Merry Christmas!

One of the most unusual traditional Christmas decorations is the Catalonian caganer, a small figurine of a person in traditional peasant dress answering the call of nature. The figurines are typically hidden in the elaborate Spanish nativity scenes, discreetly going about their business. It's a funny reminder that the sacred and the profane mingle in everyday life, and that the swaddling clothes of the babe in the manger eventually needed laundering. Perhaps the greatest lesson of the caganer is that one should never lose one's sense of humor, because, as St Ita noted, a scowling countenance is detestable to God.

Merry Christmas to all.