Poor Europe—“white Christmas”—bad timing. The wintery blast that has piled a mound of snow across Europe the past few days might have started out a “Christmas winter wonderland.” But the only wonder left now is how to untangle this perfect storm of meteorological and technological gridlock that has turned the continent’s major airports into bed and breakfasts, minus the bed and the breakfast. Nobody’s humming “White Christmas” anymore (especially since that Irving Berlin composition is a distinctly American tradition). No wonder the mayor is so uptight!

Did you see that hastily snapped picture of Prince Charles and Camilla? On their way last Thursday evening to a London gala, the royal couple’s vintage Rolls Royce limousine inadvertently drove into an unrelated street riot and was suddenly engulfed by a sea of demonstrating youth. When the young rioters (who were protesting Parliament’s decision to hike tuition fees in UK universities) spotted the future king of England and his wife inside the automobile, they turned on the limousine, pelting it with eggs, smashing open a window and threatening to who-knows-what!

"12 Daze of Christma$”—that’s how the Boston Herald headlined the story this week of PNC Wealth Management’s annual analysis of the beloved Christmas song. You know the one: “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.” Two turtle doves, three French hens, four calling birds, five golden rings . . .

MISS YOUR CELL PHONE? I read historian Benson Bobrick’s fascinating Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired. It’s the story of two English reformers—John Wycliffe, the brilliant Oxford scholar and Bible translator, remembered as “the Morning Star of the Reformation”; and martyr William Tyndale, whose English translation of Holy Scripture led to the King James Version and made the English Bible (next to the Bible itself) “the most influential book ever published.”

Jesus just grew bigger! Ever since last Saturday the small Polish town of Swiebodzin has been high-fiving in celebration, believing they have just created the largest Jesus in the world. It’s been the life dream of their 78 year old local priest, Sylwester Zawadaki, to craft the world’s largest Jesus statue. And it looks like he just succeeded.

Another election wrapped up, another terrorist plot averted. While I’m not suggesting this week’s two biggest headlines have any connection, have you ever wondered how proactive God is in the life of our civilization? He probably doesn’t keep an electoral scorecard of favorite politicians, and he certainly isn’t the author of evil conspiracies. Nevertheless, could it be that he is personally, actively very much engaged in what goes on around this planet? Let me explain.

Too early to be thinking about Christmas? Not if you were hoping to purchase the fastest and most expensive Porche ever built—the 911 GT2 RS. It just sold out less than two months after debuting. Price tag? $329,000. Merry Christmas and a big red bow tied on to the 131 Americans who bought it.

“Savior Siblings” was the newspaper headline. Molly Nash is sixteen years old now—and very much alive. But in 2000 the promise of any future at all was doubtful. Molly was born with a severe type of Fanconi anemia, “a blood disorder that almost always results in leukemia by the age of 10.” Her only hope a bone marrow transplant. And the optimal transplant donor needed to be a sibling with genetically identical tissue. But Molly was an only child. Until Dr. John Wagner—a bone marrow transplant expert at the University of Minnesota—suggested a brave, novel protocol.

The rescue of the 33 Chilean miners, trapped for 69 days a half a mile beneath the mountain, is a story for the ages, isn’t it? Can you imagine the ecstatic joy that exploded into the cold night air, as that bullet-shaped recovery capsule emerged from out of the ground, transporting the first of the entombed captives to freedom? Desperate hope had become reality. The captives were coming home!

What’s not to like about a golden anniversary? Fifty years ago Emmanuel Missionary College became Andrews University, and this campus has never been the same! But what about a ruby anniversary? Did you know that forty years ago next week (which makes it a “ruby” commemoration, for those who keep track) there was a spiritual event on campus (it actually began off campus) that has left this university not quite the same ever since?