Christmas is, after all, no longer regarded by the majority of our mostly non-religious society as a religious festival, but rather as a public holiday when we get together with our nearest and dearest to exchange gifts, squabble, eat too much and watch Miracle on 34th Street again.
"It was New Year's Eve," said Ms. Berkley, referring to it as "such a dreadful holiday when you're single".
The former encourages us to view Hanukkah as a holiday of liberation, when the Maccabees overthrew their Hellenistic occupiers in pursuit of faith and freedom.
I think they couldn't edit it all in time, although I don't really know what went on as I was on holiday when it happened".
Mr Jenkins gave his advice over the phone as he was on holiday when Mr Hunt was given authority for the BSkyB bid.
Miller says she's been "absolutely smitten" with turkeys -- as living animals, not as a holiday meal -- since 1998, when she spent six months volunteering at Farm Sanctuary, an upstate New York-based organization that cares for about 1,000 turkeys, pigs, chickens, cows and other animals usually treated as livestock.
Sure, Cinco de Mayo is a day where we all drink our faces off while wearing sombreros (as opposed to every other holiday when we drink our faces off), but what does it really mean?
Instead of the battle hymn of a tiger mother, it's the baffled hymn of a cubless bystander, his thoughts turned toward children as the calendar reaches yet another holiday when we shower them with attention and chocolate.
It feels every bit as much a holiday as the years when I am able to spend it with my own family.
