I’ve spent a lot of Christmas times abroad for Fox.  Baghdad, Tora Bora, Pakistan, Indonesia.  But few have been as interesting or as pleasurable as the one cameraman John Templeton and I spent with the crew of the French Navy Frigate the Premier Maitre L’Her.

If you’ve been following our reports you know we’ve been busy covering the French sailors’ efforts to deal with one of the big problems of our  time : Rampant piracy threatening to strangle trade in the critical Gulf of Aden.

No, we didn’t see any pirates during our trip but it wasn’t for lack of trying by the French.  They worked literally around the clock hunting and scouring the waterway for any modern brigands, as well as protecting aid ships and cargo vessels.

At the same time they were incredibly informative and generous hosts.  The ship’s  Lt. Commander Alexi Beatrix and his whole crew were very helpful and supportive of our own mission while still attending to their own. Officers’ chef Jean-Yanick served up the most scrumptious chow we’ve ever tasted on an embed!

I can only hope the days of “American Fries” and other anti-French rhetoric are behind us.  The French are now critical allies with us on a number of fronts, including the piracy challenge.  And they’re great guys and gals.

So, as a small repayment for all the kindness, we’re posting a holiday “shout-out” from the frigate’s crew for the benefit of their folks back home in France.  Even if you don’t speak French you can imagine most of what’s said here, but I thought we’d translate the message to families from Lt. Commander Beatrix who appears just before the end :

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“Today is Christmas Day.  We’re just completing an escort of a merchant vessel convoy through the Gulf of Aden.  Transit was safe and no pirate attack attempts occurred.  A few days ago we escorted a WFP cargo ship loaded with tons of humanitarian aid for the displaced people of Somalia.  Delivery occurred without any problem. This is to say that we are really in the mission of fighting piracy.  However, we don’t forget you and we want to tell you something :  Happy holidays!  We’re thinking of you!”

Ditto to that last sentiment.  With one more holiday wish:  That those pirates causing such havoc got some coal in their stockings and use it to steam away to the North Pole!

Christmas tree farm in Avery, NC

Fraser firs from North Carolina are the most popular Christmas trees in East Coast Homes. One graces the living room of my house here in Atlanta.

But the species is susceptible to an invasive fungus called Phytophthora Root Rot.

Pronounced “fie-TOF-thor-ah,” the fungus was imported into the United States approximately 150 years ago and has spread across the country, according to Doug Hundley, an integrated pest management technician with North Carolina Cooperative Extension. “We have no pesticide that’s really effective,” he said.

Phytophthora Root Rot not only kills the trees, but leaves spores in the soil that render it unfit for replanting Fraser firs. The fungus has contaminated an estimated 10 percent of the fields used for growing trees.

Fraser firs require high elevations to grow. But the beautiful mountain region of western North Carolina, where the Christmas tree farms are located, has become attractive to developers. So, most farmers can’t afford to buy additional land to replace acreage lost to Phytophthora.

Researchers at North Carolina State University collected seeds from fir species around the world. In their greenhouse laboratory, they’re growing seedlings and exposing them to the fungus to see how the trees react.

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“We killed most of these fir species,” said Prof. John Frampton, an NC State plant geneticist. “But there were some that showed a lot of promise for resistance.”

One resistant species from Turkey is especially attractive to Christmas tree farmers because it is similar in appearance and quality to the Fraser fir. Some farmers have planted Turkish firs in places where root rot has destroyed their Fraser crop. Watch my video report for details.

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Here’s how it happened.

On my last trip to Iraq in the spring, I reported on the Baghdad Ballet school.  Looters ransacked the campus after the invasion, and fundamentalists threatened the girls for performing ‘un-Islamic’ dancing at the height of the sectarian violence. But the teachers and students have persevered through six years of war.

Before I returned to Baghdad in early December, I received an email from Barbara Allen Mullins, whose teenage daughter Mary Allen is a dancer with the Mobile Ballet Company in Alabama. The Mobile Ballet students had read about the plight of the Baghdad Ballet in “Dance Magazine”, and somehow found me through the magic of the internet.  They wanted to help by sending ballet shoes and leotards to the students in Baghdad. I volunteered to be the courier, so they shipped a box of gifts to my home in Washington, DC, and I hand carried them to Iraq on the plane.

We made the delivery to the Baghdad Ballet last week. The kids’ eyes lit up as when they saw the brand new clothing, slippers and pointe shoes. I used my laptop to show them pictures of the girls who sent the gifts, and they seemed fascinated by the American ballet students. (They were equally fascinated by the computer itself!)

I was once an aspiring ballerina, so they allowed me to join them in their barre exercises.  Before we left, they performed a traditional Iraqi folk ballet for us.

Barbara Allen says she and the girls from Mobile just wanted to help the children in Baghdad “dance without fear, but with confidence, joy and hope.”

It seems that the Christmas spirit is now alive in one Baghdad Ballet school!

By FNC Contract Reporter, Courtney Walsh

Think of Christmas in Italy and the first thing that comes to mind is Mass at Saint Peter’s in Rome.

But if you are in Italy in late December you might be lucky enough to witness another Italian Christmas tradition… Zampognari, or Italian bagpipers.

Originally the Zampognari were shepherds who lived in the mountains and came down from the hills at Christmastime. Today they represent a contemporary link to the original shepherds who visited the child Jesus in Bethlehem.

Their bagpipes or “zamponga” are normally made of sheep or goat skin and the flutes made of wood.  “Zampa” in Italian means hoof or paw, in fact the bagpipes look like goat legs.  The musicians usually don woolen knickers, sheepskin vests and capes.

Today there are fewer of these “modern” shepherds on the streets. I saw this group not far from the Vatican a few days ago.

These farmers hail from the southern region of Molise, one of Italy’s poorest. They told me times were very hard there. They hoped their music would not only bring cheer, but also remind politicians in Rome about their plight.

So for anyone interested in seeing the Italian version of the Scottish bagpipers, click below! And Buon Natale a tutti!!

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By Alicia Acuna, FOX News correspondent

Whenever any official gets up to talk into a mic about the investigation of Continental flight 1404 that veered off the runway Saturday evening in Denver, they usually don’t walk away without mentioning what a “miracle” it was that all 115 people on board survived.

When you consider that half the emergency exits were blocked by the fire that had engulfed the entire right side of the Boeing 737-500, it is remarkable that everyone not only got out, but that of the 38 people who went to the hospital with injuries, five remain, one in serious condition, at the time of this writing.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s Robert Sumwalt says the investigation is still underway as to what happened when the crew decided to abort the takeoff on Saturday night. Instead of slowly coming to a stop, the aircraft veered to the left and careened more than 2,000 feet across grass and snow before landing in a 40 foot ravine.

In an update, Sumwalt said the flight data and cockpit voice recorders were located and in tact. What’s more, initial analysis of the “black boxes” indicates that investigators in Washington, D.C. will be able to garner audible conversation from whatever was recorded during the last moments of that flight.

Tonight, the NTSB says it hopes to interview the captain of flight 1404. Sumwalt told reporters that first inspectors have to wait for he or she to be ready physically, mentally and emotionally before giving a debrief on what happened on runway 34 Right.

We know that snow and rain weren’t factors in this incident. But the 31 mph winds blowing out at Denver International Airport are being reviewed. The Federal Aviation Administration’s Ian Gregor tells me that no pilot that night at DIA made the decision against departing due to wind prior to the Continental incident. Gregor was quick to point out that this doesn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t a wind problem that night at the nations fifth busiest airport.

Of the 115 people on board, 3 were babies. Firefighters say despite the fact that a major airliner was lying in a ravine, half on fire, a cracked fuselage and an engine separated from the main body, things were relatively calm. Some just called it a miracle.