MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, and to all a good night.

HANUKKAH CANDLES on Christmas Eve.

NICE AND QUIET: Christmas Eve at the Mall Of America.

A CHRISTMAS-EVE TRADITIONAL, from the London Symphony Orchestra.

UPDATE: Heh.

And a very different tradition, here.

FROM THE UTAH TEA PARTY FOLKS, A Christmas message.

CHRISTMAS CHEER: Top 10 Bad Things That Are Good For You.

FORGET “GOING GALT” — Tucson businesses are fighting back. The Tucson Tea Party seems to have stirred up — or maybe inspired — a hornets’ nest.

IT’S A WONDERFUL COPYRIGHT MESS. “Why does It’s a Wonderful Life now only air twice during the holidays — and only on NBC? Growing up in the 1980s, I saw It’s a Wonderful Life several times each year. It was a staple of hundreds of networks. It was on the Family Channel, on the local independent TV station, and on innumerable other venues. The great mystery revolves around our nation’s copyright laws.”

Oh, well. The IowaHawk version seems more timely these days anyway.

DECEMBER 24, 1968: Christmas Eve Greetings From Lunar Orbit.

CHRIS DODD RETURNS HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, only to be heckled at the airport.

EGGNOG with a Puerto Rican accent.

SOME HOLIDAY ADVICE from the Estate Elf.

FIFTEEN THINGS about coffee.

PAYBACK? “Yemeni forces, backed by the United States, launched an attack Thursday on a meeting of al-Qaeda operatives where a Yemeni American preacher linked to the suspected gunman in the Fort Hood attacks might have been present, U.S. and Yemeni officials said.”

OVER AT JOHN ARAVOSIS’ AMERICABLOG: Yawn…another investigation into Wall Street fleecing customers — And surprise, surprise, another tie to the new Obama team. “This same old story gets increasingly old during this administration that talked so much about change. It’s the same old problem involving the same old people who are working as deeply with the Obama administration as they did with the Bush team. Maybe even deeper.” I’ve noticed more and more lefties sounding this theme.

UPDATE: Related, from Tim Cavanaugh:

Why wasn’t I looking for the buried Christmas Eve story? As John Thacker notes in the comments, the Department of the Treasury announced today that it will lift its $400 billion cap on support for the failed GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. More here and here. The Treasury’s press release bears the conveniently bland headline “TREASURY ISSUES UPDATE ON STATUS OF SUPPORT FOR HOUSING PROGRAMS” — because I guess “Merry F’ing Christmas: Your grandchildren will live in penury so we can prop up a bunch of deadbeats and incompetent bankers” was taken long ago.

Yeah, that headline runs every day now, it seems . . ..

DID JIM DEMINT kill the health care bill? I hope so, but . . . .

CRAZED WOMAN ATTACKS POPE at Midnight Mass.

MICHAEL SILENCE: In TN, stimulus jobs cost $235,912 per person. Good grief. Why not just cut each person a $100,000 check and save a ton? Insufficient opportunities for graft in that approach.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Fannie and Freddie CEOs to get up to $6M in pay.

UPDATE: Painless Coup? I suspect that there will be quite a bit of pain before things are settled.

PETER SUDERMAN: The States’ Failed Experiments: “The major provisions of ObamaCare have already been tried. And they don’t look good. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously envisioned the states serving as laboratories, trying ‘novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.’ On health care, that’s just what they’ve done. Like participants in a national science fair, state governments have tested variants on most of the major health care reforms Congress is considering. The results include dramatically higher premiums in the individual market, spiraling public costs, and reduced access to care. In other words, the reforms have failed.”

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME: Congress Raises Debt Limit.

SONJA SCHMIDT: OBAMA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN.

EVIL! EVIL! “Thrifty Families Accused Of Prolonging The Recession.” They’re the Hoarders and Wreckers of the 21st Century!

STEVE CHAPMAN ON THE STATE OF AIR TRAVEL: Don’t Blame The Airlines. “Everyone would like more space, free food, pillows galore, carefree flight attendants, and all the other amenities once associated with air travel. But what we would like is not the same as what we will pay for. Given a choice between enjoying amenities and saving money, most of us invariably choose the latter. We want to get to our destination as cheaply as possible, and the air travel market has accommodated that preference.”

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: More guns equal more crime? Not in 2009, FBI crime report shows. FBI’s latest crime report, for the first half of 2009, shows America is a less violent place even though ownership of guns has surged.