On the 1st day: Xmas
Thank you for your front-page Merry Christmas greeting. Your Season's Greetings of the past always struck me as inclusive but ignored the elephant in the room. Joy to you!
Claudia Laroye, Vancouver
On the 2nd: puzzle
Thank you for designing a crossword whose numbers I can read without using a magnifying glass.
Margaret Wicken, Fredericton
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Your holiday crossword is ridiculously large. It would make much more sense if you were to publish several separate puzzles so readers could do one or two a day over the holiday period. My son suggests that one clue could overlap into the next puzzle.
Margaret J. Moore, Picton, Ont.
On the 3rd: God
How convenient. Wait until your most articulate opponent (Christopher Hitchens) is in the grave, then publish an article that will have him rolling in it (Oh God: Can't We All Just Get Along? – Focus, Dec. 24). A "mudslinging atheist," for example, commenting at www.whygodhatesamputees is hardly the equivalent of a "Leviticus-quoting Christian fundamentalist" harassing a woman exercising her abortion rights.
On the other hand, Mr. Hitchens would probably have been delighted with the notion of "a very modern view" of faith: an individual who "doesn't believe in God, or the divinity of Jesus."
John Farquharson, Victoria
On the 4th: faith
Time was, you could be public about your religion but not about sex. These days, sex is public, while religion is largely private. But Margaret Wente is right (Still The Greatest Story Ever Told – Dec. 24): Western religious institutions have not responded to the desire for religious or spiritual experience in the same way as institutions in the global South.
Questions about budding spirituality are likely to be met with the same response as to those questions about the birds and the bees: "Go ask your mother!"
Peter H. Denton, Winnipeg
On the 5th: tradition
Re With Cakes And Evergreen Trees, Indians Mark The Season (Dec. 23): As an expatriate Indian of some 40 years, I can assure you that the celebration of Christmas was very much the norm under British rule and thereafter. My best Christmases were spent in Calcutta (now Kolkata); we didn't have to travel abroad to recreate tradition.
Hermas D'Souza, Brampton, Ont.
On the 6th: birth day
Sheila Heti (The Special Duty Of A Jewish Christmas Baby – Focus, Dec. 24) asks, "Has anyone changed their birthday?" When Robert Louis Stevenson was living in Samoa, he met a girl who bemoaned the fact that her Christmas birthday meant she missed out on the celebration of her special day. So Stevenson drew up a document and gave her his birthday: Nov. 13.
Kathleen Teillet, Winnipeg
On the 7th: Mideast
Re How It Felt … To Be One Of The Prisoners Freed For Gilad Shalit (Dec. 24): One young man, educated, a new father of twins, plants a bomb on a bus. Another young man doing his military service inside his country is abducted by gunmen who've illegally crossed the border.
The first young man is imprisoned; he has access to light, food, exercise and shelter, Red Crescent visits, and even occasional visits from family members. The second young man is isolated, kept in the dark, under constant threat of death, with no access to or from the Red Cross.
Your article implies there's a moral equivalence between these two young men. But there's no such equivalence between a bomber of innocent civilians and a soldier patrolling a border in his own country.
Esther Lefler, Toronto
On the 8th: irony
After the calamitous intervention of our paramilitary police during last year's G20 fiasco in Toronto, it's a bit of a stretch to find Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird hectoring Egypt's security forces (Baird Lashes Out At Egypt's Ruling Military – Dec. 23).
John Horvath, Caledon, Ont.
On the 9th: Canada
Your editorial on the Supreme Court's rejection of the bill to create a national securities regulator (Opting Against A National Market – Dec. 23) got our history right. Sir John A. Macdonald intended to create a highly centralized federation. That's why the federal government is responsible for "peace, order and good government," including trade and commerce, while the provinces were limited to property and civil rights and matters of a "merely local or private nature."
This vision, as you note, was undone by a series of decisions by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which some have called the evil stepfather of Confederation; the British jurists thought Canada was too vast to be well governed by the federal government. But we now need Ottawa to help us compete in a world economy. The Supreme Court has lost an opportunity to interpret our Constitution in the way Sir John A. intended.
David Howell, Hamilton, Ont.
On the 10th: oil
Your article Oil Patch Pushes For Immigration Change (Report on Business, Dec. 23) shows that the most effective way to slow – or even stop – the growth of the oil sands is not through environmental legislation but rather through cuts to immigration.
George Parker, Cobourg, Ont.
On the 11th: women
I'm astounded that Jeffrey Simpson ignored Elizabeth May in his column Give Thanks To Political Women, Smart Kids And The Rock (Dec. 24). Ms. May, you'll recall, made history this year when she became the first Green MP elected in Canada.
Camille Labchuk, Toronto
On the 12th: names
Going to the dentist in the 1950s in North Vancouver was terrifying. His name was Dr. Freeze.
Craig Tapping, Gabriola Island, B.C.
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In Woodstock, Ont., during the 1940s, the local ophthalmologist was Patrick Patience. When our Grade 8 teacher asked for an example of alliteration, I submitted the following winner: "As a patient patient of Dr. Patience, would you patiently say that Dr. Patience was patiently patient or impatiently impatient?"
Phillip S. Utting, Uxbridge, Ont.
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Mind if I slip in one more letter on signs? This one is posted at Warwick Castle in England: Torture Chamber Not Suitable for Wheelchair Users.
Paul Marland, Ottawa