Pretty X-mas decoration, right? Nope.
Actually, this is Comatricha nigra, a slime mold, a life-form, a survivor against all odds.
I happened to be visiting a website I like which features a scalable, zoomable graphical example of the entire tree of life. It looks more like the vine of life with many off-shoots and curlicues.
I spotted this guy sitting as the sole representative of what was an incredibly long line of species it evolved from. That's right, this simple, very tiny (almost microscopic) life-form made up of little gooey blobs, growing on rotting bark in the forests and such, is the result of millions of years of evolution. Presumably, the thousands of species coming before it, all of whom became extinct BTW, were even simpler in make-up.
This little dude didn't need any imaginary god to die for his sins. Any "sins" in his ancestral line were paid for by the deaths of billions of its forefathers who hadn't developed the just-right features to thrive and endure in their environments whatever they were through time. And they didn't need any teenie-weenie crosses to do it either.
So Merry Moldmas, little guy! You're more of a laudable representative of the awesome "miracle" and wonder of life than any silly fable of a bearded white dude a mere two thousand years ago.