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    The forgotten faces of Christmas in China | Letter

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    Reading “made in China” on his toys for the first time, my young Chinese nephew asked me innocently whether Santa was Chinese. Oddly, like Santa’s elves, toy assembly workers in China remain remote and faceless to most of us in the west. In Britain, most Asian migrants work backstage, too, kept in kitchens or workshops, taking the first and last train, earning low wages and hidden from our eyes. In many countries this Christmas, instead of being acknowledged for alleviating our cost of living crisis, those foreign workers will be vilified for stealing our jobs and threatened with tariffs whose consequences economists are still not certain about.It is always easier to blame people who remain invisible and voiceless. Although our world has never been so interconnected, and hence our nations so reliant on each other’s labour, Chinese society remains poorly understood. In the west, Chinese people remain enigmatic, the ever-silent and under-represented minority. When scrutinised, it is often with a political lens as well, maybe showing some cognitive bias.The question today should be how much value the free movement of products and people has brought to our nations and how to ensure that it keeps doing so in the future. As evidenced by world history, curiosity and interest towards foreign societies has often been an engine of progress. Christmas is a time to reach out and be thankful to one another: it is hoped that this spirit will continue to animate our politicians and societies in this coming year.Hugo WongAuthor of America’s Lost Chinese; London More

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      Test Your Knowledge of Winter Holiday Books

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      In 2000’s “The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales From Around the World for the Winter Solstice,” Carolyn McVickar Edwards collects traditional stories from China, India, Africa, Europe, Polynesia and the Indigenous Americas. In the Northern Hemisphere, which day does the winter solstice usually fall on or near? More

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      Year in Review

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      As critics issue their year-end lists, we want to know your personal favorites of 2024.It’s the most wonderful time of year, and I don’t mean the holiday season, although I’ve heard that people are excited about that too. No, for nerds like me who love to plan out their holiday culture consumption — those whose appetites are always far larger than their capacity for viewing/reading/listening — December is sacred because it is when critics issue their retrospective best-of lists, their verdicts on the best movies, music, TV, books and other cultural artifacts of 2024.I’ve always thought it a shame that everyone I know doesn’t issue a best-of list. Yes, critics are experts in their fields, completists who have surveyed the landscape of their beats such that their assessments of “the best” are far more informed than the average cultural consumer’s. But I also want to know what my friends and family loved, and why. There’s no easier way to get to know someone a little bit more deeply than by asking them for a recommendation. I have a fantasy of pulling out a bullhorn on my morning commute and asking everyone in my subway car their top five films of the year. I’m not sure anyone would play along with my reindeer game, but if they did, I expect that I’d get a few good recs, some truly nutty ones, and that it would certainly bring a spirit of joy and conviviality to a typically alienating part of the day.And why stop at the usual categories? Best-of lists are typically limited to the same categories. Tell me your favorite movie, book and song, but I also want to know the best line of poetry you read this year, the best cocktail you devised, the best tradition you started, the best grilling technique, the best piece of advice you received. We’re all living and exploring and absorbing.And so I ask you, as I do every year, to send in your own highly specific, idiosyncratic, genre-free favorites from 2024. What did you discover? What did you learn? What did you love? Submit your answers here, and I’ll include as many of them as I can in upcoming newsletters.For moreThe Morning readers’ bests of 2023 and 2022.The best advice Morning readers received in 2023 and 2022.“As with everything worth making — bread, sweet love, mix tapes — there’s an art to creating a great Top 10 list.” From 2011, Dan Kois on how and why to make a best-of list.The Times’s best of 2024 lists.More year-end lists from around the internet.THE WEEK IN CULTUREFilm and TVAmy Adams in a scene from “Nightbitch.”Searchlight Pictures, via Associated Press“Nightbitch,” which stars Amy Adams as a stay-at-home mother who turns into a feral dog, is one of the movies Times critics are talking about this week.“The Agency” on Paramount + and Netflix’s “Black Doves” are part of a new crop of spy dramas whose biggest battles take place within the hearts and minds of their agents.ArtThe discovery of a rare picture of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, made by his lover Paul Verlaine, prompted a bidding war in Paris.At New York’s Grolier Club, an exhibition renders physical representations of lost or unfinished works by writers including Ernest Hemingway and Christopher Marlowe.More CultureJean-Charles de CastelbajacAlain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen Notre-Dame Cathedral reopens, the clergy will be wearing new liturgical garb designed by the French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac.The most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold at auction — a stegosaurus that went for almost $45 million — has a new home at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.The two remaining defendants in the case against Young Thug’s rap label YSL were found not guilty of murder and gang charges.THE LATEST NEWSWar in SyriaRebel fighters in the streets of Hama on Friday.Bakr Al Kassem/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRebels fighting to depose Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, advanced on another major city en route to the capital. The sudden intensification of the war has led neighboring countries to close their borders.Iran, which for years has helped Assad maintain control of Syria, is now evacuating military personnel from the country.The leader of Syria’s rebel groups told The Times that he was confident his fighters could oust Assad. “This operation broke the enemy,” he said.Other Big StoriesA vote on whether to impeach South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, slowed to a crawl as the opposition tried to convince members of his party to support the ouster of the president.A federal judge ruled that the U.S. Naval Academy can consider race and ethnicity in admissions, asserting that affirmative action was essential to protect national security.A panel of federal judges upheld a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sells the app. Donald Trump opposes the ban.The U.S. Department of Agriculture will begin testing the nation’s milk supply for the bird flu virus.Police officers now believe the man who shot the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in Manhattan escaped from the city that day. Investigators recovered a backpack in Central Park similar to the one he was carrying.CULTURE CALENDAR📺 “Somebody Somewhere” (Sunday): In the second season of this HBO half-hour, a character graces a potluck with St. Louis sushi, a delicacy that combines ham, pickles and cream cheese. It’s delicious. And tough on the gut. That’s also true of this riotously funny, achingly tender comedy created by Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen and Bridget Everett. Everett stars as Sam, a woman who returns in middle age to her Manhattan, Kan., hometown. A sweet and salty heartbreaker about family found and chosen, this show will end its three-season run on Sunday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden to participate in final Christmas tree lighting ceremony as president

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      Joe Biden is set to take part in the annual national Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Washington DC on Thursday evening, for the final time before leaving the White House.This year, the centerpiece of the 102-year tradition will be a 35ft red spruce from the George Washington and Jefferson national forests in Virginia.The event, which is scheduled to begin at 6pm ET, will be held at the Ellipse park just south of the White House and will feature performances by Adam Blackstone, Stephen Sanchez, James Taylor, the War and Treaty, and others.For the Bidens’ last Christmas at the White House, Jill Biden chose the theme A Season of Peace and Light for the holiday decorations, which she unveiled on Monday.“As we celebrate our finally – final holiday season here in the White House, we are guided by the values that we hold sacred: faith, family and service to our country, kindness toward all of our neighbors, and the power of community,” the first lady said.Inside the White House, one of the centerpieces of the holiday decorations is the Christmas tree.This year, it is an 18.5ft Fraser fir tree from Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm in North Carolina.The farm is in Newland in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a region that was recently devastated by Hurricane Helene.“The Cartner family lost thousands of trees to the storm,” the first lady said last week at the tree arrival ceremony. “But this one remained standing – and they named it Tremendous for the extraordinary hope that it represents.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt the tree arrival ceremony, Jill Biden was joined by the congresswoman Virginia Foxx, as well as members of the North Carolina national guard and their families, who are working to rebuild after Hurricane Helene.“This tree recognizes your tremendous strength and service,” she told them.In an interview with the Associated Press, Sam Cartner Jr, one of three brothers who owns the farm, said that they wanted to be “an uplifting symbol for the other farmers and other people in western North Carolina that have experienced so many losses”. More

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      Walmart Stock Rises on Strong Earnings Ahead of Holiday Shopping Season

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      The bellwether retailer reported higher-than-expected sales in its latest quarter and upgraded its forecast for the rest of the year.Walmart has told its workers that it plans to “win” the holiday season. Ahead of the peak shopping period, the nation’s largest retailer appears well positioned, citing “broad-based strength” across its product range.Walmart said Tuesday that U.S. sales increased 5 percent in the third quarter, to $114.9 billion, easily surpassing analysts’ estimates. Sales at its U.S. e-commerce business jumped 22 percent, aided by pickup and delivery options as well as its expanding online advertising and marketplace business.The number of visits and the amount spent per visit both rose, a promising trend for the retailer. Walmart raised its full-year forecast for sales and profit, higher than the estimates it had already increased three months ago.Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, said the company had “momentum.” “In the U.S., in-store volumes grew, pickup from store grew faster, and delivery from store grew even faster than that,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. The results were somewhat affected by hurricanes and a strike by East Coast port workers, the company said, slightly raising sales but denting profits.Walmart, which brings in millions of customers each week, is a bellwether of U.S. consumer trends. The period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day can make or break a retailer’s year, and companies are unsure about how freely shoppers will spend in the weeks ahead.Analysts have recently cautioned that Walmart’s success does not necessarily mean the rest of the retail industry will see similarly strong sales.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Spirit Halloween Will Experiment With Spirit Christmas

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      Known for its pop-up stores — and its army of seasonal workers — Spirit Halloween will try its hand at a longer run and a bigger holiday.For many fall enthusiasts, the season’s start is marked by the arrival of autumn leaves and apple picking. For others, it is marked by the emergence of the Borg-like retail empire that is Spirit Halloween, a Halloween goods purveyor that opens more than 1,500 locations across North America, only to shutter them in the days after Halloween.The script has remained constant: Spirit Halloween outlets appear in strip malls, and just about any abandoned storefront, selling vast inventories of costumes, wigs, vampire fangs, fake blood, devil pitchforks and ghoulish animatronics. Year after year, its stores create a dependable seasonal economy for thousands of workers before disappearing as quickly as they materialized.But this week, Spirit, which was founded in 1983, announced that it intends to test the waters of the Christmas season, too, with the introduction of a new retail concept, “Spirit Christmas.” Ten test locations will open across the Northeast, starting on Oct. 18 with a store in Mays Landing, N.J., which will be followed in November with outlets in locations like Albany, Poughkeepsie and Erie.At these locations, Spirit’s Grim Reaper-like mascot will be replaced with a winking Santa, and its stock will be replaced with gingerbread houses, wrapping paper, ugly sweaters, elf hats, reindeer ears and stocking stuffers. Locations will also offer family photo ops with resident bearded Santas.“Spirit Christmas is a new concept for us, and we’re hopeful it will resonate with our customers,” Kym Sarkos, Spirit’s executive vice president, said in a statement. Her statement added that customers will be able to wander through a “life-sized gingerbread village, where you can mail your letter to Santa at the North Pole and find out whether you’ve been naughty or nice.”The storefronts change, but the Spirit Halloween signage remains the same.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn recent years, as Spirit Halloween’s seasonal retail empire has grown, the ephemerality of its business structure has made it the subject of endless parody. In the recent season premiere of “Saturday Night Live,” the sketch show aired a prerecorded spot that poked fun at Spirit Halloween’s impending, yet ultimately temporary, emergence.In the skit, an employee played by Heidi Gardner walks through the aisles of a busy Spirit store while she tells viewers about the company’s seasonal aid to depressed local economies around the nation.“Since 1983, Spirit Halloween has been helping our struggling communities by setting up shop in every vacant building in the country for six weeks,” she says. “And then bouncing.”After the skit aired, Spirit shot back at “Saturday Night Live” in a post on X.“We are great at raising things back from the dead @nbcsnl,” Spirit’s social team wrote alongside a photo of a Spirit costume package titled “Irrelevant 50-year-old TV show.” The package’s description noted that the outfit came with “Dated references,” “Unknown cast members” and “Shrinking ratings.”The joke landed well online, and now the company will find out if its customers are interested in having Spirit stick around through the holiday season. More

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      A Christmas Gift From the Bond Market

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      It’s been a strange few days on the Donald Trump front: He said something about himself that I actually believe and something about the economy that’s mostly true.On the personal side, Trump has been sounding a lot like Adolf Hitler lately — I don’t mean his general tone, I mean his specific statement last week at a New Hampshire rally that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing what Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf” almost word for word. (And if you think it was just a one-off, he said the same thing in a September interview.) But Trump claims never to have read “Mein Kampf,” and I believe him, just as I believe that he’s barely skimmed the Bible or any of the great books or, I would guess, “The Art of the Deal.” Pretty clearly, reading isn’t his thing.What’s happening, presumably, is that Trump talks to people who have read Hitler, approvingly, and that’s how Nazi language gets into his speeches. Are you reassured?On the economic side, the stock market has recently been close to record highs, but Trump has dismissed these gains as just making “rich people richer.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Let’s go Brandon’ Santa Tracker caller insists he meant no disrespect to Biden

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      ‘Let’s go Brandon’ Santa Tracker caller insists he meant no disrespect to BidenJared Schmeck, 35, tells Oregonian he has ‘nothing against’ president to whom he repeated ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ rightwing meme The caller who ended a conversation with Joe Biden with the rightwing meme “Let’s go Brandon” – which means “fuck Joe Biden” – has insisted he was joking and meant no disrespect to the president.Caller tells Joe Biden ‘Let’s go Brandon’ during White House Christmas eventRead more“At the end of the day I have nothing against Mr Biden,” Jared Schmeck, 35, told the Oregonian newspaper. “But I am frustrated because I think he can be doing a better job. I mean no disrespect to him.”Schmeck, from Central Point, also said he was not a “Trumper” but rather a “free-thinking American and follower of Jesus Christ”.On Christmas Eve, the president and his wife, Dr Jill Biden, took calls to the North American Aerospace Defense Command Santa Tracker, which each year purports to follow the progress of Santa and his reindeer.A traditional duty for American presidents, in 2018 it was nearly upended when Donald Trump told a seven-year-old belief in Santa Claus was “marginal” at that age.Biden and Schmeck discussed presents Schmeck’s four children were hoping to receive, and how one, Hunter, shared a name with the president’s son and grandson. Schmeck said he was hoping for a “quiet night”.Biden sad: “Lots of luck, dad.”All on the call laughed.At the end of the call, Schmeck said: “Merry Christmas and Let’s go Brandon.”“Let’s go Brandon, I agree,” Biden said, as his wife winced.Biden also said: “By the way are you in Oregon? Where’s your home?”But the call was disconnected.“Let’s go Brandon” originated in an interview with a racing car driver by a TV reporter who may have misheard a crowd’s obscene chant.It has flourished in rightwing and pro-Trump circles – even being promoted by Republican congressmen and the Texas senator Ted Cruz.Schmeck and his wife promoted the remark on social media. But they met with a tide of opprobrium, including a tweet in which the California congressman Eric Swalwell pointed to Biden’s painful personal history.“I refuse to believe we are this indecent as people,” the Democrat wrote. “Not on Christmas Eve. And not to a person who lost his wife and daughter at Christmastime. We are better than this. Be kind and Merry Christmas.”Biden commemorates 49th anniversary of crash that killed his first wifeRead moreSchmeck, a former police officer, told the Oregonian he was “being attacked for utilising my freedom of speech”.He also said he had received some potentially threatening phone calls of his own.“I understand there is a vulgar meaning to ‘Lets go Brandon’ but I’m not that simple-minded, no matter how I feel about him,” Schmeck said.“[Biden] seems likes he’s a cordial guy. There’s no animosity or anything like that. It was merely just an innocent jest to also express my God-given right to express my frustrations in a joking manner.”Schmeck said subjects stoking those frustrations with Biden included vaccine mandates and supply chain problems.He also insisted: “I love him just like I love any other brother or sister.”TopicsJoe BidenChristmasUS politicsOregonnewsReuse this content More

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      Jill Biden axes Melania Trump’s blood trees for restrained Christmas decor

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      Jill Biden axes Melania Trump’s blood trees for restrained Christmas decorAfter her predecessor’s terrifying vision, the first lady’s minimal display strikes a polite and safe tone You’ve heard the faint murmur of All I Want for Christmas Is You, you’ve seen people swapping their pumpkin spice lattes for Starbucks Eggnogs and Jill Biden has unveiled the White House’s Christmas decor. Yes, Christmas is officially here.She’s following seasonal protocol: since 1889 the White House has been marking the beginning of the season with an interiors makeover. JFK and Jackie’s version gave Lana Del Rey and other fans of classic Americana inspiration for life, Lady Bird Johnson went “peace and love” in 1967 putting a wreath of flowers on hers, the Reagans gave it full 80s glam by allowing Mr T to co-star in the photo-op as Santa (JR from Dallas did the honours the following year) and Hillary Clinton memorably threw everything at her tree in classic overachiever style.But never has the phrase “DECK THE HALLS!” sounded so threatening as when Melania Trump become chief of staff of interior Christmas decorating. Blood trees (Twitter never forgets), ivory white sticks that resembled witches fingers and enough Christmas lights that suggested a special cut-price deal with the power grid. The overall mise en scène Trump was emoting seemed to be The Handmaid’s Tale meets the launch of my premium brand of Glaceau smartwater in Elsa from Frozen’s ice castle.Jill Biden has gone minimal by comparison. The theme is “Gifts from the Heart”. And if that sounds like the name of a Celine Dion Sings the Seasonal Classics-type affair, well, you’d be right. Dr Biden was inspired by the people she’d met while her husband was campaigning, according to Associated Press. There’s a gingerbread White House diorama, candy cane-like stockings sized apparently to fit a baby elephant’s foot and The Tree. Well, The Tree is bursting with life, with white tinsel wrapped around to look like white doves of peace. It’s polite. It’s safe. And after four years of hell, it’s just a relief.Still, there’s certainly a wave of nausea when one looks at the gold-plated leaves adoring the tree in the light of the unemployment numbers and The Great Resignation.The big takeaway question we have, though, is: with all the supply chain issues, what’s exactly in those big red boxes?With Omicron likely to become the Grinch that stole Christmas (again), maybe these pictures should be seen as normal-time placeholders. With your normally scheduled Christmas set to recommence some time in 2025. Now, let’s all suspend our collective beliefs and stare at those huge stockings again.For a full look at Jill Biden’s Christmas decorations, click here.TopicsChristmasJill BidenUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More