Al’s Christmas Tea: From Avoiding Travel Headaches to Celebrating a Christmas Miracle
Welcome back in for Al’s Christmas Tea, our chance to stop and sample some of the news and flavors of the season. Lifting your pinky in the process is optional.
The Drones Could Impact Christmas Travel
It’s bad enough that airplanes have to dodge Santa’s sleigh in the skies at Christmas, but now we have to worry about those darn drones, too. Stewart Airfield in Orange County, New York was forced to shut down for an hour Friday because of drone activity. Governor Kathy Hochul was not pleased, declaring, “This has gone too far.”
And just in time for people to start flying for Christmas, the crucial Newark Liberty International Airport is warning that it will shut down if a drone is spotted in its airspace, which, as the New Jersey Globe reports, would lead to “massive flight cancellations and delays across the nation during the busy holiday season.”
Flight Attendants Offer Some Tips for Flying at Christmas
Flight attendants are offering tips for flying during the Christmas season. According to a press release from Air and Cruise Parking, Christmas Eve is the best night to fly.
“Christmas Eve is surprisingly calm,” one flight attendant declared. “By then, the majority of travelers have already reached their destinations, so the airports are quieter, and flights are often less crowded. Plus, there’s a festive atmosphere onboard — cabin crews tend to go the extra mile to make it special, whether that’s wearing Santa hats or offering festive treats.”
Other tips include:
- Try your best to avoid sitting in the center of the plane, commonly Row 11. “Being in the middle row, especially in a window seat, which tends to be either A or F, almost guarantees you’ll be one of the last off the plane.”
- If traveling out of traditionally weather-challenged cities, keep a close tab on a weather app.
- If you want to sleep, ask for a seating upgrade.
- As we’ve mentioned before, don’t wrap any presents. They may be unwrapped by TSA, rather than the recipient of your gift.
To these tips, we add another one: If you see Detective John McClain lurking around the airport, take a bus. (Hey, Die Hard 2 is a Christmas movie too!)
Netflix’s New Kids’ Christmas Flick Accused of Mocking the Nativity
The producers behind a new Netflix animated holiday movie called That Christmas are being accused of mocking the Nativity. In the movie, a group of kids in a snowbound fictional British coastal town decide to put on a Nativity play. But according to CBN, the kids decide the biblical story “is too antiquated for modern culture.”
The character Bernadette says Jesus is a “hipster, basically,” and asks, “He wouldn’t have wanted us to do the same boring Christmas story year after year, right, parents? He’d want a strictly vegetarian, multicultural fun fest with lots of pop songs and stuff about climate change.”
However, it’s another scene that CBN finds particularly offensive. In it:
the young girl playing the role of Mary, Jesus’ mother, sings, “Papa Don’t Preach,” a 1986 Madonna song about deciding whether to have an abortion. The girl sings as she’s hoisting a watermelon with a face carved into it, intended to represent baby Jesus. At one point, another student accidentally knocks the watermelon out of the girl’s hands and it falls to the ground, splattering onto the audience.
Not quite Linus reciting the Gospel in A Charlie Brown Christmas, is it? As a reminder of how it’s done …
By the way, next year will mark the 60th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Think anyone will be watching Netflix’s That Christmas in 60 years?
Here our the results of The Stream‘s latest poll in the Battle of the Classic Christmas Specials. Charlie Brown stomped all over the Little Drummer Boy, setting up a showdown with Rudolph.
It’s time for Round 4!!! Who will battle Rudolph for the top spot? #Christmas #movies
A Charlie Brown Christmas 🌲⛸️ vs The Little Drummer Boy 🥁👦🏻
— The Stream (@Streamdotorg) December 15, 2024
A Christmas Miracle? The Cross at Pepperdine University Survives Devastating Fire
Last week, the Franklin Fire exploded across Malibu, sending residents, including celebrities like the legendary Dick Van Dyke, Cher, and Jane Seymour fleeing. The fire also threatened Pepperdine University, which is situated just across the Pacific Coast Highway from some of the most expensive celebrity homes in the area. Yet, despite the flames scorching the grounds, the school’s 20-foot-tall cross perched on a hill above Malibu somehow survived.
The current cross replaced one destroyed during 2018’s Woolsey Fire. It was built by the Sigma Chi fraternity in the memory of a local college freshmen who had been murdered a month previously. As Fox Weather reports, “The fraternity brothers carried the cross up the mountain, transforming the symbol of loss into a beacon of hope once again.”
Yet again, the cross has become a beacon of hope, standing tall amid the embers of the Franklin Fire as seen in a video posted by Pepperdine University: a journey up the hill to the rugged cross …
“As I got closer, I began to get teary-eyed … I am grateful to God that he spared Pepperdine and this cross, that burned down during the Woolsey Fire and had to be replaced. Somehow He spared it, as if he wanted us to have something tangible to hold onto to help us through the difficulty we just went through.”
On the Stream Menu …
Anne Morse offers some cogent thoughts on the enduring message of Little Women in “Teaching Goodness: Can a Victorian Novelist Influence Today’s Teens?”
Meanwhile, Clint Roberts echoes the same question a lot of people nationwide are asking right now: “Did the Healthcare CEO Deserve It?”
Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.