Video Spoofs Jews on Christmas

New music video not exactly well-received

(NEWSER) - Justin Bieber teamed up with Mariah Carey for a new version of her '90s holiday classic, "All I Want for Christmas Is You," and the results are just about as bad as you'd expect. A sampling of the reactions:

• "Why has the Bieb launched a campaign to traumatize everyone who's old enough to remember the '90s?" moans Margaret Hartmann on Jezebel . His Boyz II Men video was bad enough, but "now he's released a Macy's commercial disguised as a Mariah Carey duet—though we used that term loosely because it sounds like Bieber is just wailing over the old recording of the song."

Also, Santa? Didn't start out being so jolly

(NEWSER) - Cheerful church groups love Christmas caroling, but the tradition was actually started by a bunch of lushes. Back when "Christmas" was actually a celebration of the winter solstice, poor carolers would go from house to house singing ... and also threatening to break windows if they were not plied with food and drinks, a History Channel exec tells AOL News . "They would get very, very rowdy," David McKillop says. More»

Six signs that the holiday season has gotten too impatient

(NEWSER) - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ... even though we're not yet past Thanksgiving. The Week pores through local papers to find six tales of Christmas coming too early this year:

• It's never too early for eggnog lattes: In Seattle , at least one Starbucks started selling seasonal drinks right after Halloween.
• It could, however, be too early for Christmas trees: In South Dakota , trees were already being sold this week—will they even make it all the way to Christmas?

If you watch White Christmas , be considerate: also watch Munich

(NEWSER) - "Just because anyone with half a brain celebrates Christmas," Paul Rudnick writes in that bastion of traditional Christianity, the New Yorker , that's no reason to alienate your yarmulke-wearing friends. Some tips:

• Calling Jesus "Our Savior" might seem gauche. Just call him "the Jew that got away."
• Gifting for a mixed couple made easy: The Christian wife gets a candle, the Jewish husband "a lovely framed portrait of his parents, rending their clothes and sobbing."

Classic tune recalls America's loss of innocence on entering WWII

(NEWSER) - The best-selling record of all time is a deceptively simple 15-line song about longing for home, writes Roy J. Harris for the Wall Street Journal , in a look at how the Bing Crosby-crooned, Irving Berlin-penned "White Christmas" has managed to sell an estimated 100 million copies over the last 67 years. The song’s runaway popularity in WWII coincided with America’s entry into the Pacific war, notes Harris, capturing soldiers' longing for home. That period also marked a broadcast shift from live to recorded music; radio DJs played the song over and over, fueling demand. More»