Merry Christmas. It's Thursday, December the 25th, 2025, and this is Denison Forum's Daily Article Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Today's daily article is narrated by Chris Elkins and authored by cultural theologian, Dr. Jim Denison.

For many reasons, Christmas is a holiday unlike any other. There are holiday

sales expected to top $1 trillion for the very first time. There's travel, as more than 122 million

people are expected to hit the roads and the skies between December 20th and January the 1st.

And there's Santa Claus.

To reach an estimated 238 million homes worldwide last night, he had to visit 7 million per hour,

11667 per minute, or 1,944 per second.

But sales, travel, and Santa are part of Christmas every year.

This is not.

For the first time since 1925, today's date is the same as the last two digits of the year.

Today is also unusual for those who use the day, month, year format,

in that it is nearly palindromic, 25, 12, 25.

I could not have written the first paragraph without help from researchers who knew facts I did not.

However, nothing in the second paragraph required specialized skill or scholarship. I could have figured out the rarity of today's date without the USA Today article explaining it, but I didn't.

This knowledge was available to everyone, but it took someone who knew what I didn't to help me know what I did not know.

The same holds true with the, quote, reason for the season.

According to Gallup, 96% of those who celebrate today will do so by exchanging gifts.

However, only 54% will display decorations with a religious meaning,

such as a nativity scene. And as I noted yesterday, only 47% attend religious services on Christmas

Eve or today. Imagine going to a birthday party where the guests gave each other

presents while ignoring

the person whose birthday prompted the gathering.

...