New York Tri-State Area Sports: Dysfunction Junction

Here are the 9 major league sports teams of the New York Tri-State Area, ranked in ascending order of current dysfunction:

9. New York Giants.

The Good: Of all 9 franchises, since getting their house in order in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Giants have given off the greatest continuous aura of competence. Even when they've been bad, as they are now, an objective observer would tend to believe that the system is in place where they could get better. Co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch are sound men, and not meddlers. General manager Jerry Reese usually knows what he's doing. Head coach Tom Coughlin is said to be about to be fired, but if he does stay another season, it wouldn't be a terrible thing.

Eli Manning has had a bad season, but he's still a competent quarterback. Odell Beckham Jr. gives the team hope. And the defense, when healthy, is as good as any in the NFL. The stadium situation is settled for at least the next 50 years, so there's no danger of the Giants moving.

The Bad: Eli may well be in decline. The running game is not good. The defense has serious injury issues. Coughlin seems like an old man whom the game has passed by.

Dysfunction Level: 4. Once a new head coach is hired, this will drop to a 3 or even a 2. The Giants need work, but they probably need less work than any of the other local teams. If that scares you, you might want to stop reading.

8. New York Islanders.

The Good: For the first time in ages, the Isles not only are playing well, but look from the top down like they know what they're doing. They seem to have sound management in place in owner Charles Wang, GM Garth Snow and head coach Jack Capuano. They have good young players that the fans believe in, led by captain John Tavares. They've got a little Playoff experience.

The arena situation is settled for at least the next 50 years: After they leave the Nassau Coliseum in the spring, they move into the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in the fall. After being on the verge of going somewhere for a few years, it's now clear that the Isles are staying on Long Island (geologically if not culturally).

The Bad: They haven't proven anything yet, not even over half a season; said Playoff experience is minimal. This is a team that, since the players from their early 1980s dynasty got old in the late 1980s, has never enjoyed prosperity for long, so their current good form could well be a mirage. Nor have Capuano or Snow proven anything in the long term. And they still play in the inadequate Coliseum until April (or maybe May).

Dysfunction Level: 5.

7. New York Rangers.

The Good: Alain Vigneault is a good head coach, and GM Glen Sather hasn't made too many missteps the last few seasons. They have genuine superstars in Martin St. Louis, Rick Nash and Henrik Lundqvist. They're battle-tested, having gotten to a Stanley Cup Finals and an additional Eastern Conference Finals in the preceding 3 seasons. Aside from St. Louis (who's 39 years old) and Dan Boyle (38), they're a fairly young team. Despite all the Devils achieved from 1995 to 2012, right now, they'd love to have the Rangers' problems, if the Rangers' strengths came with them.

The Bad: Charles Dolan is still letting his son James be the operating owner. Lundqvist is still a choker when it counts, and only an idiot would call him a "king." The whole team showed a lack of heart in losing to the Devils in the 2012 Conference Finals and folding in overtime to the Los Angeles Kings in the 2014 Stanley Cup Finals. For all the talent that the Rangers have had since the 1994 Stanley Cup, in 20 years they have proven very little: The only banners they've hung in that stretch are a Division title in 2012 and the Conference title from last season.

And, alone among the 6 venues that will be in use in the Tri-State Area starting in October 2015, the arena situation is up in the air for the Rangers and Knicks: The current Madison Square Garden's lease is up in 2023, and the City government wants a new Penn Station on the site of the Farley Post Office (across 8th Avenue from the current Garden and Station) very, very, very, very badly. And, having just spent more money to "transform" The Garden than (even with inflation factored in) it took to build the thing from scratch in the 1960s, even though they can afford to start all over again, the Dolans are not keen on having to do so -- which they might have to do within the next couple of years, given how long it generally takes to get sports buildings erected around here.

(I'm still surprised that the new Yankee Stadium, Citi Field and MetLife Stadium opened on time. The Barclays Center sure didn't. The Devils had to spend the first month of the 2007-08 season on the road because the Prudential Center wasn't going to be ready in time. Nor did Ebbets Field or Shea Stadium open when they should have, and there were still a few wrinkles to work out on Opening Day of the renovated old Yankee Stadium in 1976.)

Still, even with the Garden question unsettled, the Rangers are better off than most teams in the Area. Dysfunction Level: 5. If we knew what was going to happen with The Garden, this would be no more than a 3.

6. Brooklyn Nets.

The Good: By Net standards, mediocre (13-15 after yesterday's win over the Celtics in Boston) is good. The ownership situation appears to be settled: Mikhail Prokhorov (who owns 80 percent) and Bruce Ratner (who owns the other 20 percent) can afford to keep a New York sports team running. The arena situation is settled for the next 50 years.

The NBA's Eastern Conference is weak: If the current standings hold until the end of the season, the Nets will have the 8th seed in the Playoffs in spite of their sub-.500 record. If that remains the case, they would face the top seed, currently the Toronto Raptors, who scare no one, so the Nets could actually advance in the Playoffs. Indeed, right now, the Nets stand a better chance of making the Playoffs in 2015 (counting the next Giants and Jets season as "2015" even though the Playoffs will be in 2016) than any Tri-State Area team other than the Rangers and Islanders, and stand a better chance of winning a Playoff round than any Tri-State Area team other than the Rangers.

The Bad: By the standards Prokhorov set when he bought the team, mediocre is unacceptable, especially since this is now his 5th year as majority owner. (I know: Using the term "five-year plan" in connection with a Russian is risky -- but then, Josef Stalin was Georgian, not Russian.) With the way the Russian economy is going, the possibility of Prokhorov going under can't be simply brushed off. Billy King is the general manager, and he didn't do much in the same job with the Philadelphia 76ers. Lionel Hollins was a very good player in his time, but he hasn't shown much as a head coach in the NBA.

The Nets are old: Of the 15 men on the roster, 5 are at least 30, and only 6 are under 25. The current best player, Deron Williams, is already 30, and I suspect he won't have much left by the time he's 35. Leadership is an issue: The closest thing the team has to a veteran with significant presence is Kevin Garnett, and at 38, how much playing future does he have left? If the Nets don't bring in some new people between now and the trading deadline, and then in the 2015 off-season (including drafting well), any good done with a nice Playoff run might vanish quickly.

Dysfunction Level: 5 -- and if you grade the Nets on a curve, relative to their history, that could be as low as a 3.

5. New York Yankees.

The Good: Management is stable: Hank Steinbrenner is operating owner, Brian Cashman is general manager, Joe Girardi is field manager; all have things to prove, but all have proven things before. A major weakness in coaching, hitting instructor Kevin Long, has been removed. Injuries are healing. Dellin Betances looks ready to step in as closer in place of David Robertson. The stadium situation is settled for at least the next 50 years.

The Bad: Veteran leadership is an issue in the wake of the retirement of Derek Jeter this year, and of Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte the year before. Injuries are still an issue for stars like Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran and CC Sabathia. It's impossible to know for sure if Betances is ready for the closer role until he's had a few outings in it. The rotation currently consists of 4 guys who would be very good if healthy but are currently injury-induced question marks (CC, Masahiro Tanaka, Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova), and a new acquisition who isn't exactly proven (Nathan Eovaldi, and the Yankees have been burned by former Miami Marlins pitchers before).

The cloud of A-Rod's PED use still hangs over the team. On a (more or less) separate note: Even though he is eligible to play for them again starting on Opening Day, he's 39 (he'll turn 40 in July), and he's essentially been sidelined for a year and a half; nobody can seriously expect him to both be healthy and produce like the A-Rod of 2009, or even that of 2012.

The American League East is as balanced as it's been since the late 1980s; there is no creampuff team in the Division. And just because Hank, Cash and Joe are in charge doesn't mean all of them should be.

Dysfunction Level: 6. If the injuries clear up, and everybody plays the way they were expected to, this could drop to a 2 -- through September, and October would be likely. But in October, with the history that some of these guys have, it would go back up to a 4.

4. New Jersey Devils.

The Good: Never count out GM Lou Lamoriello. No matter how bad it gets on the ice or on the bench, Devils fans will always have faith that "Lou's working on it." There's some good young talent, including both goalies, Cory Schneider and Keith Kinkaid. (Hard to believe, but replacing the great Martin Brodeur turned out not to be a major issue.)

The ownership and finance issues, which for the 2nd time in 19 years raised the possibility (even with the Prudential Center) of the NHL allowing the Devils to be moved out of the Tri-State Area, have been put to rest. The arena situation is settled for the next 50 years; while we don't know how far the team is going, as far as the Playoffs are concerned (if at all), the franchise isn't going anywhere.

The Bad: The team is owned by Apollo Global Management, an investment firm, with Joshua Harris as operating owner. Through him, AGM also owns the 76ers. The Sixers lost their 1st 18 games this season and are currently 4-24 -- though that does mean that they're a reasonable 4-6 since that horrible start. So, as bad as the Devils are, they're not the worst team their owners own. But how discouraging is it that the Sixers' owners also own the Devils?

The coaching situation just went from bad to huh? Firing Peter DeBoer was a necessity, but replacing him with Adam Oates and Scott Stevens? With Lou himself also being on the bench? You can't replace somebody with nobody, but, essentially, Lou replaced a nobody with 3 somebodies who might not add up to 1 somebody.

Overall, the team is among the oldest in the 4 major North American sports leagues. (Counting MLB's 2 "leagues" as 1.) Having the aging, oft-injured, uninspiring Bryce Salvador as captain is awful. The defense needs serious work, although having Stevens, a man you cross at your own peril, handling it is a plus. And the team needs more goals, and having Oates, one of the great assist machines in NHL history, on the staff can only help so much.

Dysfunction Level: Dropped from a 7 to a 6 yesterday. Much depends on how the coaching triad works out. Depending on who the Jets hire, the Devils currently stand as the Tri-State Area's biggest sports question mark.

3. New York Mets.

The Good: Rebuilding is underway. Sandy Alderson has a sound baseball mind. Terry Collins is not a terrible manager. The Mets have David Wright who, in the wake of Jeter's retirement and A-Rod's suspension, is now, beyond any question, the biggest baseball star in New York. (This is the first time the Mets have had that since Tom Seaver's 1983 comeback; even at the Mets' peak, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were not bigger than Don Mattingly.) The one major injury, to starting pitcher Matt Harvey, is healing, and he should be ready to go for Opening Day.

The rotation, while not having anyone spectacular (not even Harvey), is solid, so the Mets should, at least, be in most of their games: Barring a disastrous injury patch, they are not likely to be 90-or-more-games losers. The stadium situation is settled for at least the next 50 years.

The Bad: As usual, if the Mets had the Yankees' problems, and no worse, they'd be a lot better off. Fred Wilpon is still letting son Jeff be the operating owner, and the Wilpons make the Dolans look brilliant by comparison. The team's finances are still in disarray: The chances of signing, say, Justin Verlander or Mike Trout when their contracts run out are remote at best. Collins has never been an especially good manager.

Aside from Wright, the team doesn't hit enough: Too many players are in the Dave Kingman mold of hitting the ball far when they connect, but striking out enough to still be a liability. And Wright has nearly always disappeared in the clutch -- not that the Mets have had very many big games since September 2008. The National League East is likely to be tough again.

Dysfunction Level: 8.

2. New York Knicks.

The Good: Phil Jackson is (supposedly) in charge. Derek Fisher had no coaching experience coming into this season, but is universally respected for what he did, and how he conducted himself, as a player. Carmelo Anthony is still capable of being one of the most exciting players in the game.

The Bad: At this writing, the Knicks are 5-26; only the 76ers (by 1 game) have a worse record. Fisher looks in over his head. Speaking of over his head, guess who's hanging there? It may not be what Jackson intends, but it sure looks to an observer as if Jackson is the general, telling the regimental commander (Fisher), "You launch the first wave of the attack, and take the brutal losses that will lull the enemy into a false sense of security. And if you die in their counterattack, well, that's just too bad. I'll tell your wife you died a hero... and then seduce her out of her grief with my charm, my general's salary, and my 13 winning wars." (Two as a player, 11 as a head coach.) No matter what happens this season, people will blame the players, Fisher, Dolan, previous head coach Mike Woodson, actual GM Steve Mills, previous GM Glen Grunwald, the inventor of the salary cap, maybe even still find a way to hang this on Isiah Thomas... anybody but The Zen Master.

'Melo is a selfish player, not a team guy. Aside from him, the biggest names on the Knick roster are Stoudamire (Amar'e, not Tim), Tim Hardaway (Jr., not Sr.) and J.R. Smith (not that one). Like I said, the biggest names, not the best players. Seriously: Aside from Carmelo, is there any player on the Knick roster likely to make an opponent say, "Aw no, I don't wanna play against him"?

Also, James Dolan is the operating owner. Since he got that role, 14 years ago, the Knicks have won exactly one Playoff series. And then, of course, there's the question of where the Knicks are going to play when The Garden's current lease runs out. Can you imagine the Knicks playing a home game anyplace not named Madison Square Garden? Can you imagine the Knicks playing at the Barclays Center? I think the Nets would have something to say about that, something along the lines of, "Oh, hell to the no!" Can you imagine the Knicks playing in the Prudential Center, or at an oh-so-slightly refurbished Meadowlands Arena -- the New York Knickerbockers in New Jersey? If the Dolans and The City don't come to some sort of agreement soon, it may come to that.

Dysfunction Level: 9 -- and it hasn't been lower than an 8 since Jeff Van Gundy was still the head coach, nor is it likely to be in the near future.

1. New York Jets.

The Good: Um, don't help me, don't help me... Owner Woody Johnson does appear to be about to fix the team's 2 most visible issues: Firing GM John Idzik and head coach Rex Ryan. (There's a rumor going around that Rex has already cleaned out his desk.) If both firings happen, Jet fans will be overjoyed, and will probably give both new hires, whoever they turn out to be, a pass on whatever goes wrong next season, chalking it up to rebuilding and the damage left behind by the previous regime. And... uh... well, the stadium situation is settled for at least the next 50 years.

The Bad: Just about everything else, at least until Idzik and Ryan are replaced. The Rexperiment, which was so close to ultimate success just 4 years ago, has utterly and spectacularly failed, as the Chris Christie of Coaches never figured out that bluster is no substitute for leadership, and swagger is no substitute for competence.

And speaking of competence, there was a video on the team website which suggested that Idzik was out. It's been taken down, but the damage is done: No matter what Idzik has done (and it certainly wasn't done with intention of malice), he deserved better than that. This is the kind of horseshit thing that has marked the Jets as a joke franchise through most of their 55-season history, in the AFL and the NFL, in the Polo Grounds, Flushing Meadow and the Meadowlands.

The offense is a shambles: It turned out that Mark Sanchez wasn't the problem after all. The defense, so often the Jets' hallmark when they're good (as it usually is for the Giants as well), and supposedly Rex's specialty, has become awful. The roster needs just about a complete overhaul. No matter who gets hired as HC & GM, it would be a shock if the Jets got back to .500 in 2015. It will probably take 3 full drafts & free-agent seasons to make them a contender again. So, judge the new hires in December 2017. (Yeah, I know, it seems a long way off. I'm old enough to remember when 1990 seemed like "the future.")

Dysfunction Level: 9.8. The only thing stopping the Jets from being a perfect imperfection of 10 is the belief that Woody isn't going to stick with Idzik and Ryan. If he does, well, in the immortal words of Christopher Guest, "These go to 11."

So, to recap:

9. Giants: 4
8. Islanders: 5
7. Rangers: 5
6. Nets: 5
5. Yankees: 6
4. Devils: 6
3. Mets: 8
2. Knicks: 9
1. Jets: 9.8

Understand this: I take no pleasure in the Jets being so dysfunctional. Besides, if you're a Jet fan... Tell me that you disagree. Go ahead. Give me your reasons.

Devils: Free At Last, Free At Last... Wait a Minute...

(Shown: A well-endowed woman and a big boob.)

After nearly a year of me hoping it would happen, and after half a season of me writing, "How many more games, Lou?" on Facebook and Twitter...

New Jersey Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello has finally fired head coach Peter DeBoer.

As Balki Bartokomous (played by Bronson Pinchot) would have said on Perfect Strangers, "Now, we are so happy, we do the Dance of Joy!"

Or, as Dr. Martin Luther King might have said, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

That joy didn't even last 24 hours: This morning, we found out who the Big Bald Cheapskate named to be head coach before tonight's game with the despised New York Rangers.

No one.

Instead, 3 men will be behind the bench, none an official head coach: Lou himself, club legend and former assistant coach Scott Stevens, and Adam Oates, a former Devils assistant coach and a legend for a few teams (none of them the Devils).

This setup will be in place against our most hated rivals -- in their building, so you can imagine the pisstakes that the Scummers will have in The Garden.

To put this in perspective: Imagine...

* Before a series against the Red Sox at Fenway Park, George Steinbrenner firing Art Howe as Yankee manager, and hiring Gene Michael, Mariano Rivera and Jim Edmonds.

* Before a game against the Patriots at Foxboro, Woody Johnson firing Rex Ryan, and handing the reins over to John Idzik, Marty Lyons and Marshall Faulk.

* Before a North London Derby against Tottenham at White Hart Lane, Ivan Gazidis firing Tony Pulis and, instead of going back to Arsene Wenger (whose equivalent here would be Jacques Lemaire), hiring himself, Tony Adams and a far smarter version of Michael Owen.

Yeah. It's like that.

I had presumed that, since Jacques Martin -- currently in the Pittsburgh Penguins' front office, and former head coach of the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and St. Louis Blues, and formerly head coach and GM of the Florida Panthers -- had been watching the Devils' last 3 games with Lou in a luxury suite at the Prudential Center, he would be the new head coach. Maybe he still will be, because the setup in place for tonight's game against The Scum can't possibly be a long-term solution.

And I was prepared to give any new head coach a pass on criticism for the rest of the season. After all, anything that goes wrong now -- short of said as-yet-hypothetical head coach turning out to be a felon -- could be blamed on the cluelessness of Peter "De Bore," or on the Devils' stacks of injuries (now further complicated by the NHL's weird mumps outbreak having stricken Patrik Elias, now the club's most accomplished player with Martin Brodeur gone -- remember, what Jaromir Jagr's done, he didn't do for us).

Any new head coach? Many Devils fans were calling for Dan Bylsma, who guided the Penguins to back-to-back Finals including the 2009 Stanley Cup win. Some even wanted John Tortorella, whom we despised when he was Ranger head coach.

But there's an old saying: "You can't replace somebody with nobody." Today, the Devils replaced a nobody with 3 somebodies. How can that possibly work?

In the immortal words of Harrison Ford, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

Tales of Christmas Past

Some of the following actually happened, while some is taken from TV shows and movies.

Incidentally, if you can find out what was the first TV show to have a Christmas-themed episode, let me know, because I can't find it.

December 25, in the 753rd year since the founding of the city of Rome – or so Dionysius Exiguus, working in AD 525, would have us believe – Yeshua ben Yoseph was born in Bethlehem, in what is now the West Bank, Palestinian Territories. In Greek, his name (of which Joshua and Isaiah are also derivatives) became "Jesus." "Christ" is also a Greek word: "Christos" means "the anointed one."

Based on historical and astronomical evidence, and even passages in the Gospels themselves, this date is almost certainly incorrect. Besides, Jesus appears to be one of the last people in human history who would be concerned about people noticing his birthday. He’d rather we were good to each other.

Both Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and its companion series Xena: Warrior Princess had Christmas episodes, despite taking place centuries before the birth of Christ. Hercules' episode, "A Star to Guide Them," was an allegory about the Nativity story and King Herod's order of "The Slaughter of the Innocents."

Xena's series was frequently much darker than Hercules', but "A Solstice Carol," full of references to things that would become associated with Christmas in the 19th and 20th Centuries A.D., was really, really campy. Both were set around the time of the Winter Solstice, which falls on December 21 or 22 -- which is possibly the reason that the early Church set Christmas on December 25, given the difference between the Julian Calendar then in effect and the Gregorian Calendar being used now.

Christmas AD 800: Charles the Great (a.k.a. Charles Le Magne, Charlemagne and Carolus Magnus) is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome. Not that there was much about him that was holy.

Christmas 1000: The Kingdom of Hungary is founded by King Stephen I.

Christmas 1065: Westminster Abbey is consecrated in London. But the King of England, Edward the Confessor, who ordered and funded its building, is too ill to attend, and dies early the next year. Which leads us to…

Christmas 1066: William, Duke of Normandy, a.k.a. William the Bastard and William the Conqueror, is crowned King William I of England at Westminster Abbey.

As the saying goes, never go into battle with a man called “the Bastard” or “the Conqueror,” because, chances are, he earned those nicknames.

Christmas 1183: Not the best of Christmases for King Henry II, his Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their sons, the princes Richard, Geoffrey and John. The film is The Lion In Winter, and they are played by the following: Henry by Peter O'Toole, Eleanor by Katherine Hepburn, the future King Richard I (the Lionhearted) by Anthony Hopkins in his first major film role, Geoffrey by John Castle (not to be confused with Godfather actor John Cazale), and the future Magna Carta signer King John by Nigel Terry (who would be a much better King, Arthur, in Excalibur).

On an episode of The West Wing, President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) confirms that this is his favorite movie of all time. Though, uncharacteristically, the New Hampshire professor turned head of state gets Henry's quote wrong: In the film, it's, "I've snapped and plotted all my life.  There's no other way to be alive, King, and 50 all at once."

Christmas 1584: Princess Margaret of Austria is born in Graz, later to be the hometown of Arnold Schwarzenegger. She married King Philip III of Spain, and was thus Queen of Spain from 1598 until her death in 1611, from complications of childbirth, her 8th.

She was the mother of King Philip IV of Spain, Anne of Austria (later Queen of King Louis XIII of France and mother of King Louis XIV), and Maria Anna of Spain (later Empress of Emperor Ferdinand III of the Holy Roman Empire).

Christmas 1635: Samuel de Champlain, the explorer known as “the Father of New France,” dies from the effects of a stroke, at the city he founded, Quebec -- which is still a capital, of the Province of Quebec. He was 61.

Christmas 1642: Isaac Newton is born in Wolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, in the north of England. And, from what I've heard of his personality, Sir Isaac could be considered, as they say in English "football," a Dirty Northern Bastard. In other words, if you messed with him, clearly (Don't say it, Mike!) you didn't understand (Don't say it!) the gravity of the situation. (He said it... )

*

Christmas 1757: Benjamin Pierce is born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, outside Lowell. A hero of the American Revolution, he served as Governor of New Hampshire twice between 1827 and 1830. His son, Franklin Pierce, served New Hampshire in both houses of Congress, and was the 14th President of the United States. Benjamin died in 1839, having lived long enough to see Franklin elected to the Senate.

It is unknown if, when naming the character based on himself "Benjamin Franklin Pierce," Dr. Richard Hornberger (writing the book M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors under the name Richard Hooker) knew that Franklin Pierce's father was named Benjamin, although as a native of neighboring Maine, he might have. (Franklin Pierce did go to Bowdoin College in Maine.)

Christmas 1776: George Washington, under cover of darkness, leads the Continental Army across the Delaware River. The next morning, when he's gotten all his troops across to the New Jersey side, he attacks the Hessians, German mercenaries fighting for Britain, who are sleeping off their Christmas revelry. Thus is won the Battle of Trenton, thus keeping the Patriot cause alive in the War of the American Revolution.

This crossing is memorialized in an 1851 painting by, ironically, a German-born American, Emmanuel Leutze. In a further irony, the British got their revenge: In World War II, the Royal Air Force destroyed the original, by bombing the Kunsthalle art museum in Bremen. Leutze also painted a copy that hangs in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But, like Jacques-Louis David's portrait of Napoleon, on a horse rearing back, leading his troops over the Alps, the painting is factually incorrect and logistically ridiculous. Just as Bonaparte would have ridden a mule over the mountains (and there is a painting depicting that), Washington would never have stood up in his boat. Never mind making himself too easy a target, it might have made the boat tip over.

The Pennsylvania location of the start of the crossing, then known as Taylorsville, is now known as Washington Crossing, in the Township of Upper Makefield. The New Jersey location where it finished is now known as Ewing, after one of Washington's aides, General James Ewing.

Among those who took part in the crossing were some future legends of American statecraft: Alexander Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of the Treasury and, in a way, the father of American conservatism; Henry Knox, Washington's Secretary of War; John Marshall, the longest-serving and most influential Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; and James Monroe, 5th President of the United States, and who, under 4th President James Madison during the War of 1812, had the unenviable task of serving as Secretary of State and War (Defense) at the same time, probably doing his country a greater service in that war than he did in the Revolution or his Presidency.

Monroe, who was 25 at the time, is often cited as the young man sitting behind Washington in the painting, holding the flag. (That's another error: If any flags made the crossing, they would have been kept hidden. Washington was a big believer in the element of surprise, hence the night crossing.)

*

Christmas 1806: A riot in Lower Manhattan -- or what would have been considered "Midtown" at the time. Fifty members of the Hide Binders, a nativist gang of apprentices and propertyless journeyman butchers, gathered outside St. Peter’s Church to taunt Catholic worshippers leaving midnight mass. The watch prevented a serious disorder on the Eve, but on Christmas Day, Irishmen fearing a Hide Binder attack armed themselves with cudgels, stones and brickbats.

A skirmish broke out, a watchman was killed, and the Hide Binders invaded the Irishtown. The riot only ended when magistrates were able to restore order. The only people to get arrested were Irish -- a far cry from the end of the 19th Century, by which point the vast majority of the NYPD was Irish.

Traditionally, new groups have always been viewed suspiciously by the establishment in America.  The Irish, the Germans, the blacks, the Jews, the Italians, the Chinese, the Hispanics, and in more recent times the Arabs and South Asians have all, against their will, taken their turns as the targeted group. In the early days of the United States, Irish Catholics were particularly targeted and barred from holding office through a series of laws and requirements, such as a 1777 naturalization clause. The 1806 Christmas Riots occurred less than a year following the election of the first Irish Catholic to the State Assembly.

Christmas 1818: “Silent Night” is first performed, at (appropriately enough) the Church of St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, Austria. Father Joseph Mohr (1792-1848) wrote the lyrics (in German: “Stille Nacht”), and Franz Gruber (1787-1863) composed the melody.

That's Franz Gruber -- not Hans Gruber, the German terrorist played by Alan Rickman in Die Hard, which took place on Christmas Eve 1988.

Christmas 1821: Clara Barton is born in Oxford, Massachusetts, outside Worcester. She goes on to found the American Red Cross. She lived on until 1912.

Christmas 1822: Clement Clarke Moore, a theologian in New York, is asked by his children if there are any books about Santa Claus. He decides to find out, but discovers that no bookstore in town has any such book. So he writes his own version of the story, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which establishes so much of the Santa Claus legend that we know today. The story is published the following year. Moore was born in 1779 and lived until 1863.

Christmas 1826: The Eggnog Riot, a.k.a. the Grog Mutiny, takes place at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Among the cadets who took part, but was not punished, was Jefferson Davis, future U.S. Senator from Mississippi, Secretary of War under the aforementioned Franklin Pierce, and President of the Confederate States of America. Twenty cadets were court-martialed.

No. I am not making that up. There was an Eggnog Riot at West Point.

Christmas 1843: In London, moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge has a change of heart. Instead of treating it with a cry of “Bah, humbug!” he accepts Christmas the way those around him do, with the words of his employee Bob Crachit’s small, handicapped son Tim: “God bless us, every one!” The story is A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

Some may say Scrooge was corrupted by socialistic thoughts. Well, he didn't follow the suggestion of Christ that he give away all his money and possessions. The reason we celebrate Scrooge is simple: He stopped being a jerk about having great resources, and started using them for good. Liberals can celebrate him for finding his heart. Conservatives can celebrate him for doing what they say should be done: "Let the private sector do it." Like Pope Francis has been saying the rich should do, Scrooge lived up to the Christian ideal.

Christmas 1856: James Francis Galvin is born in St. Louis. The Hall of Fame pitcher was nicknamed “Pud” because he “reduced hitters to pudding.” No word on whether it was figgy pudding.

He won 365 games -- a total topped by only 4 pitchers ever -- for the Buffalo Bisons (who went out of business in 1885) and the Pittsburgh team that would be renamed the Pirates before he retired, in a career that lasted from 1875 to 1892. That career curiously stopped right before the distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound was extended from 50 feet to the now-traditional 60 feet, 6 inches, thus making it harder on pitchers.

A 2006 National Public Radio article refers to Galvin as "the first baseball player to be widely known for using a performance enhancer." The Washington Post reported that Galvin used the Brown-Séquard elixir, which contained monkey testosterone, before a single game in 1889. However, no one seemed bothered by the use of the elixir, and the newspaper practically endorsed it after the game, saying that Galvin's performance was "the best proof yet furnished of the value of the discovery."

He was poor and couldn't afford to take care of himself, and died in 1902. He was only 45 years old. I can't find a reference to the cause of his death, so I can neither confirm nor deny that the steroid he took had anything to do with it.

Christmas 1865: Fay Templeton is born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was a prominent American stage actress of the turn of the 20th Century.

Christmas 1867: Wayne Newton makes his second appearance on Bonanza as young singer Andy Walker, in an episode titled “A Christmas Story.” Jack Oakie plays his uncle and manager, who tries to con Hoss Cartwright (Dan Blocker) out of the money he's trying to raise for an orphanage in Virginia City, Nevada. But Andy is on to his uncle, and there’s a Dickensian twist to the ensuing Christmas party at the Ponderosa Ranch.

Bonanza episodes took place 99 years in the past -- established since a gravestone in a 1967 episode showed a date of death of 1868. It's odd that, in the supposedly progressive 1960s, the 3 most progressive TV shows were Bonanza, which took place nearly a century in the past; Star Trek, which took place 3 centuries in the future; and The Twilight Zone, which, as Rod Serling's narration suggested, took place in "another dimension."

As Trek creator Gene Roddenberry remarked, it was easier to get an allegory about a problem with current American life on television if it wasn't depicting current American life -- or even life on Earth at all.

None of the 5 Star Trek TV series yet produced ever had a Christmas episode, although there was a reference to a Christmas party in the original series episode "Dagger of the Mind," and a Christmas scene in a fantasy sequence in the film Star Trek: Generations. So Christmas still exists in the future suggested by Star Trek.

Christmas 1868: In one of his last official acts as President, Andrew Johnson pardons all Confederate soldiers from the American Civil War, for any crimes they may have committed against the United States.

Christmas 1870: Chaja “Helena” Rubinstein is born in Krakow, Poland. She becomes a cosmetics tycoon, and lives on until 1965.  Those of us who grew up on PBS' childrens' programming in the 1970s and '80s know her name from the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, which contributed funding for Sesame Street, The Electric Company, et al.

Christmas 1875: “Young Tom Morris,” an early golf legend, and the son of an early golf legend known as Old Tom Morris, dies in his native St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. He is only 24. He had recently played a match in terrible weather, and probably caught pneumonia.

Although it would be a Scotsman, Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, it would be decades before it could have saved Young Tom, who had also recently lost his wife and child in childbirth, and, between his grief and his illness, may have lost the will to live.

Old Tom Morris, born in 1821, lived on until 1908. St. Andrews, home of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, and the site of 27 British Opens (but never, as yet, a Ryder Cup), is still "the Home of Golf," partly because of the legacy of the Tom Morrises.

Christmas 1876: Muhammad Ali Jinnah is born in Karachi, British India. He becomes the founder of the nation of Pakistan in 1947, but lives only a year after its establishment.

Christmas 1878: Louis Chevrolet is born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. A pioneer of auto racing, he founded the car company that bears his name. Which may also make his company the source of Eartha Kitt’s Christmas 1953 request: “Santa baby, a ’54 convertible, too, light blue.” He did not live to hear that song, dying in 1941.

Christmas 1884: Evelyn Nesbit is born in Tarentum, Pennsylvania. She became a popular Broadway actress after getting on the “casting couch” of architect, and friend of theater producers, Stanford White.

After marrying playboy Harry Thaw, a fellow Pittsburgher, she saw Thaw murder White, in the roof garden of the second Madison Square Garden (which White had designed), on June 25, 1906, resulting in “the Trial of the Century,” making her the most familiar woman in America thanks to the era’s “yellow journalism.”

Her life was a disaster after that. Before her death in 1967, she said of the only man she truly loved, “Stanny White died. My fate was worse: I lived.”

Christmas 1886: A meeting of workers of the Dial Square Shop of the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, Kent (now part of Southeast London) is held at the nearby Royal Oak pub. The men involved had played football under the name Dial Square 2 weeks earlier, defeating Eastern Wanderers 6-0 at Millwall's ground on the Isle of Dogs. Now, they formalize themselves, calling themselves Royal Arsenal Football Club.

They would turn professional in 1893, necessitating a name change, since a professional sports team was not permitted to have "royal" in its name. So they renamed themselves for their locality: Woolwich Arsenal. In 1913, they moved across the River Thames to the Highbury section of North London, and became simply Arsenal Football Club.

When they play at home right before Christmas, their fans are known to sing, "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, Santa is an Arsenal fan, and at Highbury today!" This is despite the fact that, in 2006, they moved from the old Arsenal Stadium, nicknamed Highbury, and into the Emirates Stadium. When their last game before Christmas is on the road, the fans sing, "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, oh what fun it is to see The Arsenal win away!"

Christmas 1887: Conrad Nicholson Hilton is born in Socorro County, New Mexico Territory -- it wouldn't become a State until 1912. Sadly, the hotel icon, who lived until 1979, is now best known for his socialite great-granddaughters, Paris and Nicky. He was recently played by Chelcie Ross on Mad Men.

Also on this day, Glenfiddich single malt Scotch whiskey is first produced.  Merry Christmas, indeed. Of course, this may also bring us back to the subject of the Hilton sisters.

Christmas 1890: Robert LeRoy Ripley is born in Santa Rosa, California. Yes, he was born on a Christmas Day – believe it or not!

Actually, a lot of the items he put in Ripley's Believe It Or Not were stone-cold lies that he just liked.  But some of them were true. He died in 1949.

Also on this day, in Lancashire, England, soccer hooliganism, if not "invented," was first exposed to a wide audience. Blackburn Rovers played a home match at Ewood Park against nearby team Darwen. Rovers were due to play West Midlands club Wolverhampton Wanderers the following day, Boxing Day, and so fielded a weakened team. This infuriated the fans, particularly as ticket prices had been increased for the game.

When the Darwen team appeared, the fans urged them to leave the pitch, which they did, later re-emerging with their second eleven. Eventually, Blackburn and Darwen fans invaded the pitch, pulling up the goal posts and threatening to wreck the press box. The police intervened and finally managed to control the situation.

Christmas 1897: Actually, the "Yes, Virginia" editorial was published in the New York Sun on September 21 of this year. Laura Virginia O'Hanlon, later Laura Douglas, lived on until 1971.

Christmas 1899: Humphrey DeForest Bogart is born in Manhattan. Listen, sweetheart, if you don’t have a Merry Christmas, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

Bogie died from smoking in 1957, but he may still be the most beloved actor in American history.  "Here's looking at you, kid."

*

Christmas 1902: Barton MacLane is born in Columbia, South Carolina. Like Bogie, he developed a reputation for playing tough guys, especially cowboys and cops. He died in 1969.

Christmas 1905: Della Young has just $1.87 – about $34 in today’s money – not enough to buy a Christmas present for her husband Jim. She goes to a woman who buys hair, has her long hair cut, and receives $20, enough money to buy a platinum fob chain to go with the watch that Jim owns and loves.

As it turns out, Jim sold the watch, and used the money to buy hair-care products for Della, which, now, she can't use until her hair grows back to a respectable length.

This story was “The Gift of the Magi,” by William Sydney Porter, a.k.a. O. Henry, and is included in his 1906 collection of stories, The Four Million, named for what was then the population of New York City. It has been copied many times, as you'll see below.

Supposedly, Porter wrote it at Healy's, which is now Pete's Tavern, and claims origination as the Portman Hotel in 1829, thus making it (or so they say) the oldest continuously run bar in New York. It's at 129 East 18th Street at Irving Place, in Manhattan's Gramercy Park.

Christmas 1907: Cabell Calloway III is born in Rochester, New York. “Minnie the Moocher” is not exactly a Christmas carol, but on December 25, Cab Calloway might’ve sung it, “Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-ho-ho-ho!” He died in 1994.

Christmas 1908: Denis Charles Pratt was born in Sutton, Surrey, England, outside London. He was better known as the author Quentin Crisp. He lived until 1999.

Christmas 1913: Alvin Morris is born in San Francisco. Known professionally as singer and actor Tony Martin, he starred on the Burns & Allen radio show, and married Alice Faye and Cyd Charisse. He and Charisse were married from 1948 until she died in 2008. He died in 2012.

Christmas 1914, 100 years ago today: Upon hearing German soldiers sing Christmas carols in their trench on the Western Front of what was then called The Great War (later World War I), the British soldiers start to do so in theirs. Soon, the men on both sides come out of their trenches, and stop treating each other as enemies for a few hours, exchanging food, drinks, and trinkets. It becomes known as the Christmas Truce.

Legend has it that there was even a soccer game. Sorry, forgot to “speak English” there: A football match. It's not clear which side produced the ball, but according to most accounts that discuss the match, the Germans beat the English, 3-2.

The first time, but not the last, that Englishmen would be defeated by Germans at their national game.  But, as Sir Alf Ramsey pointed out before the 1966 World Cup Final, twice in the 20th Century, the English (well, the British, and their allies) would beat the Germans at their national game (war), and on their soil no less.

Military historian Andrew Robertshaw (a technical advisor for the film version of the World War I story War Horse) says such a truce would have been unthinkable a year later: "This was before the poisoned gas, before aerial bombardment. By the end of 1915, both sides were far too bitter for this to happen again."

In 1997, Garth Brooks and Joe Henry wrote a song titled "Belleau Wood" for Brooks' album Sevens.  It describes a Christmas truce between American and German soldiers at Belleau Wood in 1917. But this is fiction, as the battle of Belleau Wood took place in June 1918, in Aisne, Picardy, France.

Christmas 1924, 90 years ago: Submitted for your approval: Rodman Edward Serling is born in Syracuse, New York, and grows up in Binghamton. Rod Serling died in 1975, at age 50, from smoking-induced heart attacks.

But he hopes you have a Merry Christmas. He sends you this greeting… from The Twilight Zone. (His opinion of the “Twilight Saga” books and films is unrecorded.)

Christmas 1925: Ned Franklin Garver is born in Ney, Ohio, outside Toledo. In 1951, he went 20-12 pitching for the St. Louis Browns, the team that became the Baltimore Orioles 3 years later. This was quite a feat, considering that the Browns went 52-102 that year. Garver was the starting pitcher for the American League in that year's All-Star Game in Detroit.

Pitching in the major leagues from 1948 to 1961, with mostly bad teams, Garver finished with a career record of 129-157. But he must have had some talent, above and beyond his remarkable 1951 season, because the great Ted Williams said, "He could throw anything up there and get me out." He is still alive, age 89.

Christmas 1926: Emperor Yoshihito of Japan dies of a heart attack, brought on by pneumonia.  He was only 47. He is succeeded by his son, who becomes Emperor Hirohito.

Christmas 1927: Jacob Nelson Fox is born in St. Thomas, Pennsylvania. Nellie Fox, a diminutive but crafty 2nd baseman, had his Number 2 retired by the Chicago White Sox, whom he led to an American League Pennant in 1959, resulting in his being named the AL's Most Valuable Player. Yankee pitching legend Whitey Ford called him the toughest out he ever faced, and author, radio show host and White Sox fan Jean Shepherd called him his favorite player of all time.

Along with his contemporaries Phil Rizzuto, Gil Hodges and Richie Ashburn, and the younger Ron Santo, Fox was one of those guys that everyone hoped would one day get into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but wondered why it was taking so long. Rizzuto lived long enough to make it, in 1994. So did Ashburn, in 1995. Fox didn't, dying of skin cancer in 1975 and getting elected in 1997. Santo didn't, either, dying in 2010 and being elected in 2012. Hodges died in 1972, and his supporters are still waiting.

Christmas 1928: Nellie Elizabeth McCalla is born in Pawnee City, Nebraska, and grows up in Iowa. Known professionally as Irish McCalla, she was a model, one of pinup artist Alberto Vargas' "Varga Girls." She got into movies in the early 1950s, and in the 1955-56 season starred in Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. By her own admission, "I couldn't act, but I could swing through the trees."

She left acting for art, her last role being on an 1963 episode of 77 Sunset Strip, and became an accomplished painter. But her status as an action-adventure hero -- the female one on TV -- kept her in demand at nostalgia and sci-fi/fantasy conventions. She died in 2002.

*

Christmas 1930: Eliot Ness discovers that an old friend and informant of his, Hap Levinson (who does not appear onscreen), has been shot and killed after playing Santa Claus at a Chicago orphanage. Hap turns out not to be the first victim in a series of killings. Ness finds out what's going on and who's to blame.

This was on an episode of The Untouchables. Oddly, it did not air anywhere near Christmas, but rather on September 25, 1962. Ness was a real person, but this story is entirely fictional. He was played by Robert Stack on the TV series, and by Kevin Costner in the 1987 film version.

Christmas 1932: King George V delivers a Royal Christmas Message to the British Empire, broadcast live over the BBC and its Worldwide Service, thus beginning a tradition.

Christmas 1934, 80 years ago: A rare Christmas Day-Boxing Day soccer doubleheader begins, as North London club Arsenal, the 2-time defending Football League Champions, defeat Lancashire club Preston North End 5-3, at Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury. The next day, Preston get revenge, 2-1 at their home ground of Deepdale.

By the 1970s, England's Football Association would stop allowing Football League games to be played on Christmas Day. To this day, however, they are still played on  the day after, a.k.a. Boxing Day, usually neighboring rivals to save on travel costs.

Christmas 1935: Anne Roth is born in Manhattan. We know her as Anne Roiphe, a novelist whose works include the "feminist classic" Up the Sandbox, published in 1970.

Christmas 1937: Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra on radio for the first time, beginning a tenure that lasts 17 years. His selections include Antonio Vivaldi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Johannes Brahms.

Also on this day, O’Kelly Isley Jr. is born in Cincinnati.  A very different kind of musical legend, he was the eldest of the singing Isley Brothers, he grew up and go their start in Teaneck, New Jersey -- eventually starting T-Neck Records.

He and his brothers Ronald and Rudolph (no, he wasn't born on Christmas, and didn't have a red nose) wrote "Shout!" (As in, "We-e-e-e-e-e-ll... You know you make me wanna SHOUT!") They also wrote "Nobody But Me" (as in, "No no, no, no no, no no no no no... Nobody can do the SHINGALING! like I do... "), which didn't chart for them, but became a hit a few years later for the Human Beinz. O'Kelly died in 1986.

Christmas 1938: Karel Capek dies of pneumonia in Prague, in what was then Czechoslovakia.  The science fiction pioneer was only 48. His 1922 play, Rossum's Universal Robots, contained the first published example of the use of the word "robot." He claimed the word was coined by his brother Josef, meaning "serf labor," essentially labor without any choice, as a robot could be programmed to do.

Karel had refused to leave his homeland after the Nazis annexed it, and this stress, combined with a spinal condition that made life very painful, may have contributed to his early death. Josef, a painter and a writer in his own right, didn't live much longer, as the Nazis sent him to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died in 1945, age 58.   

Christmas 1939, 75 years ago: Ralphie Parker actually gets his Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass and this thing which tells time built right in to the stock. (This particular model did not exist in real life.) And doggone it if, but for the grace of God and his glasses, he doesn’t come near to really shooting his eye out!

The film is A Christmas Story, narrated by the author of the original story, Jean Shepherd (who has a cameo as a parent standing on line with his son for Santa Claus in the store).  Shepherd grew up in Hammond, Indiana, outside Chicago, although he was older than Ralphie, as 1939 was the year he graduated from Hammond High School.

In the film, Cleveland stands in for both Chicago and Hammond. Cleveland's Public Square is easily identifiable, with its big Civil War memorial in the center, the Terminal Tower (built in 1930), and Higbee's department store, which has since been turned into Horseshoe Casino Cleveland, although the Higbee's sign seen in the movie is still there.

Ralphie is played by Peter Billingsley. He is now 43, and while he still acts, having appeared in the first Iron Man film, he mainly produces films now, and has begun directing as well.

Something tells me that, for Christmas 2014, there won't be too many guns, real or toy, given to kids.

*

Christmas 1940: Pal Joey, a musical based on the novel by John O'Hara, premieres at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre at 243 West 47th Street in New York. It includes the songs "Chicago" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." It stars Gene Kelly, Vivienne Segal, June Havoc, Van Johnson and Stanley Donen.

It's better known for the 1957 film version, starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak. In spite of Sinatra having done the best-known versions of both "My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)" and "Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)," the song "Chicago" in this musical is neither one of those.

Also on this day, South Side Park in Chicago burns down. It was the 1st home of the American League's Chicago White Sox (1901 to 1910), and of the Negro Leagues' Chicago American Giants (1910 to 1940). The American Giants won 7 Pennants while playing there, the White Sox 2.

Also on this day, Tommy Lawton plays for Everton against Liverpool at Anfield in the morning, and as a guest player for Tranmere Rovers at Crewe Alexandra in the afternoon. Liverpool won 3-1. I can’t find a record of the result of the Tranmere-Crewe match.

Christmas 1944, 70 years ago: Jair Ventura Filho is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Known as Jairzinho and nicknamed O Furacão (The Hurricane), he starred with hometown club Botafogo and the Brazilian national soccer team, and won World Cups for his country in 1962 and 1970. He is still alive, and currently manages a team in the lower divisions of Brazil's league system.

Christmas 1945: Billy Bailey, co-director of the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan, of Bedford Falls, New York, with his late brother Peter’s son George, loses $8,000 meant for the firm’s accounts -- about $105,000 in today's money. Unable to come up with the money, George runs into one awful occurrence after another, and wishes he’d never been born.

An angel named Clarence Goodbody shows him what the world (or, at least, his home town) would have been like if that had been the case. George changes his mind, and finds that all the people he’d selflessly helped over the years have come to pay him back, to show him that, in the way that matters, he’s “the richest man in town.”

The film is It’s a Wonderful Life, and George is played by James Stewart, Billy by Thomas Wilson, and Clarence by Henry Travers.

(For the record: In the "bank run" sequence, set in 1932, $242 then would be $4,171 today; $20 would be $344.75; $17.50 would be $301.65; and the $2 the Baileys ended up with would be $34.48.)

ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel recently showed what the film would have looked like from the perspective of the villain, Henry Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore.

On the same day, in real life, Noel Redding is born in Folkestone, Kent, England. He was the guitarist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He died in 2003.

Also, Rick Berman is born in Manhattan. He became the keeper of the Star Trek flame after Gene Roddenberry died, until it was foolishly given to J.J. “Jar-Jar” Abrams.  He is still alive.

Also, Ken Stabler is born in Foley, Alabama. “The Snake” quarterbacked the Oakland Raiders to victory in Super Bowl XI. Somehow, in spite of all his carousing, he, too, is still alive.

Also, Gary Sandy is born in Dayton, Ohio. Not far from Cincinnati, where he played radio station manager Andy Travis on WKRP in Cincinnati – not to be confused with country singer Randy Travis. Sandy is still alive.

Christmas 1946: Legendary comedian W.C. Fields dies from the long-term effects of alcoholism.  He was 66. In a film, he said, "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I am indebted to her for." This saying was eventually mixed up, and has become popularly known as, "'Twas a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the decency to thank her for it."

He might have agreed with quirky singer Jimmy Buffett, born this same day in Pascagoula, Mississippi: “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame.”

Also born on this day, in Stow, Ohio, is football legend Larry Csonka. So is former baseball manager Gene Lamont, in Rockford, Illinois.

Christmas 1947: A man known only as Kris Kringle, hired to work as Santa Claus at the main Macy's store in New York's Herald Square, is committed, and his lawyer, Fred Gailey, can find only one way to get this harmless, if apparently delusional, old man out of the psych ward: By proving to a court that, just as Kris claims, he really is Santa Claus. It works, and Fred wins the heart of Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara), who had hired Kris, and her daughter Susan (Natalie Wood, 8 years old at the time of filming but playing 6).

Miracle On 34th Street was remade in 1973 and 1994. In those versions, Santa was played by Sebastian Cabot and Richard Attenborough, respectively; the lawyer by David Hartman and Dylan McDermott (by then starring as a lawyer on The Practice); Mrs. Walker by Jane Alexander and Elizabeth Perkins; and Susan by Suzanne Davidson and Mara Wilson.

For the 1973 version, the lawyer's name was changed to Bill Schafner, and Mrs. Walker's name was changed from Doris to Karen -- definitely not to be confused with the Karen Walker played by Megan Mullally on Will & Grace!

For the 1994 version, the lawyer is named Bryan Bedford, Mrs. Walker goes back to being named Doris (or, rather, "Dorey"), and, this time, fictional store names had to be used: Macy's had refused to give permission to use their name, and became "Cole's"; while Gimbel's had gone out of business, so the scriptwriters used "Shoppers Express."

Christmas 1948: Barbara Ann Mandrell is born in Houston. She, and her singing sisters Louise and Irlene, were country when country wasn’t cool. And when it was.

Christmas 1949: Mary Elizabeth Spacek is born in Quitman, Texas. “Sissy” Spacek also sang country music, playing Loretta Lynn in the film version of Lynn’s memoir Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Also on this day, Leon Schlesinger dies of a viral infection at age 65. A film producer, he was a relative of the Warner Brothers, and founded their cartoon division, leading to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and all the others.  Including Porky Pig.  So he died on a Christmas Day.  Dare I say it? I dare: "Abadee, abadee, abadee, aba, That's all, folks!"

*

Christmas 1950: Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, a surgeon with the U.S. Army at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Uijeongbu, Korea, has to leave a Christmas party there to attend to a wounded soldier in a foxhole. While still wearing his Santa Claus costume. This was on an episode of M*A*S*H. Hawkeye is played by Alan Alda.

On the same day, in real life, 4 Scottish university students steal the Stone of Scone, a symbol of Scottish heritage, from the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey in London.  The klutzy Jocks broke the Stone in two. Incredibly, they managed to get the pieces back to Scotland. Early the next year, the culprits were caught, and the Stone was returned to Westminster.

In 1996, the British government elected to keep the Stone in Scotland, until necessary to crown a new British monarch.  So far, Queen Elizabeth II (whose mother was Scottish) remains on the throne, for nearly 63 years now, and the Stone's transport back to Westminster has not been necessary.

Also on this day, Jesus Manuel Marcano Trillo is born in Caripito, Venezuela. A child born on December 25, and named Jesus? Not just Jesus, but Jesus Manuel -- as in short for "Emmanuel," meaning "God with us"? He’s better known as Manny Trillo, the 2nd baseman of the 1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Unfortunately for all of humanity, on the same day, Karl Christian Rove is born in Denver, and grows up to prove himself Christian, literally, in name only.

Christmas 1951: On another episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye pays tribute to the camp's chaplain, 1st Lieutenant (later Captain) Francis Mulcahy (played by William Christopher). And the company clerk, Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff) tells another surgeon, Major Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers) that, on Father Mulcahy's recommendation, he'd written to Charles' mother, and asked her to send something that would remind the down-in-the-dumps Boston Brahmin of happier times. She sent his old toboggan cap, and Charles was overjoyed. This time, Santa was played by Captain B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell).

Christmas 1952: On yet another episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye, B.J., Major Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit), and Father Mulcahy are called away from Mulcahy’s party for the local orphans, to tend to a wounded soldier. The soldier has no chance, but when Margaret finds a picture of his family in his pocket, B.J. goes back to work, saying, “A family’s Christmas wreaths should be green, not black.”

Despite their efforts, the patient dies at 11:25 PM. Hawkeye, seeing his best friend take it hard -- clearly thinking of his wife, Peg, and daughter, Erin, back home in the San Francisco suburb of Mill Valley, California -- moves the clock ahead, so that the time of death will read 12:05 AM, December 26.

Farrell also wrote and directed this episode. Harry Morgan played the commanding officer, Colonel Sherman Potter, and, in this episode, Potter played Santa Claus.

On yet another episode of M*A*S*H, the MASHers are celebrating Christmas with British soldiers, who tell them of the tradition of the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, which in England is celebrated with two things. Neither of which turns out to be prizefighting, as is found out by a confused Corporal (later Sergeant) Maxwell Q. Klinger (Jamie Farr), a former corpsman who, by this point, has replaced Radar as company clerk. One is noblemen trading places with their servants, to boost morale. The British Army matches this by having the officers and enlisted men switch jobs.

(The other Boxing Day tradition, not mentioned on the show, is, as I mentioned earlier, nearby "football clubs" playing each other in "derby" matches. Although there was an episode that had wounded British soldiers mentioning their country's FA Cup, including Arsenal defeating Manchester United in a match. Arsenal did not, however, win an FA Cup Final during the Korean War, their best performance being losing the 1952 Final to Newcastle United. They won the Final in 1950, right before the war, and took the 1953 League title, the last one before the war ended.)

Potter thinks the Boxing Day switcheroo is a great idea. So he becomes company clerk, and names Klinger commanding officer. Surgeon Hawkeye and Father Mulcahy become hospital orderlies. Surgeon B.J. and head nurse Margaret are assigned K.P. (kitchen patrol). Charles, a gourmet who's always complaining about the quality of Army food (though, to be fair, they all did), is assigned to be the cook. Then problems arise, and Klinger is in way over his head. And then casualties arrive, and Hawkeye says, "Just this morning, I was an orderly. And now, I'm doing abdominal surgery."

The Korean War lasted 3 years, plus 1 month. But M*A*S*H had 4 Christmas episodes. Clearly, those British soldiers had to have arrived in the half-hour remaining of Christmas 1952, between the time B.J. lost the battle to save that soldier and midnight. It couldn't be 1950, since it would have been Captain "Trapper" John McIntyre (Wayne Rogers) in B.J.'s place, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) in Potter's, and Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville) in Charles'.  And it couldn't be 1951, since Klinger has already replaced Radar as company clerk.

In real life, on Christmas Day 1952, Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder is born in Georgetown, Guyana. She became the actress CCH Pounder. (Like the Yankees’ CC Sabathia, she does not use periods.)

And the Number 1 song in America is the original version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," by Jimmy Boyd, then about to turn 14, much older than the character he's playing.  Once married to "Batgirl" Yvonne Craig, and not to be confused with the actor of the same name who played J. Arthur Crank and Paul the Gorilla on The Electric Company, this Jimmy Boyd continued singing and doing standup comedy, often opening for the various members of the Rat Pack in Las Vegas, and died in 2009.

Christmas 1953: Patrick "Patsy" Donovan dies at age 88. The native of Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland was one of the top baseball players of his time, the 1890s and 1910s. A right fielder, he batted .307 for his career, collecting 2,253 hits, playing mainly for the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.  He led the National League in stolen bases in 1900.

He also managed both teams, as well as the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Red Sox. But the only Pennant he was involved in was in his rookie year, with the Dodgers (or, as they were then known -- I swear, I am not making this up, it came from several of their players having gotten married in a single off-season -- the Bridegrooms) in 1890.

On television, Father Xavier Rojas (Harry Bartell -- far be it for a TV network in the early '50s get a Hispanic actor to play a Hispanic character) at the Old Mission Plaza Church in Los Angeles discovers that the statue of the Infant Jesus is stolen from its crib. The statue's worth is only a few dollars, but it is of great sentimental value for the parish.

L.A. Police Sergeant Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Officer Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) promise to try to get it back before mass on Christmas Day, but this means that they have less than 24 hours to catch the thief.  As was always said on Dragnet, "The story you have just heard is true. The names have been changed, to protect the innocent."

When Dragnet returned in color in the 1960s, a 1967 episode basically redid the story, this time with Detective Friday teaming with Detective Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan -- 8 years before he first played Colonel Potter).

Christmas 1954, 60 years ago: Singer Johnny Ace kills himself while fooling around with a gun backstage at a concert in Houston. According to witnesses, he was not playing Russian roulette (as the legend says), just goofing off, not intending to harm anyone, including himself. He was only 25.
Some have called him "the first dead rock star," although that title has also been given to country music icon Hank Williams.

But the world of music breaks even, as Annie Lennox is born in Aberdeen, Scotland. With Eurythmics and on her own, she is one of the world’s most beloved living singers.

Christmas 1955: Queen Elizabeth II delivers the 1st televised Royal Christmas Message, although it is in sound only over a royal coat of arms.

Also on this day, not having enough money to buy his wife Alice a proper Christmas present, Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden pawns his bowling ball. And on Christmas Eve, he finds Alice has given him a proper bag for his bowling ball.

This Honeymooners episode, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” was based on “The Gift of the Magi.” Ralph was played by Jackie Gleason, Alice by Audrey Meadows.

A year earlier, when "The Honeymooners" was still just a sketch on the hourlong The Jackie Gleason Show, Gleason played most of his characters: Ralph, Reginald Van Gleason III, Joe the Bartender, Fenwick Babbitt, and the mute, pantomiming Pour Soul.  Noticeably absent was "Charlie Bratton the Loudmouth."

Halfway across the country, in Milwaukee, Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) discovers that his pal Arthur Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) has nowhere to go on Christmas. Naturally, Richie proves that, on occasion, he can be every bit as cool as the Fonz, and invites him to have dinner with the family.  Happy Days, indeed.

This episode, titled "Guess Who's Coming to Christmas," aired in 1974 -- and it was eventually established that the show took place 19 years in the past; hence, 1955.

Christmas 1957: Charles Pathe, a pioneer in film and recorded sound, dies in Monaco, one day short of his 94th birthday.

Also on this day, Queen Elizabeth delivers the 1st visual Royal Christmas Message. She continues to appear onscreen (albeit on tape delay).

Christmas 1958: Alannah Myles is born in Toronto. Essentially a one-hit wonder, the singer of the 1990 Number 1 hit “Black Velvet” has suffered nerve damage and has difficulty moving, but she still records.  She says "medical marijuana" has helped her condition.

Someone born this day who moved a bit better was Hanford Dixon, born in Mobile Alabama. The All-Pro cornerback for the Cleveland Browns would bark like a dog at his teammates to get them psyched up, and fans in the bleachers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium would start barking along with him. Soon, he started calling that section the Dawg Pound, and they would respond by wearing dog masks and throwing dog biscuits.

Someone born this day who moved even better still was Rickey Nelson Henley, born in Chicago. His mother, who had named him after singer Eric Hilliard "Ricky" Nelson, remarried and took him to her husband's hometown of Oakland, California, and the boy was renamed Rickey Henley Henderson. A Baseball Hall-of-Famer and by far the all-time leader in stolen bases, Rickey is a legend. Just ask him.

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Christmas 1960: Fired after arriving for work late and sloshed, department store Santa Henry Corwin wanders into an alley and finds a bag filled with gifts. The spirit of the holiday is one of the few bright spots in Henry's life, and as he begins handing out the gifts, he realizes the bag is able to produce any gift a recipient requests. After a brief jail stint that ends with Henry changing the mind of his mean, skeptical former boss, he continues handing out gifts.

Soon, one of his giftees points out that Henry has taken nothing from the bag himself. All he wants? To continue playing Santa every year. The wish is granted when he finds an elf with a reindeer-driven sleigh waiting, to whisk him off to the North Pole.

This was an episode of The Twilight Zone, titled “Night of the Meek.” Henry was played by Art Carney. In 1988, Carney would appear in my favorite Christmas-themed commercial of all time, despite it being for a product I don't like, Coca-Cola: "Grandpa's magic pinecone!" The grandson was played by Brian Bonsall, who played Andy Keaton on Family Ties and Worf's son Alexander Rozhenko on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He stopped acting while in high school, and has been in punk bands ever since.

Also on this day, in Mayberry, North Carolina, department store owner and resident Scrooge Ben Weaver demands that Sheriff Andy Taylor lock up local moonshiner Jim Muggins. Muggins' family, as well as Andy's, gather to celebrate the holiday with Jim. After witnessing how Jim and Andy and their broods can turn the jailhouse stay into a warm, inviting celebration, Weaver gets himself arrested so he can be part of the fun, and he ends the holiday by getting a nip of Jim's hooch himself.

This was the only Christmas episode of The Andy Griffith Show, and was titled “The Christmas Story.” Andy was played by Andy Griffith, Deputy (and substitute Santa Claus) Barney Fife by Don Knotts, Ben by Will Wright, and Jim by Sam Edwards.

Christmas 1961: Owen Brewster dies of cancer at age 73. Governor of Maine from 1925 to 1929, and serving in both houses of Congress from 1935 to 1952, he was an ally of Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy, and nearly as reckless with his charges. His challenges to industrialist and film producer Howard Hughes allowed for his corruption to be publicly revealed, ruining his career.

In the film The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes -- and premiering on Christmas Day 2004 -- Brewster is played by Alan Alda, who once again plays a native of Maine, but one whose politics are diametrically opposed to those of his real-life self and those of Hawkeye Pierce.

Christmas 1962: The film version of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird premieres, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, and, in their film debuts, 10-year-old Mary Badham (sister of film director John Badham and now an art restorer), William Windom, Alice Ghostley, and, as the mysterious Arthur "Boo" Radley, a young Robert Duvall.

Christmas 1963: Although it's not specified, a Christmas party could be the "Oh What a Night" that produced the Four Seasons song "December 1963," a Number 1 hit in March 1976.  In real life, at Christmas '63, the Seasons -- Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Nick Massi and Tommy DeVito -- had a hit with their version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

Christmas 1964, 50 years ago: The personal life of Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) gets messy. That of Don Draper (Jon Hamm) gets even messier than it already was. And a Christmas party at the ad agency goes very wrong. This episode of Mad Men, which aired incongruously on August 1, 2010, is titled "Christmas Comes But Once a Year."

Christmas 1965: Charlie Brown, the lead character of Charles Schulz' comic strip Peanuts, wasn't the first fictional character to wonder what Christmas was all about, nor the last. Nor was he the first nor the last to get his Christmas hopes laughed at.

But, as his best friend Linus Van Pelt (voiced by Chris Shea) points out (after quoting The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, Verses 8 through 14, to remind us of "what Christmas is all about"), like the scrawny little tree that he'd found, ol' Chuck (voiced by Peter Robbins) just needed a little love. A Charlie Brown Christmas was the first Peanuts special, and it remains the best.

Christmas 1966: Agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin have to protect Chairman Georgi Koz, a foreign leader, who looks suspiciously like Nikita Khrushchev, at the United Nations. This episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was titled "The Jingle Bells Affair."

Solo was played by Robert Vaughn, Kuryakin by David McCallum, and Koz by Akim Tamiroff, who was born in the part of the Russian Empire that is now the former "Soviet republic" of Georgia, but was of Armenian descent.

Also on this day, as aspiring actress Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas) ends her shift as an elf for a department store Santa Claus, she tells her boyfriend Donald Hollinger (Ted Bessell) about her stint as a teacher in a boarding school trying to bring good tidings and joy to a boy who won't be able to go home for Christmas. This episode of That Girl was titled "Christmas and the Hard-Luck Kid." It was written by James L. Brooks. (Remember that for a few moments.)

That Girl premiered on September 8 of that year -- as did Star Trek.

Christmas 1968: The Apollo 8 astronauts become the first people of Earth to see the far side of the Moon. Upon seeing a phased Earth, appearing as the Moon usually does, from lunar orbit, the astronauts -- Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman -- take turns reading from the Bible, but the opening, the Creation story of Genesis, rather than the First Christmas story.

Also, Helena Christensen is born in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is one of the most heralded models of the last 25 years.

Also, Jim Dowd is born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Growing up in neighboring Brick, he was the first New Jerseyan to play for the Devils, and remains the only New Jerseyan to have his name on the Stanley Cup, having scored a late winner in Game 2 of the 1995 Finals against the Detroit Red Wings.

Christmas 1969: Baby's First Christmas. Well, mine, anyway. Not that I knew it.

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Christmas 1970: Felix Unger, a commercial photographer -- portraits a specialty -- asks his roommate, New York Herald sports columnist Oscar Madison, to play Scrooge in a neighborhood production of A Christmas Carol. Oscar bah-humbugs the idea, until his awful diet produces a nightmare in which he actually is Scrooge, Felix becomes Jacob Marley, and "Ebenezer Madison" sees his Christmas Past, his Christmas Present, and a possible Christmas Future. This convinces him to do the play.

This episode of The Odd Couple was titled "Scrooge Gets an Oscar." Felix was played by Tony Randall, and Oscar by Jack Klugman. Sadly, Klugman died on a Christmas Eve, December 24, 2012.

Also on this day, Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) has to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at Minneapolis TV station WJM, and so it seems that her favorite holiday is completely ruined. However, on her Christmas Eve shift, her coworkers come to the rescue, bringing the holiday spirit to her, and proving that even if the holiday isn’t in line with tradition, it can still be a wonderful night full of bright spirits.

This episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show is titled "Christmas and the Hard-Luck Kid II": It was a reference to the aforementioned episode of That Girl, written by James L. Brooks. Brooks also wrote this episode, or rather co-wrote it with Allan Burns.

Christmas 1971: The longest game in NFL history was played. The Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 24-21, in the 2nd overtime of an AFC Divisional Playoff. It was also the Chiefs’ last game at Kansas City Municipal Stadium, before moving to Arrowhead Stadium in September 1972.

Also on this day, "Christmas Day at the Bunkers" in Flushing, Queens is not merry, as Archie (Carroll O'Connor) make a mistake at work, sending an order to London, England when it should have been sent to London, Ontario. This costs him a Christmas bonus. This was the first Christmas episode of All In the Family.

Also on this day, Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong is born in the Kensington section of London. Best known for her song "Thank You" and her guest appearance in Eminem's video "Stan," Dido also sang one of the sexiest songs I've ever heard, "Who Makes You Feel." With her husband, Rohan Gavin, she had her first child, a son named Stanley, in 2011.

Also on this day, Justin Trudeau is born in Montreal to Canada's Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, and his much-younger wife Margaret. Two years later to the day, another son would be born to them, Alexandre Trudeau. Both brothers would become journalists, and Justin now serves in Parliament, as Leader of the Liberal Party, his father did before him. If the Liberals are returned to power in the next election, the Trudeaus will become Canada's first father-and-son heads of government since Britain's Kings George III and IV (and William IV, another son of George III).

Christmas 1973: Adrian Scott dies at age 61. A native of Kearny, New Jersey, he was one of the Hollywood Ten, performers, writers, producers and directors who accepted going to prison rather than testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee -- itself, one of the most un-American things in American history.

Also on this day, the film The Sting premieres, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.  The theme song is Marvin Hamlisch's arrangement of Scott Joplin's 1902 song "The Entertainer" -- although my mother and a lot of people in her generation still call the song "The Sting."

Also on this day, in another All In the Family Christmas episode, titled "Edith's Christmas Story," Archie's wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) tries to keep the holiday going despite knowing that the doctor found a lump in her breast. I don't know if this was the first time the word "breast" was used in prime time. Edith did survive the scare -- although Stapleton left the show (by then renamed Archie Bunker's Place) in 1980, and Edith's death was written into the series.

Christmas 1975: Two very different Boston legends are born. Hideki Okajima is a Japanese-born pitcher for the Red Sox, who helped them win the 2007 World Series.

And Rob Mariano is born in Canton, Massachusetts. "Boston Rob" continually wore a Red Sox cap while appearing on the CBS series Survivor, and ended up marrying his season's winner, Amber Brkich. Together, they went on to compete on another CBS series, The Amazing Race. They now live in Pensacola, Florida, and have 3 children, all girls.

Also on this day, the rock band Iron Maiden is formed.

Christmas 1976: Office of Scientific Intelligence Agent Steve Austin (Lee Majors), a former U.S. Air Force Colonel, test pilot and astronaut, discovers that an OSI project is being tampered with by a modern-day Scrooge.  So The Six Million Dollar Man uses his enhancements to create the episode's title, "A Bionic Christmas Carol," and gets the man to mend his ways.  Factoring in inflation, the $6 million it cost to "rebuild" Steve in 1973 would be about $32 million today.

Another superhero, Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter), faces down a saboteur in "The Deadly Toys."

Meanwhile, across the country, in Queens, it's Christmas dinner at the Bunkers' house on All In the Family. Gloria and Mike Stivic (Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner) invite David, an old friend of Mike's living in Canada, but choose not to tell Gloria's parents Archie and Edith that the reason David went to Canada is that he is, as the episode's title states, "The Draft Dodger." He was played by Renny Temple, who has mostly directed since the late 1980s.

Unlike most of these Christmas episodes, this one actually did air on a December 25, a day on which networks usually show reruns, thinking families will be eating Christmas dinner at the time, or show "family entertainment" films and specials.

Archie had also invited a friend, Pinky Peterson (Eugene Roche), whose son had asked him whether he should accept being drafted into the Army and fight in Vietnam, or run away to Canada. Pinky advised him to obey the law, and accept being drafted.  Pinky's son was killed, making Pinky a "Gold Star Father." Also a widower, Pinky was thus alone on Christmas, and Archie, in a gesture of humanity not often seen from him, thought Pinky could use the company.

When Archie finds out about David, he rants and raves, until Pinky asks if his opinion means anything. Archie, citing Pinky's circumstances, says his opinion means more than anyone else's. Pinky tells his son's story, and offers David the handshake that he says his son would have given. As usual, Archie does not take defeat well.

Christmas 1977: Charlie Chaplin dies as a result of a stroke. The most renowned of all silent-film actors is truly silenced, at age 88.

Also on this day, as neither man's faith celebrates Christmas, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt meet in the latter's country, beginning the discussions that will lead to the Camp David Accords 9 months later.

Christmas 1978: Bert doesn’t have enough money to buy a Christmas present for Ernie. So he sells his beloved paper-clip collection to Harold "Mr." Hooper, and uses the money to buy a soap dish for Ernie’s beloved Rubber Duckie. But Ernie doesn’t have enough money to buy a present for Bert, either, so he sells his Duckie to Mr. Hooper, and uses the money to buy a cigar box, perfect for storing Bert’s collection.

Then Mr. Hooper comes over and gives them presents: Bert gets his paper clips back, and Ernie gets his Duckie back. The boys, feeling guilty, tell Mr. Hooper – who’s Jewish, and has been wished a Happy Hanukkah by Bob – that they’re sorry they didn’t get him anything. He tells the boys, “I got the best Christmas present ever: I got to see that everybody got exactly what they wanted.”

The other main plotline of A Sesame Street Christmas was Oscar the Grouch's cruel question to Big Bird: How does big fat Santa Claus get down those skinny chimneys? As it turns out, it doesn't matter how: Apparently, he does it.

Bert was a puppet operated by Frank Oz, Ernie by Muppets creator Jim Henson. Mr. Hooper was played by Will Lee, and Bob by Bob McGrath. And Carroll Spinney played both Big Bird and Oscar. He turns 81 on the day after this Christmas, but still plays both roles. Yes, he still puts on the Big Bird costume.

Also on this day, Mindy McConnell (Pam Dawber) has to explain Christmas to alien Mork (Robin Williams). This episode of Mork & Mindy is titled, naturally, "Mork's First Christmas." Morgan Fairchild guest-stars.

Christmas 1979: Actress Joan Blondell dies of leukemia. She was 73, having been born on August 30, 1906 in New York, the same day and in the same city as my grandfather, George Goldberg, who later changed his name to George Golden. (His wife, my grandmother, Grace Darton, was born on the same day as actor Dennis Weaver, although not in the same city.)

As her name suggests, Joan Blondell was a blonde, and is best remembered for her "gold digger" roles in early 1930s films, including the legendary Busby Berkeley production Gold Diggers of 1933, in which she sings "We're In the Money" and "Remember My Forgotten Man."

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Christmas 1980: Hazzard County Executive Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg (Sorrell Boke) hires a trio of criminals to hijack a load of Christmas trees bound for the Georgia locale, knowing that Bo and Luke Duke (John Schneider and Tom Wopat) were responsible for the deliveries and receipt of a $500 down payment.

With the community convinced that the Duke Boys had stolen the funds, the crooks each dress as Santa Claus and break into Hogg's safe to retrieve the stolen money. Bo, Luke, their cousin Daisy (Catherine Bach) and their mechanic friend Cooter Davenport (Ben Jones) eventually team to give Hogg and the bad guys a lesson in confusion. In the end, Hogg - who has played the part of Scrooge throughout the episode - gets a lesson in the meaning of the season.  This episode of The Dukes of Hazzard is titled "The Great Santa Claus Chase."

Christmas 1982: Chicago Police Detective Neal Washington (Taurean Blacque) tries to make amends with the widow of a liquor store owner that he accidentally killed while trying to foil a robbery. Another Detective, Michael "Mick" Belker (Bruce Weitz), goes undercover as Santa Claus. This episode of Hill Street Blues is titled "Santaclaustrophobia." That title is also used for a 2003 episode of The King of Queens.

Also on this day, Philadelphia commodities broker Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) learns of the scam pulled by Randolph and Mortimer Duke (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche); and that his apparent tormentor, Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), is also about to become a victim of the scam. He teams up with his butler Coleman (Denholm Elliott) and his prostitute girlfriend Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis) so that he and Billy Ray, and the Dukes (definitely richer and meaner than the "Duke Boys" of Hazzard), will be Trading Places.

Christmas 1983: Spanish artist Joan Miro dies of heart disease. He was 90.  Yes, in the Spanish region of Catalonia, "Joan" is the masculine form of "John," so, unlike Joan Blondell, he was male.

Christmas 1984, 30 years ago: Jessica and Lisa Origliasso are born in Albany Creek, Queensland, Australia. The twin sisters formed the singing duo The Veronicas.

Christmas 1988: New York Police Detective John McClane goes to Los Angeles to visit his estranged wife Holly, at the same time that Hans Gruber and his terrorists decide to rob her company of $640 million in bonds -- about $1.28 billion in today's money. The film is Die Hard. Ho ho ho and yippie-kai-yay.

Also on this day, the extended Tanner family of San Francisco gets stuck in snow-covered airport on Christmas. Middle daughter Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) is convinced that she won't get any Christmas presents, because now, Santa Claus won't be able to find her. But Santa shows up at the airport. At first, she thinks it's actually "Uncle" Joey Gladstone (Dave Coulier) in disguise. It isn't.

This episode of Full House is titled "Our Very First Christmas Show," and it also features the first kiss between actual uncle Jesse Katsopolis (John Stamos) and Rebecca Donaldson (Lori Loughlin), co-host of Wake Up San Francisco along with Stephanie's father Danny (Bob Saget). Jesse and Rebecca, of course, eventually get married. Sorrell Booke, who played Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard, guest-stars.

Christmas 1989, 25 years ago: Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown, in the latest chapter of the anti-Communist revolutions of Eastern Europe of that amazing year. He and his wife Elena are executed.

Also on this day, legendary Yankee manager Billy Martin is killed in a drunken-driving crash near his home in Johnson City, New York. He was 61.

On Married... with Children, a takeoff on It's a Wonderful Life is done.  Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) gets shocked into unconsciousness while working on his Christmas lights, and is visited by a rather unlikely guardian angel, played by Sam Kinison. He gets to see what the world would be like if he had never been born. As it turned out, much better for Peg (Katey Sagal). Unable to stand this, Al wants to live again.

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Christmas 1990: What would become known as the World Wide Web gets its first trial run. Also on this day, the film Home Alone takes place. Compared to Ceausescu and Martin the year before, the Wet Bandits, played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, get off considerably easier, despite being tormented by Kevin McCallister, the child protector of the home they were invading in Shermer, Illinois. Kevin was played by Macaulay Culkin.

Also on this day, The Godfather Part III premieres. Yes, that's what you want to do on Christmas Day, go see a Mob movie. And, unlike the first 2 parts, which are beloved classics, the 3rd time was definitely not the charm.

Also on this day, on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith (played by Will Smith) spends his first Christmas in Bel-Air. He wants to make himself feel a little more at home, and give his cousin Ashley Banks (Tatyana M. Ali) a taste of real Christmas, so he decorates the Banks home in flashy, non-Home Owners Association approved decorations.

Naturally, the whole neighborhood -- which includes Evander Holyfield, newly-crowned Heavyweight Champion of the World, who plays himself -- comes out in protest. Eventually, a group of neighborhood kids comes by to bestow an award for the best Christmas decorations in Bel-Air to the Banks and their “eyesore,” because it has the whimsy of a child’s idea of Christmas. The HOA gives up the fight and Will chips away at another snobby Bel-Air tradition.

Christmas 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union. He had become the opposite of “a man without a country”: He was, in effect, a one-man country. The next day, the Supreme Soviet dissolved, its last act being to dissolve the Soviet Union itself after 74 years.

Christmas 1993: New York Police Detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) is not the first man you would think of to play Santa Claus at a Christmas party, but he does it.  James Martinez (Nicholas Turturro) gets his shield, promoting him to Detective.  And Detective John Kelly (David Caruso) visits his mother at a nursing home. Her Alzheimer's-affected mind has her going back and forth between seeing her son as the man he is, and also as her husband, also a detective named John Kelly, who'd been killed in the line of duty years earlier.

This episode of NYPD Blue was titled "From Hare to Eternity," for a subplot in which Detective Greg Medavoy (Gordon Clapp) discovers that a cat living in the 15th Precinct house has eaten a rabbit he'd wanted to bring home to his kids.

Also on this day, the films Tombstone, Grumpy Old Men and Philadelphia premiere.

Christmas 1994, 20 years ago: Tim Taylor has to tell his son Randy, who wants to spend Christmas at a ski lodge with his friends, “Christmas isn’t about being with people you like! It’s about being with your family!” The show was Home Improvement, Tim was played by Tim Allen, and Randy by Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

"Tim the Tool Man," not yet playing St. Nick in the Santa Clause movies, could use some of Superman's invulnerability.

However, on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Big Blue (Dean Cain) has his hands full. "Seasons Greedings" adapts the Superman villain Winslow P. Schott, the Toyman, for the small screen. Instead of the Ben Franklin-ish appearance of the comic book villain, this Toyman, a man fired from his job designing toys, is played by Sherman Hemsley. So he invents toys that spray a substance that makes people greedy, and makes adults act like children -- and Kryptonians are not immune.

With help from Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher), things get straightened out, Schott sees the error of his ways, and he even gets a date -- who is played by Hemsley's former TV wife, Isabel Sanford.  Dick Van Patten (as a Santa), comedian Dom Irrera, and Dean's mother Sharon Thomas Cain also appear.

Also on this day, the film I.Q. premieres. I would never have cast Walter Matthau as Albert Einstein, but he did a great job. Meg Ryan plays his niece (a character made up for the movie), Tim Robbins as the decidedly “town not gown” Princeton mechanic who falls for her before finding out who her uncle is, and Keene Curtis as President Eisenhower.

The film was shot on location in Princeton, New Jersey, where Einstein lived the last 22 years of his life. However, be warned: There is a scene where Einstein is driving a Volkswagen Beetle convertible, with Little Richard’s “Tutti-Frutti” blasting out of the car stereo. I don’t think Einstein ever drove a car, and, if he did, I doubt it would be the Hitler-championed “People’s Car,” and he died a few months before “Tutti-Frutti” was recorded.

Christmas 1995: Dean Martin dies of emphysema at age 78. It is unfortunate that one of the leading singers of Christmas songs -- or "Christmas" songs, as I explained in my entry on Problematic Christmas Songs -- died on a December 25.

Christmas 1996: JonBenet Ramsey is found murdered at her home in Boulder, Colorado. She was 6. Her killer has never been definitively identified. Had she been born a few years later, she likely would have been a child beauty pageant opponent of Alana Thompson, a.k.a. Honey Boo Boo.

Christmas 1997: Denver Pyle, best known as Uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard, dies of lung cancer at the age of 77.

Meanwhile, back in New York, we find out what Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) did when he, you know, actually worked. He worked at H&H Bagels -- which actually existed, until going out of business in 2012. He and his fellow employees went on strike 12 years earlier, demanding an hourly rage that has now become the New York State minimum wage. Kramer goes back to work, but soon quits.

The Seinfeld gang's, uh, friend, dentist Tim Whatley (Bryan Cranston, breaking naughty if not outright bad), hosts a Hanukkah party. Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who has an on-again-off-again relationship with him, can't believe Tim is still Jewish. Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld) says, "It's a breeze without the parents."

Jerry had previously believed (and may still have believed, at this point) that Watley had converted just so he could tell Jewish jokes and use Yiddish words with impunity. Asked, "This offends you as a Jew?" Jerry says, "No, it offends me as a comedian!"

And George Costanza (Jason Alexander) has to deal with his father Frank (Jerry Stiller) reviving, upon urgig from Kramer, his former, noncommercial December holiday. "This is the best Festivus ever!" he yells during "The Feats of Strength." This episode is titled "The Strike."

Christmas 1998: Just Shoot Me! airs "How the Finch Stole Christmas," narrated by Kelsey Grammer (Frasier Crane on Cheers and Frasier), who uses his basso profundo voice to sing "You're a Mean One, Mr. Finch." But Dennis Finch (David Spade) has (roughly) the same thing happen to him that the Grinch did.

The episode also has references to It's a Wonderful Life and, with Elliot DiMauro (Enrico Colantoni) looking a lot lot ol' Chuck thanks to his bald head and his shirt, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Christmas 1999: White House Director of Communications Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) discovers that a homeless man, who'd received a winter coat that Toby had donated, has died, and is a Korean War veteran. Toby uses his position to get him a military funeral and burial at Arlington National Cemetery. President Bartlet (Martin Sheen, as stated earlier) isn't happy about how it was done, but allows it.

His secretary, Delores Landingham (Kathryn Joosten), attends the funeral, and tells Toby that her late husband had also served in the Korean War, and that their twin sons Andrew and Simon had been killed in Vietnam -- on Christmas Eve, 1970. The episode of The West Wing is titled "In Excelsis Deo."

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Christmas 2000: A darker episode of The West Wing, titled "Noel," telling of how Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, after being the person most seriously hurt in the recent assassination attempt on President Bartlet. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma appears as himself, and his performance triggers the memory of the police and ambulance sirens from the attempt.

Bradley Whitford won an Emmy for playing Josh in this episode. Near the end of it, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) tells Josh the story about a man who falls into a hole, and puts Josh at ease by saying, "As long as I got a job, you got a job."

Christmas 2001: Or, rather, 2 days before. In "Bartlet For America," a Congressional hearing into whether President Bartlet committed any crimes in keeping his multiple sclerosis from the public focuses on Leo, who flashes back to the first Bartlet campaign.

Before a shocking truth can be revealed, the Republican Counsel on the committee, Cliff Calley (Mark Feuerstein), recommends that they break for Christmas. This buys time for a solution, and both the President and Leo keep their jobs.

Christmas 2002: Now re-elected -- it was never explained on the show why Presidential elections were now taking place in even-numbered non-leap years -- Bartlet has an old problem crop up. Washington Post White House correspondent Danny Concannon (Timothy Busfield), who has a flirtatious relationship with White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney), arrives in a Santa Claus suit, and tells her he knows about the assassination of a foreign defense minister (and brother of the prime minister) who ran a terrorist group that intended to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge -- except that, in West Wing World, "their 9/11" was prevented.

Meanwhile, we discover that Toby was born 2 days before Christmas 1954, and his father, Julius "Julie" Ziegler (Jerry Adler), an ex-con due to having worked for the long-defunct Brooklyn-based Jewish organized-crime outfit Murder, Incorporated, visits, and they have to tie up loose ends. The episode is titled "Holy Night."

Christmas 2003: The Bartlets, President Jed and First Lady Abbey (Stockard Channing), are still dealing with the repercussions -- including with each other -- of the kidnapping of Zoey (Elisabeth Moss) the preceding spring.  It is not clear whether daughters Liz (Annabeth Gish) and Ellie (Nina Siemaszko) will come to the White House for Christmas.  In the end, they all do.

Jed remembers a trip to Egypt: "Saw the Pyramids and Luxor, and then headed up into the Sinai. We had a guide, a Bedouin man, who called me 'Abu el Banat.' And whenever we'd meet another Bedouin, he'd introduce me as 'Abu el Banat.; And the Bedouin would laugh and laugh, and offer me a cup of tea. And I'd go to pay them for the tea, and they wouldn't let me. 'Abu el Banat' means 'Father of daughters.' They thought the tea was the least they could do." "Abu el Banat" is also the title of the episode.

Christmas 2004, 10 years ago: The Aviator premieres. Yeah, that’s what you want to do on Christmas Day: Go see a movie about a nut like Howard Hughes. Leonardo DiCaprio pulls it off, though.

Also superbly bringing screen legends back to life are Katharine Hepburn by Cate Blanchett, Ava Gardner by Kate Beckinsale, and No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow.

Another film premiering on this day is a live-action version of Fat Albert. Albert and the Cosby Kids are brought from cartoons into "the real world," and Albert (played by Kenan Thompson) meets his maker. No, he doesn’t die: He meets Bill Cosby, who faints upon seeing him for the first time. Of course, having heard what we've now heard about Cosby, it's hard to see him as either the creator of Fat Albert or Dr. Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show.

Christmas 2005: The West Wing skipped over an entire year of the Bartlet Presidency, and jumped ahead to the end of Year 7 for an episode titled "Impact Winter." While the President suffers a paralyzing multiple sclerosis attack on a state visit to China, there is concern that an asteroid might hit Earth, resulting in the worst-case scenario, the phenomenon described by the episode's title.

While both crises are averted, Josh realizes that Year 8 is going to be an election year, and someone has to take the baton for Year 9. He thinks he's found his man, Congressman Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), and shows up on Santos' doorstep in Houston, as a "ghost of Christmas yet to come." There was no Christmas episode for Season 7/Year 8.

Elsewhere in Washington, The Jeffersonian Institute is quarantined due to an outbreak of Valley Fever. This forces Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) to focus on a murder. Also, the Jeffersonian gang finds out that Billy Gibbons of the band ZZ Top (who plays a fictional version of himself) is the father of one of their own, Dr. Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin). This episode of Bones is titled "The Man in the Fallout Shelter."

Christmas 2006: James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, dies of pneumonia. He was 73.

Christmas 2008: For the first time, NCIS airs a Christmas episode. The Gibbs team is asked to investigate a long-ago murder, of a sailor whose death certificate had been signed by Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum). Guest stars include Peter Coyote, Kay Lenz, and Eric Stonestreet, in the role that likely got him hired for Modern Family.

Also on this day, in real life, Eartha Kitt dies of cancer. The singer of “Santa Baby” and one of 3 women to play Catwoman on the 1960s “Batman” series apparently had used up her 9th life, but what a life it was. She was 81.

Christmas 2009: al-Qaeda operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old native of Nigeria, tries and fails to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, going from Amsterdam, the Netherlands to Detroit. Because he failed, the plane landed safely, and all 289 people on board (aside from him) survived.

"The Underwear Bomber," having one of the most ridiculous nicknames of any criminal ever, is now surviving multiple life sentences at the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado.

Christmas 2012: Mystery writer Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) and New York Police Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) spend their first Christmas together as a couple, after finding out who killed a man dressed as Santa Claus, on Castle.

Christmas 2013: A man dressed as Santa Claus -- the brother of the husband of a friend of my sister's -- showed up at my sister's apartment, and presented my 6-year-old nieces Ashley and Rachel with new bicycles. They were so happy.  This was the best Christmas ever!

Or it will be, until they can do something like that for their own children. Or even, God willing, before that can happen, they could help me do it for their cousin, my own as yet hypothetical child.

Christmas 2014: This is my first Christmas without my father. He was the hardest person in the family to shop for, but I'd take that problem in a heartbeat if it meant still having him around to shop for.

May your days be merry and bright. God bless us, every one. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Sleep in heavenly peace.