Santa Claus

The official, certified results of Maryland's 2012 presidential election are in, and the the winner is Santa Claus -- at least among the write-in candidates. Apparently an actual person who lives in Nevada, Claus garnered 625 votes from people who took the trouble to scrawl in his name. That leaves the political independent far behind President Barack Obama, who received 1,677,844, but put him well ahead of the next-best write-in: former U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party, with 418. Claus ran particularly strongly in Baltimore County, where 151 voters believed in him, and Anne Arundel County, where 96 had faith.

The warehouse offices are officially closed today for Christmas Day, one of the only truly inactive days of the hot stove season.   The Orioles still have a roster spot available on the 40-man. I don't expect it to be filled today, unless Santa Claus has some Independent League experience. So instead, we will take the opportunity to thank you -- the readers -- for following us throughout the year, from the January rumors to spring training throughout a long regular season and, this year, through the postseason.

Gary Kubiak was asked on a Wednesday conference call with Baltimore reporters to name his favorite Vonta Leach memory, and his answer surprisingly had nothing to do with his former fullback bowling over defenders. " Ask him if he brought his Santa Claus suit with him ," the Texans coach said. “Every year around Christmas, he would come out to the walk-through with a Santa Claus suit on that kind of brought a smile to everybody's face. Vonta is a joy to be around. Like I said, he is one of those guys that loves to play.

Christmas is a holiday of peace and joy, and most of all a time of wonder and innocence for children. It is a time of belief in magic and goodness, a day when small wishes come true. This year, in particular, we need reminding of that fact. It has been less than two weeks since a town in Connecticut was rent by unspeakable horror, an event so terrible that it spread sadness in the hearts of men, women, boys and girls across the globe. In the face of such profound grief, it feels difficult, even unseemly, to remember that miracles occur at Christmas.

On Thursday, I asked Ravens fullback Vonta Leach whether he planned to don a Santa Claus suit for the team's walkthrough Friday. Leach had a tradition of doing this when he was with the Houston Texans, but he told me Thursday that he wasn't sure whether he would do it this year because he was one of the new guys. "I'll have to see what I've got in store. I'll have to talk to some of the guys to see if it's a good idea because I am new here,” Leach said. “But it's a way to break the tension a little bit and have some fun. " I've got good news: Santa came to Owings Mills on Friday ( thanks in part to a little pleading from Ray Rice )

T he stern-looking St. Nicholas is out. The smiling Santa is in. This personnel move has occurred at Kirchmayr Chocolatiers in Timonium. Some of us see this as a change with larger implications, a shift of seasonal mood away from accountability (St. Nicholas records bad behavior in a book) and toward affability (Santa is perpetually jolly). For the past 20 years or so, the faces of the chocolate figures that Albert Kirchmayr and his crew crafted in their Baltimore area shop had a glower.

"Look at you, you have a baby ... in a bar. " Baltimore area bars and restaurants are hosting family-friendly brunches and breakfasts with Santa Claus. We've heard from the Rams Head group. Each local Rams Head restaurants is hosting a Brunch with Santa. Rams Head Shore House on the Eastern Shore is holding its event on Saturday, Dec. 10. Rams Head Tavern Savage , Rams Head Tavern Annapolis , and Rams Head Roadhouse , also in Annapolis, are hosting their holiday brunches on Sunday, Dec. 11. The family brunch will include photo opportunities and mingling with Santa Claus, and the properties will be decorated for the holidays.

Wakefield gives, gives Keith Groller Morning Call A cynic might suggest that the ultimate sports Santa would be the owners of the Clippers, Pirates and Lions, who have been giving to fans in other cities for years by putting out inferior teams. But a true sports Santa is one who gives the gift of himself as well as his possessions. That's why I suggest Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield. Wakefield won MLB's Roberto Clemente Award this year after being nominated seven previous times.

Christmas is a holiday of peace and joy, and most of all a time of wonder and innocence for children. It is a time of belief in magic and goodness, a day when small wishes come true. This year, in particular, we need reminding of that fact. It has been less than two weeks since a town in Connecticut was rent by unspeakable horror, an event so terrible that it spread sadness in the hearts of men, women, boys and girls across the globe. In the face of such profound grief, it feels difficult, even unseemly, to remember that miracles occur at Christmas.

Santa Claus is coming to Westminster."The story here is that it's not going to be a gray Christmas downtown," Mayor W. Benjamin Brown reported yesterday.Santa's prospects for making the holiday scene looked grim this week after the City Council denied a request for aid from the Westminster Business Association.The merchants said they were short of money, and asked the council to donate $240 to pay Santa's salary for several Saturday visits between Thanksgiving and Christmas.The council rejected the request on the recommendation of its finance committee, headed by Councilman Stephen R. Chapin Sr. Mr. Chapin said that making the donation would set a precedent.

Among the most memorable of newspaper editorials ever put to paper was published Sept. 21, 1897 in the New York Sun and is credited to Francis P. Church, characterized by the Newseum, a repository of the history of journalism, as a "veteran newsman. " Though published as summer was turning to fall, the subject was Christmas, as the editorial reply was to a letter from Virginia O'Hanlon, 8, who was curious as to the existence of Santa Claus. The Sun's editorial has often been republished and was even made into a movie.

Twenty years from now, I will tell people I was present at the creation. One evening last fall, my colleague Jason Toraldo walked into my office and asked if I could troubleshoot a problem he was having on Facebook. He had recently put up a page for a small business he owned and wanted to connect it to his personal account. I'm reasonably tech savvy, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. A nervous pig dressed like a middle-aged man, in slacks and an argyle sweater, was entangled in a pine tree and a string of colorful lights.

Sister Mary Eunice loves two things: killing and encouraging others to kill. She does plenty of both in this episode. Her newest recruit: Santa Claus. Or not really Santa, but a deranged madman who is locked up for killing 18 people from five families in one night, all while donning the traditional Santa outfit. "I'm not feeling very Christmassy,' he said before putting a bullet through the heads of a man and his wife. The scene was the first of two flashbacks showing the dangerous nature of the bearded patient.

Santa Claus came to town in a military helicopter - which makes perfect sense for my grandson, considering who his father works for - and while Mikey was all fired up about Santa's form of transportation, he wanted no part of the big guy in red who disembarked. (A very sensible response for a 2-year-old, allowed his grandfather, an overly cautious man himself.) And so the next generation begins the campaign to get their kids to trust and invest in a benign figure who (spoiler alert!

The official, certified results of Maryland's 2012 presidential election are in, and the the winner is Santa Claus -- at least among the write-in candidates. Apparently an actual person who lives in Nevada, Claus garnered 625 votes from people who took the trouble to scrawl in his name. That leaves the political independent far behind President Barack Obama, who received 1,677,844, but put him well ahead of the next-best write-in: former U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party, with 418. Claus ran particularly strongly in Baltimore County, where 151 voters believed in him, and Anne Arundel County, where 96 had faith.

Santa Claus is an official write-in candidate for president in Maryland this year, according to Maryland elections official Jared DeMarinis. Claus, an independent,  will not appear on the ballot, but he has let it be known that he's available to any voter who isn't thrilled by President Obama and Mitt Romney. While best known for his offshore haven at the North Pole, for electoral purposes Claus lists his residence as Incline Village, Nev. Claus has not yet chosen a running mate, said DeMarinis, director of the State Board of Elections Candidacy & Campaign Finance Division.

ROVANIEMI, Finland -- It all started in Asia Minor, now Turkey. A good-hearted bishop named Nicholas, the legend goes, saved poor girls from prostitution by throwing bags of gold coins through their windows and down a chimney.Over the next 1,700 years, with a little help from Dutch settlers in North America and poet Clement Clarke Moore, St. Nicholas became a merry old gent with a white beard and red suit who spends most of Christmas giving heaps of toys to good little girls and boys.Today, any child can see Santa by taking a short ride to the local shopping mall, from Tokyo to Towson.

When is a novelty no longer a novelty?Consider the case of the animated Rock Santa Collectible, last holiday season's sleeper, this year's emblem of X-mas excess.Before the seasonal hype began in earnest, the Santa quartet -- a cowboy Holly Jolly Santa, a Coca Cola-toting Santa and two traditional Santas, one black, one white, that groove to "Jingle Bell Rock" or "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" -- seemed the ideal gift item for your cynical brother-in-law. Plug Santa in, his bells jingle and belly jiggles in synergistic schmaltz and irony.

Time and time again I hear Republicans chatter about how horrible President Obama has been for the economy. One of their funniest gaffes is that Obama is a big spending, government-loving liberal. To put that in perspective: The average annual growth in federal spending under President Obama has been 1.4 percent. Compare that to George W. Bush's 7.7 percent, Ronald Reagan's 6.8 percent,George H.W. Bush's 5.4 percent and Nixon's 10.4 percent. (These figures come from the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget and Marketwatch.)

While your co-workers hover around the water cooler debating whether it matters if Mitt Romney bullied some kid in his youth, a formerly First World nation called Greece is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Why, you might ask, should Middle America pry its overworked eyes away from Jennifer Lopez gyrating around in a bodysuit on "American Idol" long enough to bother caring? Now replace "Greece" with "your bank. " It suddenly matters a little more, doesn't it? What if your bank couldn't loan you money, give you a mortgage or allow you to ring up credit-card debt, all because the bank abruptly had much less with which to leverage your lifestyle since Greece decided to finally pull itself off fiscal life support?