You have so much in common!

Wouldn't you think? I've finally (I think) got the difference between Sunni and Shia set in my head, and there's a part of me that's all, "Okay, I can understand that... and it makes a difference now HOW?" And then I remember the violent conflict between people who think the bread becomes God and the people who think the bread becomes a very important symbol of God, and I go, "Oh right. Never mind then."

(Although we all mostly get along, bread or no bread.)

My dad's biggest gripe with Catholics is that "they believe things that aren't in the Bible."

My dad was upset when my older brother had a Catholic girlfriend named Mary when he was in college. He got mad at my mom who supposedly encouraged the relationship.

Of course, since then, my sister came out as a lesbian, my younger brother has been divorced twice, and I've yet to bring a girlfriend home to meet my parents, so possibly my dad might think a Catholic SO might not be so bad....

You have so much in common!

That may be part of the problem. My mom also had an anti-Catholic bias, and I think that stemmed from her time as a Methodist missionary. She was competing with the Catholics for the same souls.

I think that stemmed from her time as a Methodist missionary. She was competing with the Catholics for the same souls.

Now I'm picturing a rumble between Catholic and Methodist missionary gangs. "This is our turf, Papists!"

F--Past; C--Yet to come (hey, look at the name, for god's sake! I'm thinking he'll never make it there); M--Present (loves to live)

Now I'm picturing a rumble between Catholic and Methodist missionary gangs. "This is our turf, Papists!"

Ha! I was seeing them haggle like my grandmother used to at the flea market. "Okay, I'll let you have those dozen souls if I can just get that one biggie over there."

"Two dozen!"

Dozen-and-a-half."

"Deal."

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

There's a joke in here somewhere....

And I'm the first one to go there.

Raised Irish-Catholic, I was and still am surprised when I see anti-Catholic sentiments. There were probably more Catholics in my school, but Protestants were an almost-equal-sized group, so we didn't view anyone as The Other, except for the Mormon and Jewish families, who were appreciated more for the differences than something to be feared, I think.

I know that we thought that the Wilsons, the Mormons down the block, had a good thing going with their Family Night (one night where the family spent the evening together without TV), which they told us was dictated by their church as a way to foster family bonds. And the Jewish boys would explain Chanukah and bar mitzvahs, and we'd play with the dreidel, which was probably a big no-no at a public school, but we learned a lot about each other's faiths.

No Limit Texas Dreidel

The origin of the whole "NORAD tracking Santa" thing: Military center tracking Santa's sleigh ride

NORAD's holiday tradition can by traced to 1955, when a Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears, Roebuck & Co. ad telling children of a phone number to talk to Santa. The number was one digit off, and the first child to get through reached the Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD's predecessor.

Col. Harry W. Shoup answered.

Shoup's daughter, Terri Van Keuren, said her dad, now 91, was surprised to hear that the little voice on the other end thought he was Santa.

"Dad thought, `What the heck? This must be some kind of code,'" said Van Keuren, 59.

Shoup, described by his daughter as "just a nut about Christmas," didn't want to break the boy's heart, so he sounded a booming "Ho, ho, ho!" and pretended to be Santa Claus.

Enough calls followed that Shoup assigned an officer to answer them while the problem was fixed. But Shoup and the staff he was directing to "locate" Santa on radar ended up embracing the idea. NORAD picked up the tradition when it was formed 50 years ago.

"If we didn't do it, truly I don't know who else would track Santa," Maj. Stacia Reddish said.

The task that began with no computers and only a 60-by-80-foot glass map of North America now includes two big screens on a wall showing the world and information on each country Santa Claus visits. It took off with the Web site's 1997 launch, Reddish said.