For a few Christmases, our extremely unmusical family would attempt to sing "The 12 Days of Christmas." It was painful to listen to, but it inevitably turned into a good opportunity for laughter—such as when my Polish grandmother sang "three Polish hens" rather than French hens. Turns out we could have been making a mockery of a secret Catholic catechetical tool.

Here are some very Catholic--and very non-Catholic--gifts: After Michelle Newcomb’s 4-year-old son said he wanted to be a priest, the Indiana mom decided to create a game just for him. Interest in her game grew, and now The Priest Game has been reproduced for sale.

When I first imagined a 108-foot Christmas tree and 40 other smaller (just 50 feet maybe?) trees adorning St. Peter’s Square and the rest of the Vatican, I couldn't help but wondering if Pope Benedict wasn’t that green after all. How old must a 108-foot Christmas tree be? How many acres of Austrian forest were decimated for the pope?

The war on Christmas has gone up a notch from heated rhetoric to plundering. It seems that outdoor nativity statues, as well as menorahs, are often stolen. So, I learned in this NPR piece, people are taking a defense step, putting GPS on Baby Jesus. Indoor nativities, thank God, are a bit safer.

There was a big Christmas display two blocks away from the house I grew up in until age 6. Every year, even when we moved out of the state, we came back to watch Santa and his sleigh rise up a pulley system in the spotlight. As impressive as that display is, it just got blown out of the water by the Holdman's display in Utah.