For the last couple of years, this poor little Jewish boy (to paraphrase Taki) has a tradition. Every Christmas, I like to read a novella or a story (with a glass or two or three of spiced wine) that puts me into the holiday mood. Last year, it was the great Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, this year I am still deciding between O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi and Georges Simenon’s Maigret’s Christmas.

In addition to the classics, I will spend the coming days with the latest issue of Chronicles. Without exaggeration, the January issue is a milestone in American conservative journalism: a collection of hard-hitting pieces by the leading immigration-reduction (control is not enough anymore) advocates. Unlike the otherwise crucial issues of abortion and affirmative action, immigration is the issue that will decide the future of America and the whole West.

I remember picking up a copy of Brimelow’s Alien Nation in high school circa 2001, definitely before 9-11. Needless to say, it, along with Pat Buchanan’s Death of the West shook me out of my Rush Limbaugh-listening, Fox News-watching existence, and when “the bum Frum” (as Taki calls him) wrote that Unpatriotic Conservatives piece, introducing me to Chronicles, I became a paleo.

But back to immigration. The interesting thing is that so many immigration reduction advocates are themselves immigrants: Peter Brimelow, John Derbyshire, Srdja Trifkovic, Taki, and to drop a dozen or so rungs down the ladder, yours truly. As Brimelow points out in his timeless Alien Nation, immigrants to America were oftentimes, loud advocates of immigration control. British Jewish immigrant Samuel Gompers comes to mind.

The latest issue is to be enjoyed and savored like a glass of good Armenian brandy (leave Hennessy to the rappers and drug dealers) or Portuguese port. I’ll close with a particularly perceptive quote from Justin Raimondo’s column:

I don’t hold it against immigrants if they resist “Americanization”. Think of what that means today. It means refusing to be assimilated into a mass “culture” of prefabricated mental pabulum, fast food, and soulless “hook-ups”, where a thought that can’t be tweeted is beyond comprehension.

Merry Christmas!