Some of you decadent westerners, festering as you are in your godless moral decay, may have been labouring under the misapprehension that Our Lord Jesus Christ the Almighty Saviour was born into a humble family — in a stable, in fact. Here in holy, marian Poland we know better. As cribs are erected around the country in commemoration of the momentous event it becomes obvious to the disinterested observer that Jesus was in fact born in a palace — a wooden one, to be sure, and with traces of straw here and there, but a palatial building nonetheless. Furthermore, if these modern-day cribs are anything to go by, Jesus�s birthplace was fully catered, and before the three wise men ever showed up there was a miked-up master of ceremonies on hand to let the people of Bethlehem know what was going down. Best of all for the holy family, they didn�t have to make do with plain old gold, frankincense and myrrh — a local branch of a multi-national retail chain was happy to sponsor the event, asking only in return that the first thing the Lord saw when He was born unto woman was a poster prominently advertising the local supermarket.

But of course, it�s all for charity.