Die Hard, to my amazement, makes lists of the best Christmas movies because it is set at Christmas time. Lethal Weapon, made a year or two before Die Hard, is also set in Los Angeles during the Christmas season. Is it, too, a Christmas movie? Or is the important takeaway that I should especially eschew LA at the holidays?

For the holidays, the fisherman sent his friends Christmas cods.

“And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.” Luke 2: 3-5.

“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” George Burns.

During a break in the chess matches, the tournament players gathered in the hotel’s lobby and started bragging about their triumphs in past meetings. They were just chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.

One of Santa’s helpers tried to commit suicide. He had low elf-esteem.

The Three Wise Men followed the big star. Were they the first groupies? (Yes, I know that the Bible does not say that there were three wise men.)

“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have to worship him.’” Matthew 2:1-2.

As kids, we liked to sing, “We three kings of orient are/Puffing on a royal cigar/One was loaded and exploded/ We two kings of orient are.” (Yes, I know that the Bible does not say that there were three wise men.)

I was surprised to learn that Mary and Joseph did not speak English. Who, then, taught Jesus the language?

I have read that the song “Silver Bells” was originally called “Tinkle Bells” until the composer’s spouse pointed out the problem.

At 6PM on Christmas day, the NBP and I were walking home from a movie when a woman stopped and asked us if she was walking in the right direction for the supermarket. We said, “Yes.” I asked her what she was looking for and she replied, “Oatmeal.” Both the NBP and I pointed across the street to a neighborhood store that was open and said, “They must have oatmeal.” “Not the kind I want,” she said. Even though she knew that the supermarket may have been closed, she headed off for it. It seemed like an unlikely search for a Christmas night, but I wished her success.

I received for Christmas a few years ago a specially made T shirt I had requested. It reads: “TRUMP. HIS MOTHER DID NOT HAVE HIM TESTED.” I am not yet retiring it.

Do we ever refer to a song as a “carol” except for those about Christmas?

“We learn from experience that not everything which is incredible is untrue.” Cardinal de Betz, Memoirs.

“The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, . . . ‘And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.’ . . . And Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I have no husband?’ And the angel said to her, . . . “For with God nothing shall be impossible.’”

See you again next Monday.

Merry Christmas