Palestinians with bagpipes.
Enlarge Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Christmas gives us the ultimate in cultural mashups, like Palestinian Christian scouts playing bagpipes.

Palestinians with bagpipes.
Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Christmas gives us the ultimate in cultural mashups, like Palestinian Christian scouts playing bagpipes.

And so this is Christmas. From Australia, where it's been Christmas for hours, to Bethlehem where it all reportedly started, on to the Western Hemisphere, where Christmas is officially still hours away, the 2009 edition of the holiday which always gives us some of the most interesting cultural mashups, combining as it does the pagan and the Christian, the commercial and the devout, has arrived. Or soon will.

We at NPR's The Two-Way blog wish for all our readers the happiest of holidays, complete with the warmth of family and friends.

It's our plan to mostly stand down for the holiday. But just as nature abhors a vacuum, a news blog abhors a lack of posts. So a few items may trickle in over the long holiday weekend, as warranted.

For now, however, here's the famous TV yule log, our way of keeping the lights on, sort of.