Christmas

The Swedish Women's Education Assn. Orange County branch is hosting its annual Christmas fair Sunday at the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Community Center, 1845 Park Ave. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., children and adults alike are invited to the 30th annual Swedish Christmas Festival to watch the traditional St. Lucia pageant and meet the Swedish Santa Claus, Jultomten. There will be Swedish foods, from meatballs and ham to baked goods and glogg — a hot, spiced wine — along with music, caroling, dancing and crafts.

COSTA MESA - A white fir tree towering at a whopping 96 feet requires equally impressive presents. "If you have a tree as big as this, I would expect to see Santa sitting under there," said Newport Beach resident Jordan Kessler, 13, looking up at South Coast Plaza's holiday tree while waiting for the annual lighting ceremony to begin on Thursday. "Or Justin Beiber," added friend Rainey Finley, 13. The girls had just finished performing in an acting class at nearby South Coast Repertory and were meeting Jordan's family at the annual event, which attracts about 2,500 participants each year.

I would like to warn readers not to put cruelty on their shopping lists this year. The holidays are a busy season for puppy sales and people need to know that when they buy puppies over the Internet, through newspaper ads, or at pet stores, they are often unknowingly supporting a puppy mill. Puppy mills are inhumane breeding facilities that produce puppies in large numbers. They are designed to maximize profits and commonly disregard the physical, social and emotional health of the dogs.

NEWPORT BEACH - Standing in the rain with his arms crossed against his chest and face hidden under his jacket's hood, Bernard Hamilton stared with rapt attention as contractors at Fashion Island lowered this year's Christmas tree into place. "It's an amazing thing for the local people here," Hamilton, an employee at the concierge desk, said without breaking his concentration on the massive white fir. "It brings something great for the community. " Any other year, there would be plenty of people standing with Hamilton early Friday to watch crews in hard hats work with a crane operator to gently lift, swing and drop the 90-foot tree into place.

The 33rd annual Corona del Mar Christmas Walk hopes to raise more than $17,000 in raffle prizes from local businesses, according to the event website . Hotel stays, meals, spa services, boat rides, gift baskets, gift certificates, products and services are among the many prizes the Corona del Mar Chamber of Commerce needs to conduct the annual event's opportunity drawing Dec. 4. Among the local business that have already donated prizes...

COSTA MESA - Even for the most seasoned trucker, hauling a 14,000-pound Christmas tree down the 5 Freeway is a pretty unusual experience. South Coast Plaza's 96-foot white fir - the same size and species as the one used last year - arrived at 7 a.m. in Town Center Park on Friday after an 11-hour drive down one of the state's busiest freeways. "It's the start of Christmas," said Richard Coffey, the truck driver who's been responsible for transporting the holiday cargo 650 miles from Mt. Shasta for the last three years.

NEWPORT BEACH — About a dozen blue balloons decorated a lone wheelchair in the middle of the flag deck Friday morning at Newport Elementary School. Students sat in a horse-shoe shape around the chair, and parents gathered behind them to talk about not one wheelchair, but 52. "So what does 52 wheelchairs look like?" Student Council President Barron Banta, 12, asked the audience. Kids interspersed in the audience stood up and held identical pictures above their heads of someone in a wheelchair.

COSTA MESA — First it was the hymns and melodies depicting Jesus' birth, then it was the incense that led parishioners toward St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church on Thursday. They were there to celebrate Christmas. Armenian Orthodox Christians have been celebrating Christmas on Jan. 6 since Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity in 301, said Pastor Moushegh Tashjian, the church's archpriest reverend. Dressed in a long white robe, Tashjian led the 10:30 a.m. service, while worshipers continued to arrive from throughout Orange County and the rest of Southern California.

I love Christmas and I'm a rabbi, so my love for Christmas is the love of a happy and respectful stranger. However, because of all that my dearest friend, Fr. Tom Hartman, taught me, I may, in fact, be a perfect stranger for Christmas. In full disclosure, I must say that I love Passover and Purim, Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot, Shavuot and Shabbat more than Christmas. I do love Christmas more than Hanukkah, because Hanukkah is just a poor ripoff of Christmas nowadays, and even in the old days, the Maccabees led the Hasmoneans, who were the most corrupt dynasty of Jewish priests in history.

There's a time and space on Christmas when all the gifts have been unwrapped and duly fussed over, when it is too early for dinner, and an entire day faces you. That's when you look for a letdown activity. Movies serve that purpose quite well. There you can sleep or drift or daydream without feeling guilt at a need for entertainment after the morning's high. But in my house this Christmas, the entertainment was a game, one of the kind where the participants sit around a table and argue about who has the most smarts — as if this were a life and death issue.