Did I ever tell you readers how I got this job? No? Well gather round, and I’ll tell you.

In the year 2000, which some say was part of the last century, I was reading Vdare.com, and I saw the world famous Vdare.com Christmas competition.

I hunted around systematically for egregious examples, and won!

And not only did I win, but Brimelow offered me a job, including actual money, which I needed at the time. Financially I was where Tiny Tim was, in A Christmas Carol. Now, more like Bob Cratchit. [Help Keep VDare.com Going!!]

One of the things that I submitted for my winning entry was this story, the The Shop Of Ghosts by G. K. Chesterton.

Since it was too long to publish on the main page, Peter Brimelow summed it up like this: VDARE summary of Chesterton: Christmas is dying – and will never die.

Read the whole thing below:

“Common language” note: when Chesterton says “Father Christmas” he means more or less the same person as Santa Claus.

The Shop Of Ghosts

By G.K. Chesterton

The Shop Of Ghosts first appeared in London’s Daily News. It was later collected into the book of essays Tremendous Trifles.

Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a penny halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of reading this article for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and irrelevant matter.

But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets of Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of the poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but they were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important than cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the body. You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in the modern world.

(more…)

What’s Christmas without illegal alien sob stories based around the holidays? Poor Juan and the tens of millions like him, the MSM nags every year, “immigrants” are miserable at Christmas because of meanie Americans and their obsession with borders and other trifling legalities.

“Christmas Is a Lonely Day for an Immigrant Laborer” is a classic of the genre, with particular attention paid to atmospherics:

Unable to sleep on Christmas morning, a rare day off, Juan rose at 6. He propped open the window and sucked in the cold, damp Mamaroneck air and wondered what his children were doing. Probably sleeping, he said. He imagined their faces, smiling and laughing when they got up and unwrapped their gifts. Gazing from the window onto a deserted side street in downtown Mamaroneck, Juan took in the forlorn winter trees. “Christmas at home is a lot prettier than here,” he said.

Naturally, Vdare.com would like nothing better than for the Juans illegally residing in the US to be happily at home with the wife and kiddies.

Here’s a two-hanky model, with a little more diversity than some: “Cry for Dad.” Though the man being deported and his family are Muslims, we are supposed to believe their suffering is even worse because of Christmas.

Jersey City resident Irfan M. Khokhar will not be home for Christmas and it’s breaking the hearts of his wife Sayyida and the couple’s five school-age children.

“Without my husband I am nothing. My children are nothing,” Sayyida said on Thursday between crying fits. “I can’t survive. I walk I fall down.”

Although the Khokhars are Muslim, Sayyida said she and her American-born children have adopted Christmas because it is the holiday of the people who have rallied to help them.

What a media.

If you prefer an upbeat immigrant Christmas story, see “Bilingual Santa Claus hears all wishes” from Georgia — “Buenos Dias, Santa!”