This guy is the real thing … and he's plucked my girl up to be his right-hand man because he knows she's the real deal, too.

The American custom of erecting a putz seems to have originated with the Moravians but the custom long ago spread to non-Moravian households. Essentially, the putz is a landscape, built on the floor or on a table or portable platform.

We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, what the French call his donnée; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.

After the storm, all the women and children bailed desperately to keep the lifeboat from sinking. Not Lucas the badling, though. He just hopped up and down in the stern, flapping his arms in the air and exclaiming, 'Oh my, oh, my!'