Christmas

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Rihanna is seen here Nov. 19, 2012, at the Westfield shopping center in the Stratford district of London for the switching on of the Christmas lights. (Ki Price/Invision/Associated Press)

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Damon Vix last year won two-thirds of the booths in the annual, city-sponsored lottery to divvy up spaces in a Nativity display in Palisades Park in Santa Monica, Calif., but he only put up one thing: a sign that read “Religions are all alike — founded on fables and mythologies.” Mr. Vix left the rest of his allotted spaces empty, upending a Christmas tradition. (Associated Press)

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President Clinton holds Socks the cat as he and Mrs. Clinton hosted Washington area elementary school children at the White House Friday Dec. 20, 1996 where the president read "Twas the Night Before Christmas." (AP Photo/Ruth Fremson)

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Travelers check their luggage at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago two days before last Christmas. There are bargains on travel during “dead zone” periods not so close to holidays, according to those in the know. (Associated Press)

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Marijuana plants are seen on Oct. 3, 2012, in Chicago, where officers say they discovered two football fields worth of pot plants growing on the city's South Side. Authorities say more than 1,000 cannabis plants — some as tall as Christmas trees — were discovered during a helicopter operation. (Associated Press)

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**FILE** Fiona Apple performs Dec. 11, 1999, at the annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas concert at the Pond of Anaheim, Calif. (Associated Press)

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Some historic preservationists aren’t happy about Macy's makeover. At right is how the ground floor of the store looked during the Christmas shopping season in 1931. (Associated Press)

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Like Christmas, over the years, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving have become less about the true meaning and more about the day off from work and all that encompasses, writes Rusty Humphries. (Andrew Geraci/The Washington Times)

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The Redskins will look to make Christmas a little less merry for Michael Vick and the Eagles when they travel for a holiday matchup Dec. 23. (Associated Press)

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Marvin Bourne of Richmond takes his wife, Karen on a tank ride, which he called "an awesome Christmas present." (Associated Press)

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"A lot of us who went into battle turned around and no one was behind us," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, South Carolina Republican, in reference to House Republicans' revolt before Christmas against the Senate-passed deal to extend the payroll-tax cut. The showdown turned into a political debacle for the GOP. (Associated Press)

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Jesus Esparza of Chicago was shopping at the Macy's on State Street in Chicago two weeks before Christmas, one of many Americans finding bargains that helped their checkbooks but hurt a lot of retailers' bottom lines. Macy's Inc., however, saw strong gains in December that beat analysts estimates. (Associated Press)

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Above: Onlookers gather around the site of a bomb blast at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Nigeria, on Christmas Day. A radical Muslim sect claimed responsibility for the attack and for another bombing near a church in the restive city of Jos. Below: Rescue workers remove the body of one of the victims. (Associated Press)