Merry Christmas! Let’s dispense for today with the usual mayhem and destruction. It’ll hold and there will plenty for another day.

The NORAD Santa Tracker says Santa Claus delivered 7,282,439,471 gifts.

The Weather Outside: It’s a strangely warm Christmas, so warm in parts of the East that spring flowers are beginning to bloom in seasonal confusion. This fall, and now the winter, have been the warmest on record according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

In Canada, the famous Ice Road that crosses frozen lakes and tundra and is used to resupply northern diamond mines during the winter has failed to freeze. It might not open until late January and have a short season.

Baby, it’s warm, but cold weather is coming. This morning it’s 13 in Bismarck, 38 in Chicago, 64 in Washington, DC, 59 in New York, and 56 in Boston.

Nation: Actor Robert Downey, Jr. was among 91 people pardoned for their criminal convictions yesterday by California Gov. Jerry Brown. Jail used to be a revolving door for the once drug-addicted Downey who spent a year in prison for a felony conviction. The Rooney Report once spent 24 hours with him on a political campaign bus and he was a partying mess. But since then he’s been a star not only on screen, but in pulling himself and his life together.

Traditional Values: Sarah Palin’s unmarried daughter Bristol, who once launched an abstinence campaign after the birth of her first child out of wedlock, has announced the birth of her second child. She hasn’t disclosed the name of the father. Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.

Big Screen: Christmas Day is traditional for opening big movies, but some of them are an odd choice for Christmas fare this year. Quentin Tarantino’s body count western “The Hateful Eight” is in theaters today and Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the survivalist, “The Revenant.” He gets attacked by a bear, a big change from the days when he had to fight off supermodels.

Kevin Fallon writes for The Daily Beast that it’s “shaping up to be the most violent Christmas ever at the box office.” And we thought we were going to avoid mayhem today.

Also opening, a remake of the wooden but entertaining cult classic, “Point Break.” We’ll see if it redelivers the Keanu Reeves signature line: “Oy am an F-B-Oy agent!”

Football: None today, neither college nor NFL. But there are eight big time college football games tomorrow, although the critical contests are reserved for next week. Oklahoma meets undefeated Clemson on Tuesday.

And long gone are the days when it was just the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl. We like the names of the current era bowl games because they’ve got so much snap and heart. A football fan can truly connect with these bowl names. A sampling: Hyundai Sun Bowl, Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl, New Era Pinstripe Bowl, Camping World Independence Bowl, Foster Farms Bowl (why not The Chicken Bowl?), Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman, Quick Lane Bowl, Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl, Advocare V100 Texas Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, and the BattleFrog Fiesta Bowl.

“Honey! I’ll be in the den watching the Battlefrog Fiesta Bowl!”

And Merry Christmas to all from The Rooney Report.

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