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… the kitchen and say good morning to the white Buddha who sits in our backyard under a cherry tree, its bare branches decorated with red and silver Christmas ornaments. Vickie sips a … O come, all ye faithful ... Silent night ..." Vickie sings and glows like an angel on top of a tree. Lyndsay De Matteo, a program coordinator, conducts the Bell Girls. Each woman holds a bell … aides wind their way around the rows of men and women like tinsel around the aging limbs of a tree, giving each person cake, juice and a stocking with candy canes. I know that none of this is …

… he died last September, his Christian family placed his body in a casket carved from a fallen tree by his son and interred it in the woods at Green Acres Cemetery near Columbia, Mo. It just …

… of police blocked them. “We yelled, saying we know what the rainforest is, the medicines, the trees, the fruits. It’s sacred. We know what’s happened in other places. Indigenous are dying. …

… Luke's Gospel story of Zacchaeus, the stature-challenged tax collector who climbed a sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus as he worked his way through the crowds. The effort paid off … The cutting edge can be dangerous, but that is where NCR sat." The cutting edge, the limb of a tree -- pick your metaphor -- that is still where NCR sits. And it is where I now sit, too. I'm …

… "No," answered the rabbi. Another student asked, "Is it when you can distinguish between a fig tree and a grapevine?" Again the answer was, "No." "Please tells us the answer then," said the …

… you believe in a fairy tale god who kills his own son because some stooge ate an apple off his tree, a god who hates gays and loves slavery and oppresses women, and, don't let me forget, … that erupts into madness. The story of Adam and Eve is not a fairy tale about an apple tree but a metaphor for the way we are. We feel guilty just for being alive, for our hubris, and …

… but along with a few other things flashing before my eyes, I saw the presents under the tree, heard "Silent Night" at Christmas Eve Mass, smelled the turkey in the oven, and felt the … days when other people are returning items, shopping for sales and prematurely putting their trees out for the garbage men. Just as quickly as those thoughts came, they disappeared. Instead … himself and our sons under his other arm. The first gift was a small, frosted glass Christmas tree that lit up from within and cast changing colors on my tray side table. There was also a …

… screening for its rebuilding campaign. Members of the Basic Christian Communities used felled trees for wall panels and pews for the chapels, and local artists painted murals on the altar …

… kids build snowmen; toddlers fall asleep in perfect alignment under a perfectly decorated tree. In each scene, we see a teenage boy with his head down, his eyes glued to his handsome new …

… celebration. Shopping centers attract customers with Christmas carols and decorations of trees, Santa Claus, angels, reindeers and snowmen. On Dec. 10, the Vietnam Record Book Center granted a certificate to the country's tallest Christmas tree, which is 98 feet tall, weighs 5 tons and is strung with 100,000 LED lights. The tree is located in a major urban area in Hanoi. [Joachim Pham is an NCR correspondent based in …