Holy Eves News Today

Seeing a tearful boy frightened to visit Santa recently and the big guy getting an exam during a parade has J.P. Devine mulling whether St. Nick needs health insurance coverage.

Illustration by Benedetta Celada. No Christma-a-as! No Christma-a-as!” Such was the town crier’s chant in the streets of 17th-century Dublin when Ireland felt the hammer blow of Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan iron fist. Garlands of greenery were pulled down and publicly burned. Revelry was forbidden. Priests were imprisoned. But the Irish people found ways to celebrate their most loved holiday despite the hazard. Those troubled times were in fact the origin of the custom of putting a lighted c...