Christmas

Often film sequels are slam dunks at the box office, a seamless continuation from where a previous hit left off. But as the new installment of the 15-year-old franchise "Men in Black" proves, getting to the big screen isn't always a cakewalk. One of the most troubled productions in recent Hollywood memory, Sony Pictures' latest movie in the Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones sci-fi-comedy franchise encountered multiple script rewrites, a discontented star and a three-month production shutdown as writers and studio executives scrambled to fix a project that nearly fell apart . By the time it was over, the studio had run up a tab of nearly $250 million - making "Men in Black 3" one of the most expensive releases of the summer.

The Nigerian man who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear aboard a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day 2009 has been sentenced to life in prison. Speaking briefly in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Thursday, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 25-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, called his sentencing "a day of victory" and said he was "proud to kill in the name of God," according to wire service reports. A criminologist who analyzed the transcripts of the FBI interrogation of Abdulmutallab wrote in a report submitted to the judge that the would-be bomber was unrepentant.

It was the weekend before Christmas, but rather than searching frantically for gifts, Kathy Yandell stood outside a Beverly Hills retailer Saturday, starring in the role of the anti-shopper. The Redondo Beach animal rights activist, along with four fellow supporters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, were displaying protest signs and urging holiday shoppers to avoid the Nature Company.

Anwar Awlaki, the U.S. citizen killed last year in a CIA drone strike in Yemen, was instrumental in the failed plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in December 2009, according to a Justice Department court document filed Friday. A sentencing memorandum for Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who pleaded guilty in October to attempting to down the jetliner with a bomb sewn into his underwear, makes public for the first time some of the evidence that led President Obama to order a lethal strike against Awlaki, the Al Qaeda-linked cleric who was born in New Mexico.

An abandoned cat or dog can make the perfect holiday gift. But all too often, Christmas cats and Hanukkah hounds return to animal shelters because they are chosen in haste. At a North Hollywood animal shelter Thursday, Gary Olsen, general manager of the city Department of Animal Regulation, paired up with City Councilman Joel Wachs to promote pet gift certificates to ensure that holiday pets don't return to shelters by summer.

Teenagers looking for summer work will have a better chance of finding it this year, according to outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The improving job market, the firm said, has eased competition for the low-skilled, low-paying jobs that traditionally go to teens on school break. The employment environment for high-schoolers and other young folks has made a dramatic recovery since falling to record lows in 2010, when the number of 16- to 19-year-olds working during the summer months was at its slimmest level since 1949.

A few days before Thanksgiving, my wife actually tried to brine me. She filled the tub with water and salt and soaked me like a bird. Every few hours, she'd come in and flip me around. Fortunately, soccer was over and I didn't have that much else to do. "You'll be more tender," she explained. "Probably not," I warned. "It works with Butterballs," Posh said. "Well, I'm not him." I'm telling you, these moms -- you've got to watch them. There's no telling what they'll try next.

'A Princess for Christmas' Where: Hallmark When: 8 and 10 p.m. Saturday Rating: Not rated

I always thought that Christmas has something to do with the birth of Jesus Christ, but after watching all the Christmas commercials I realize I must be very, very wrong. DAVID BOOTHBY Los Angeles

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part I Summit, $30.99; Blu-ray, $33.99 The "Twilight" saga's supernatural soap opera reaches a ludicrously high pitch in the first half of concluding volume "Breaking Dawn," which includes a wedding, an accelerated pregnancy and a major transformation for a major character. All that would be fine if the franchise's creative team had any sense of fun about what they're making (a la "True Blood"). Instead, new "Twilight" director Bill Condon continues what his predecessors started, making a movie that's dreary and self-serious.

Probably the defining moment over our holidays was when the little guy accidentally ker-plunked his Silly Putty in his sister's bowl of chili, causing a minor international incident. You might've heard her shrieks at your house, no matter where you live. This shrieking was followed by his mother's stern admonition that the little guy wash the Silly Putty thoroughly, lest the dog think it an hors d'oeuvre and we wind up spending Christmas night and $1,200 at the emergency pet clinic, waiting for it to clear his colon.

To the surprise of virtually no one, Adele's "21" is officially the top-selling album of 2011, with a final tally of 5.82 million copies, while the British soul singer's single "Rolling in the Deep" was the year's bestselling song with 5.81 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan's year-end sales report issued Wednesday. Adele's album entered the chart at No. 1 in February and has never dropped out of the Top 10. This week marks the CD's 14th nonconsecutive week as the nation's top-selling album.

A great city for any season I enjoyed the story about Bethlehem, Pa. [" ' Christmas City' Filled With Holiday Tradition," by Karl Zimmermann, Dec. 25]. It's an amazing place any time, and especially at this time of year. I live near there and know the Historic Bethlehem area well both at Christmas and at other seasons of the year. The Moravians have a marvelous, continuing tradition. Donald S. Heintzelman Zionsville, Pa. His own trip globetrotting I howled with glee when I read David Lamb's Dec. 18 story, "A Gift of the World.

Most years, in the days following Dec. 25 (and, to a lesser degree, many of the major holidays, such as July 4 and Memorial Day), several readers write to The Times to express their displeasure over what they view as not enough coverage of the holiday. This Christmas was no different. Reader Ana Barbure of Hermosa Beach thought something significant was missing from Sunday's paper: a holiday greeting. "I was extremely disappointed to see that the Sunday paper did not wish readers a happy Christmas," she wrote.

Time after time this holiday season, I reached for the phone on the kitchen counter to call my mother-in-law in Ohio. Then I remembered, I'm on my own now making family favorites. For years, her special holiday dishes grounded our family traditions. It's just not Thanksgiving without Rene's dressing, Christmas without her sweet potato pie, New Year's Day without her black-eyed peas. Rene's death last winter left a hole in our lives . I could will myself not to think about her absence, until I sat at the kitchen table pawing through piles of old recipes, searching for some written link to her culinary legacy.

The party won't stop for Tom Cruise over New Year's, as the actor's latest "Mission: Impossible" sequel is expected to be the No. 1 film at the box office for the second consecutive weekend. "Ghost Protocol," the fourth installment in Paramount Pictures' action franchise, collected an impressive $44.1 million over the four-day Christmas holiday and should gross a similar figure this long New Year's weekend. During the last week — one of the busiest of the year for the movie business, with children out of school and many adults off work — the film was the top choice among filmgoers every day. On Wednesday alone, the picture collected $8.5 million, bringing its domestic total to $94.6 million.

A Claremont church's nativity display that showed gay couples holding hands was vandalized in an incident discovered Christmas Day that authorities are investigating as a hate crime. Claremont United Methodist Church has a Christmas tradition of unusual nativity scene installations that are intended to carry a social or political message. Despite some of the controversial topics, the installations had never been defaced, according to church officials and John Zachary, the artist who created them.