| I’ll try to keep this edition of The Galli Report on the lighter side, since not many of you are going to have much time to read five days before Christmas! So we’ll start off with a tribute to DIY Christmas trees that aren’t trees. But they are fun! (HT to the wife.) Madonna and the Superhero “Lighter” does not mean “without insight.” This short reflection by Frederica Mathewes-Green on images of women then (Madonna and child) and now (female superheroes) is an example: Today, the most familiar images of heroic women would be those of female superheroes, who courageously do battle alongside men. That is, they do the same things men do. We admire them for being “just as good” as men are—not for doing something distinctive that only women can do. It reminds me of something my son Stephen (now Fr Steve Mathewes) said when he was a boy. He was watching one of those movies where a girl has to fight to be included on a boys’ baseball team, and then ends up hitting the home run. He said, “It’s like they think the best thing a girl can be is a kind of honorary boy.” Before I get inundated with mail charging me for regressive thinking: I believe women should be able to vote, work, get equal pay, and have every other right they’ve fought for in the last two centuries. I’m proud of my strong and independent-minded wife and daughters. But as I scan the larger culture, I get the impression that some have bought into the idea that to be validated as a woman, they have to do something that men do, and do it as well as men. Let me say that being a man and doing manly things (whatever that means) is all well and good, but God help us if men become the standard by which we judge anyone’s worth or value. Sermons by the Minute If you will be church shopping in the coming year, you may want to consider sermon length as one criterion. If you want long sermons that highlight God’s goodness (average length: 54 minutes), then you might go to a historically black church. If you want something short, sweet, and to the point, become a Catholic (average sermon length: 14 minutes). (So that’s how they attract so many converts!) At any rate, here are these and other findings of a Pew Research Poll of 49,719 sermons preached from April 7 to June 1, 2019. Shopping Dogs Can’t tell if this video is a satire or not. So it’s either scary or funny. Your call. For Fans of A Christmas Story Along with Elf, this is probably the one Christmas movie our family watch each year—well, most years. If you haven’t seen it, do so before opening a link to “A Christmas Story: 25 behind the Scenes Facts.” (If the link is broken with the announcement that the video is private, just go to YouTube and type in “A Christmas Story” in the search box, and you see it.) I trust you’ll have as delightful a Christmas as I have delighted in pulling together this (more or less) Christmas edition of the GR. | 