Brenda Lee with Elvis Presley.

Singer Brenda Lee is known for her rockabilly, pop, country,
and Christmas music. She achieved her first Billboard hit at
age 12 in 1957.

Some of Lee’s most successful songs include "Sweet Nothin’s",
"I’m Sorry", "I Want to Be Wanted", "Speak to Me Pretty", "All
Alone Am I", and "Losing You".

Her song "Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree", recorded in
1958, topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 2023, making Lee
the oldest artist ever to top the chart and breaking several
chart records. She is 81 years young today.     
    
    
    
    
    
   

On Christmas morning, Apollo 8 left its lunar orbit and began
its journey back to Earth, landing safely in the Pacific Ocean
on on this day in 1968 after an historic six-day journey.

On December 21, Apollo 8 was launched by a three-stage
Saturn 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, astronauts
Frank Borman, James Lovell, Jr., and William Anders were
aboard.     
   

On Christmas Eve, the astronauts entered into orbit around
the moon, the first manned spacecraft ever to do so.      

Zacharias Ward (54) is a Canadian actor known for his role
as Scut Farkus (above) in the 1983 film A Christmas Story
and its 2022 sequel A Christmas Story Christmas.

Although most Christians celebrate December 25 as the birthday
of Jesus Christ, few in the first two Christian centuries claimed
any knowledge of the exact day or year in which he was born.

The oldest existing record of a Christmas celebration is found in
a Roman almanac that tells of Christ’s Nativity festival led by the
church of Rome in 336 A.D.         
       

SANDY KOZEL

The crew of the Apollo 8 (from left): Frank Borman, William Anders and James Lovell Jr. (AP Photo) 

 

Borman announced that the crew had a final message for
the people of Earth as each man took turns reading the 
first 10 verses of the book of Genesis from the Bible.

The Apollo 8 mission paved the way for Apollo 11, fulfilling
President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the
moon before the end of the decade.

Apollo 8 command module in the Museum of
Science and Industry.