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Customs: But Once a Year

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"Ho! Ho! Ho!" laughed Santa, holding his tummy. "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

"Ho! Ho! Ho!'' chuckled the shopkeeper, listening to the jingle of the cash register. "Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!

"Haah?" grunted shoppers as they pounded their way into thickening throngs that filled the stores. "Ooops!" they said, and "Oof!" "Aughh!" and sometimes "Bah!" and sometimes "Oooh!"

These are some of the tones in the season of sounds. There are others: the soaring nobility of Handel's Messiah; the cheerful beauty of carols that somehow sound best in the snow outside somebody's front door at...

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DAVID CAMERON, British Prime Minister, on England's soccer manager, Fabio Capello, who resigned after challenging the FA's decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy; Terry denies a charge of racially abusing QPR's Anton Ferdinand
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