legacy of love and history his grandmother was sharing with him. In his words, "There are so many interesting stories older people can tell us. And if we don't record them, those stories...

CHILDREN IN the Sunday school programs of two area churches have their own way of spreading the good news of Christmas. They are offering the public a glimpse of the Christmas story in pageants and re-enactments of the birth of Christ at these events:A live Nativity program sponsored by St. John Lutheran Church Sunday school and the Christian Education Committee, at 7 p.m. today on the field across from the church at 300 W. Maple Road.The Nativity scene will include animals -- a calf, donkey and several sheep -- on loan from a farm.

You've already seen "It's a Wonderful Life" for the umpteen billionth time. Now what?No disrespect to Frank Capra's classic of small-town values and undying loyalty, but could you really blame the average moviegoer for wishing that, just once, when George Bailey jumps in the river to save Clarence, neither of them surfaces?Ask 10 people for their favorite Christmas movie, and nine of them will probably say "It's a Wonderful Life," if only because it's the only one they can think of (the 10th will say "Gone With the Wind," because that's the only movie of any kind he can think of)

BEIT SAHUR, West Bank -- In the village of the shepherds, Mahmoud Zawahreh lounges under an olive tree. His herd of goats forages for food on the rocky slopes of a green land where long ago a savior was born.In a field not so far away, Christian tradition holds that an angel brought "good tidings of great joy" to shepherds tending their flocks on a starry night about 2000 years ago near Bethlehem. The Christmas story is not Zawahreh's to tell. Like most of the few modern-day shepherds and goatherds left on these stone-studded hills, Zawahreh is a Muslim.

WE HAVEN'T heard much about the homeless since the Clinton administration took office nearly five years ago. Until then, homelessness was said to be the result of Republican insensitivity and the economic policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations.Vice President Al Gore thrust the homeless back into the spotlight just before Christmas when he rounded up a group of children from a Washington, D.C., homeless shelter and brought them to the Department of Housing and Urban Development where they served as props for an administration announcement to spend $865 million to help the homeless ''find homes and hope.

There are no prizes for correct answers -- you won't win a last-second free turkey or anything -- but here's today's pop-culture pop quiz. One of tonight's TV offerings is a special called "Disney's 101 Dalmations: A Canine's Tale." The not-so-tough question is, which network is showing it? If you guessed ABC, the one owned by Disney, you've hit the spot. All 101 of them."Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade" (9 a.m.-noon, WBAL, Channel 11) -- For my money, this is the only Thanksgiving Day parade in town -- especially if the town is New York City.

MY CHRISTMAS wish to all is that the warmth and good will of the season fill your holiday and that the spirit will continue throughout the coming year.To celebrate Christmas, churches in the community invite you to services scheduled Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.Christmas storyFerndale United Methodist Church, 117 Ferndale Road, presents a live Nativity and Christmas story at 6: 30 p.m. Tuesday, complete with songs from the children's choir, "Joy Noise," a family service and birthday party for baby Jesus.

Me? I'm watching the All-Star Game tonight.If you're not, may I suggest the Marx Brothers at 10 p.m. on The Disney Channel? Or if you're up for an all-day celebration, check out TBS, where they're celebrating Christmas in July with a day full of holiday movies and series episodes."

Belief can be nurtured by family, friends, religious and cultural institutions, but the moment of revelation - of claiming a significant personal relationship with one's Creator - remains a radical event.A hush descends on the world. A cold night, shepherds huddled together near their flocks on the hill. Suddenly a dazzling black angel carrying an urban African-American girl too ill with a fever to attend the Christmas pageant appears and breaks the silence with the words, "Fear not!" The shepherds, who had been terrified and cowering, now lower their arms and look up as they hear "ten million angels the sizes of children" sing "Glory to God in the highest!"

1 Hawaiian punchless: It's mediocrity at its finest, as Hawaii (7-6) hosts Notre Dame (6-6) in the Hawaii Bowl (8 p.m., ESPN). The Irish are looking to end a nine-game bowl skid. 2 Getting ready: for Jags: Learn about the Ravens' preparations for Sunday's crucial game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Ravens Report (7 p.m., MASN). 3 It's in the hole!: It's not exactly It's a Wonderful Life, but Caddyshack is worthwhile viewing anytime, even on Christmas Eve (7 p.m., Versus). 4 It's better to give: Take the money you were saving for that Mark Teixeira Orioles jersey and buy the wife something nice for Christmas.

L inda Campagna and her husband, Thomas Streib, two retired Army first sergeants who've always lived on a budget, are splurging $5,250 on a quick Christmas getaway. Their exotic destination: Cleveland. They could have stayed home on the couch and, without shelling out a dime, had a visit of sorts to the house where they'll lodge. But watching A Christmas Story on TV isn't quite as much fun as actually sleeping in Ralphie's bed. "We're spending Christmas Eve in the Christmas Story house," Campagna said.

The Virgin Mary as a fiery women's libber? Joseph as an insecure, self-doubting man? The angel Gabriel as an inexperienced, error-prone teenage boy? William Gibson's quirky, colorful and spectacular take on the Christmas story - The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut & the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree - is at Rep Stage through Jan. 4. The compendious title recalls the names given to Christmas pantomimes in Victorian England, such as Harlequin and the Old Man of the Sea, the Emperor, the Ogre, the Good Fairy, and the Princess.

As a 2004 Olympian and national sailing champion, Carol Cronin knows a thing or two about wind. The Bethesda native was named for the Category 3 storm that rearranged part of the East Coast landscape from North Carolina to Maine in 1954. But that's not how she came to write her first book, Oliver's Surprise, about a young boy and the Great Hurricane of 1938. The story was a Christmas gift last year for her 11-year-old nephew that downsized to become a paperback. More about that later.

It's a wonderful leg. On mild-mannered Cottonwood Drive in Severna Park, Raymond Murphy's "leg lamp" shows off its fishnet stocking and black stiletto heel in the front window of his home. Shaded by black fringe, the thigh is lit for almost all to admire. "I can't tell you what my wife called me," Murphy says. But it was said in love - just not love for the leg lamp, which has become a highly personal gift for fans of A Christmas Story. The 1983 holiday cult classic again airs for 24 hours on TBS beginning at 8 p.m. Christmas Eve. Although It's a Wonderful Life and A Charlie Brown Christmas probably get more attention this time of year, A Christmas Story has cultivated its own following.

It's not exactly in keeping with the holiday sprit, but ... A double feature of locally produced horror films is set for tonight at the Hamilton Arts Collective, 5440 Harford Road. Jamie Nash and David Thomas Sckrabulis' Two Front Teeth features a zombie Santa Claus, a dangerous flying creature with a glowing nose and a conspiracy-obsessed tabloid writer. Chris LaMartina's Book of Lore, named best horror feature at September's ShockerFest International Film Festival, focuses on a dead girlfriend, the ensuing murder mystery and a town's sordid past.

In a scene from the 1983 film A Christmas Story, little Ralphie Parker watches as his father opens a box marked "Fragile" to reveal a lamp in the shape of a go-go dancer's leg. "Fragilay," says Mr. Parker. "It must be Italian." On TV The 2007 World Series of Pop Culture airs on VH1 at 9 tonight.

ROBERT CLARK, 67 `Christmas Story' director Film director Robert Clark, best known for the beloved holiday classic A Christmas Story, was killed with his son in a car wreck Wednesday in Pacific Palisades, Calif., the filmmaker's assistant and police said. Mr. Clark specialized in horror movies and thrillers early in his career, directing such 1970s films as Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. His breakout success came with 1981's sex farce Porky's. In 1983, A Christmas Story marked a career high for Mr. Clark.

I HAVE TO CONFESS, IT WAS my daughter who introduced me to A Christmas Story, the movie about Ralphie Parker's quest for the BB gun even Santa thinks is a bad idea: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid." She asked for a copy several Christmases ago and, for a while, I thought she had had a conversion experience and was asking for a dramatization of the Nativity. My feelings were kind of hurt. I'd prided myself in my comprehensive management of the cultural literacy in the house - we had covered the classics from Sleeping Beauty to West Side Story - and here was a phenomenon that had gotten right by me. Now, thanks to TBS' annual 24-hour Christmas Story marathon that has begun each Christmas Eve for more than a decade, the movie is as much a fixture of our holiday as the ham after Mass and my husband's late-night gift-wrapping frenzy.

Christmas is a time for television; it's television that tells us it's Christmas. It's the electric hearth that unites the family and comforts the lonely. It fills the house with pictures of snow and skaters and charming re-created scenes from Victorian or New England life. There are two Christmases - the one with Jesus in it, and the one run by Santa Claus. And though they intersect, they also go their own way - Santa being a secular, adaptable brand available for product endorsements and personal appearances.