It probably comes as no surprise that despite an ailing economy and unfathomable unemployment rates across the nation, there’s really never been a better time to be a toy-making elf.

Think about it – in this crazy, technological age of Bluetooth this and wifi-enabled that, toys these days are more complicated than ever.  These new gadgets aren’t exactly something that just anyone could pound out in a couple of hours – would you be able to sit down at a workbench and just “make” an iPod Touch?!  I mean, give me a pocket knife and I could go out into the woods and whittle you a set of Lincoln Logs, but today’s modern Christmas gifts require a bit more assembly than the simple cut here, pound there trinkets and baubles of holidays long passed…

All of this fancy, new technology takes a team of highly skilled workers to build – it’s really an elf’s market for anyone who considers helping to create happiness among children all over the world to be an important value in the workplace.  Sure, computers and video games have been around for quite a while now … I still remember unwrapping my own 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System almost 25 years ago … but have you seen the graphics on a Playstation 3 running at full HD resolution?! To say that we’ve leaped forward a step or two since then would be an understatement akin to calling HoneyBaked Ham just an ok option for Christmas dinner!  And much like not just anybody can create a delicious, mouth-watering ham like HoneyBaked, not just anyone can build these highly-sophisticated entertainment devices for the good little boys and girls all around the globe, either!

Granted, I’m not exactly privy to what kinds of training that elves have to go through around the North Pole to ultimately become toy-makers, but I’ve got to imagine that it’s probably a pretty extensive selection process.  Maybe they all start out just wrapping gifts and sorting letters in the mail room and stuff, eventually working their way up through sleigh packing and reindeer maintenance (a stinky, but vital job, indeed!) before finally earning their place amongst the ranks of those who actually get to make stuff around the North Pole.  First would likely be candy, then cookies and other sweets, and then hopefully with enough hard work and dedication to the craft, the best and the brightest might someday find themselves transcending the leap from consumables over into the highly-coveted toy department where workbenches are filled day and night with hardworking elves building the very toys that will delight millions young and old come Christmas morning!

Sure, some cynics might argue that the hours are long and at the end of the day there’s one guy in a suit who takes all of the credit for your work, but something tells me that it’s not about recognition that keeps these dedicated elves showing up to work in subzero temperatures each and every morning.  For starters, I hear that the universal healthcare at the North Pole is outstanding, not to mention access to the latest gadgets and gizmos, plenty of Christmas cookies always laying around the workshop, and of course, the collective sound of gifts being unwrapped the world over on Christmas morning – that, along with an incredibly competitive benefits package and getting to work with the Santa Claus?!  I tell you, if I was three feet shorter and could actually stand being even somewhat remotely cold, it might be something to consider if this whole writing thing doesn’t work out!

Until then, though, I say we take a moment to express our kind thanks to the little people who actually make the things that bring smiles to our faces and truly make Christmas Day something worth being “good” for the other 364 days of the year.  Remember, if it wasn’t for these highly-devoted workbench warriors, you might actually have to pay full price at a store for that iPad you’ve had your eye on…

Oh, jeeesh!  Why didn’t anybody tell me it was getting so late?!

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love what I do, but if you were to ask me the single most frustrating thing about being a humor columnist, my answer would be pretty simple…

The health insurance.

…then probably the impending fear of nobody actually laughing at the things I write.

But third would definitely be the deadlines!  I mean, talk about the bane of really any writer’s existence – our lives would be infinitesimally easier if it wasn’t for our deadlines … velvet ropes would part, champagne would rain from the skies, and Santa Claus would deliver presents every single day of the year. Oh man, it would be so amazing, I think I need just a moment to collect myself after even thinking about it…

Of course, the reality of the situation is that as much as us writers despise our deadlines, that’s actually the exact reason why we need them because otherwise … we’d never get anything done!  The truth is, 90% of all writing is done at the last minute, whether it be cookbook recipes or new episodes of The Simpsons or even humor columns just like this one that you’re reading right now, and frankly, we’d have probably put them off even longer if it wasn’t for readers like you who actually look forward to our latest witty banter and/or delicious soufflé recipes on a regular basis.  In a way, it’s you guys who keep us on task and give us a reason to do more than just sit around in our pajamas eating Pop-Tarts all day!

I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if procrastination wasn’t such an appealing diversion to actual work – I mean, I could probably write a whole separate column just on procrastination, but then again, that wouldn’t exactly get me any closer to actually finishing this one, now would it?!  Thanks to everything from the Internet, TV, cell phones, iPods, satellite radio, and even just looking out the ole’ window, putting off work as long as humanly possible has become easier than ever in this technological wonderland of ours…

Case in point – it took me roughly four and a half hours just to write this last paragraph!

Seriously, though, I think the only way for a writer to maintain any sense at all of his or her own sanity is to somehow come to terms and learn to live with their own dreaded deadlines.  And don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not saying not to fear your deadlines!  On the contrary, of course you should still fear them – fear them like the mother-in-law who comes to “visit” and then ends up staying for the next three years just out of spite! Because it’s only from that overwhelming, career-threatening, ego-shattering fear that truly great writing emerges – as they say, nothing good has ever been written at 2:00pm on your average Wednesday afternoon.

Now with that sentiment, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to take this opportunity to be proactive with my deadlines and get a jump start on next week’s column…

Just kidding!

Has this ever happened to YOU???

You’re the kind of guy who pours his heart and soul into his Christmas lights, spending eleven months out of the year just planning for the next display.  In January and the months immediately following Christmas, it’s all about quality control in looking back on the previous display to see what worked and what needs enhancing as you finally put things away.  The spring and summer months are for infrastructure development as needed, whether it’s in running another breaker from the box to provide more juice or possibly even the simple things like sculpting new structures to decorate with lights and place around the front yard.  When fall comes and the latest lighting options begin appearing on store shelves, you’re the first in line to fill an order that will revitalize your inventory for the next year, and then finally when that illustrious weekend after Thanksgiving comes around … you know, the one that has everyone all up in a tizzy about shopping or something … well, that’s your time to shine, when the neighborhood gets just a little bit brighter as you spend entire days hanging lights and running extension cords and generally just turning your home into the sparkling winter wonderland that everyone has grown fondly accustomed to over the years…

…and finally after all of that hard work and dedication, you flip on the finished product and load everyone into the car to check out all of the amazing displays that not only you, but also the rest of your neighbors have toiled so hard to create.  You pull out of your own driveway, oooh’ing and ahhh’ing at the twinkling array of colors that brightly decorate the view, taking a special interest in the life-size candy canes that trim the sidewalks and of course, that jolly, old St. Nick who waves from the rooftop, his bag of goodies already in hand.  And to think, this is only the beginning of an entire magical evening of touring your newly-decorated neighborhood, so excitedly you pull out into the street, wave goodbye to Santa, and begin to roll, noticing within only a matter of seconds that … well, some of your neighbors didn’t put up Christmas lights.

You drive past a few dark houses before eventually coming to one ornamented with a single row of lights around the perimeter of the house itself, then all is dark once again until you see another energetically-illuminated spectacle much like your own up ahead in the distance.  Several more dark houses line the road leading up to the beautiful splendor, and even as you slow to take in the dazzling display, the continuation of boredom to come seems to dampen your mood even before leaving the glow of those who did put in the effort.  This pattern continues street after street, neighborhood after neighborhood, and while all in all the night still shows you some pretty amazing displays of holiday spirit and your kids will likely be seeing spots from a couple of them for the next week, nonetheless you still can’t help thinking what your tour could’ve been like if everyone had put up their sparkling best in the name of the season.

Folks, if I had it my way, driving tours would never have to happen like this ever again.

That’s why I modestly propose that it be written into law that each and every house on the block must decorate for the holidays.  I don’t care if you’re celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or even National Underdog Day – just whatever it is, get out there and don’t stop hanging lights until your electric meter can be used as a mixer for cranking out gingerbread dough!  Too many of us truly dedicated holiday enthusiasts are passive-aggressively slighted by our lazy neighbors each year as they merely smirk in the direction of our displays, all the while their own houses look as though they were smack dab in the middle of August, not December.  Quite frankly, the lack of celebratory continuity is embarrassing to all that is jolly and bright in this world, and it’s high time that someone did something about it … by force, if necessary…

My plan is simple – everyone has through the first week of December to have at least some variety of illuminated decorations up, even if you’ve still got angels to hang and dancing lights to synchronize.  You know what they say – a Christmas light display isn’t truly complete until Christmas is over and you start taking it down. But that gives you at least a good week and a half to start putting up a good, solid effort, which I certainly recommend you do because at that point the Lighting Enforcement Deputies (LEDs) will begin systematically patrolling neighborhoods all across the country and you’d better believe that they’ll be making a list … of any houses not maintaining an appropriately luminescent display between the posted touring hours of dusk and midnight.  If they do, Santa forbid, come across your home in a less than jolly predicament, expect warnings and fines and eventually possibly even your name going on The Naughty List, and we all know that no one wants that!

Furthermore, repeated offenses in display of a blatant disregard towards holiday spirit will result in your being evicted from your home until such time that you decide to take the holidays seriously and actually get up off your keister to decorate when you damn certain see lights going up on every other house around the block.  So don’t say we didn’t warn you…

Of course, we’ll also be happy to help those who might find themselves decoratingly challenged this time of year, whether you need to borrow a ladder, or maybe need some coupons to pick up some extra lights, or even professional assistance if you just don’t have the foggiest idea where to start!  Look no further because we’re here to offer up a helping hand in the name of good cheer with a spring in our step and a carol in our hearts because, well, ‘tis the season, don’t you know!  Really, there’s no excuse for a single house on the block to not be decorated during the most wonderful time of the year, so if you just haven’t quite gotten around to it yet or possibly were even thinking about maybe foregoing lights this year – that is, until reading this column and truly realizing your celebratory duty to your community, to Santa Claus, and even to yourself – then now’s the perfect time to get out there on that ladder and redeem your dignity one glowing strand at a time!

Seriously, you really don’t want to be on that Naughty List … trust me!

Oh baby, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for this all year long!

It’s certainly no secret that Christmas is my favorite time of the year, from the colorful decorations to the bountiful flavors to the generally good spirit that will float around for the next five weeks until we finally hit New Years and decide that it’s time to stop living in la la land and actually start being productive members of society once again!  But until that resolution-laden time is truly upon us, now’s the time to live it up, my friends…

Of course, with all there is to do with regards to getting prepared for said merry holidays in all of their tinsel-laden glory, it’s not hard to understand that one might find themselves a bit overwhelmed with a million different things to do and a rapidly diminishing timetable in which to do them.  In fact, rumor has it that some people were so spooked that they actually started Christmas shopping today at three o’clock in the morning! And while that level of enthusiasm is definitely just a wee bit over the top, the dedication to the holidays is nonetheless appreciated and we should all take a lesson from the book of those Early AM Warriors who ventured forth in the dead of night to obtain the Furbies and Tickle Me Elmos of 2009 at a fraction of everyday retail prices!

Don’t worry – nobody’s getting up at 3am to decorate or bake cookies on my watch…

That said, however, time is still of the essence if we’re going to pull off the most spectacular Christmas celebration ever, and I think we can do it if only we take a moment to step back and get our heads in the game, so to speak.  Conquering the Christmas spirit is all about efficiency in my books, so in an exceedingly generous display of holiday dedication, I’ve put together a little something to help you make the very most of these precious preparatory moments leading up to the big day itself.

Below you will find my Christmas gift to you - a brilliantly simple 27-point checklist that I put together during my spare time here and there to ensure that each and every one of my loyal readers is able to experience absolute true holiday submersion this year.  These points to follow truly are, if I don’t say so myself, the most important components to the Christmas holiday in and of itself, so do keep that in mind when you’re out shopping for my gift… *wink wink*

• Holiday Muzak – this is the one time of the year when it’s ok to sing along in the grocery store while you’re picking out frozen peas … make the best of it
• Shopping – a time to reflect on just how much standing in line each of your friends and family are really worth
• Cookies & Candy – Mom wouldn’t put those dreaded calories in your childhood favorites, now would she?
• The Tree – the focal point of any living room … just don’t forget to put the star on before you stand the tree up…
• Giving Presents – they say that the giving is the most enjoyable part…
• Receiving Presents – …so I’m always happy to receive so that as many people as possible can experience that joy firsthand
• Lights – you’ve never truly done putting them up until you get taken to court for being a distraction for air traffic passing overhead
• The Mall – it’s going to be hell, so for god’s sake make sure to get everything the first time you’re there!
• Baking – it takes a real man to churn out enough gingerbread to not only make a house, but in fact an entire city!
• Claus, Santa – the reason for the season … respect his authority
• TV Specials – a timeless holiday classic like A Charlie Brown Christmas or Mario Lopez as a talking dog in The Dog Who Saved Christmas … your pick, as long as it’s Snoopy
• Snow, Not Fun… – if you’re fortunate enough to live in a region that doesn’t get snow, be sure to take some time to stop and rub it in the face of someone who does
• Charity – give a child a fire truck and he’ll play with it all day, but teach a child to build a fire truck out of LEGOs and by the end of the day he’ll have turned it into a dinosaur because dinosaurs are way cooler than fire trucks
• Big Mouth Billy Bass – because nothing says Merry Christmas like a singing fish
• Mistletoe – kissing is fun!
• Binge Eating – you’re going to regret it later, but really, it would sort of be rude not to sample all of those desserts
• Caroling – yes Virginia, they do actually exist outside of the movies … I’ll let you decide if you want to participate and be one of those people…
• Christmas Vacation – if you’re young enough to still get two weeks off of school, enjoy them while you can because this is one aspect where being an adult kinda sucks…
• Ugly Sweaters – Grandma’s way of making you feel awkward and embarrassed, even from across the country
• Eggnog – somebody drinks this shit, but I’ve never actually witnessed it myself
• Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer – could quite possibly be a metaphor for my years growing up, mostly because I was mocked daily for my freakish, bright red nose
• Ice Skating – if you try to be cute and drag me out onto the ice, be prepared to be carting me around for the duration of your skate time because without outside assistance, I’ll never get back to dry land on my own
• Surprises – at least pretend that you don’t know what you’re getting for Christmas, even if you discovered your parents hiding place the day after they went shopping … in the long run, they’ll appreciate that
• Christmas Eve – an evening of good food, family togetherness, and going to bed nice and early to give Santa plenty of time to do his thing!
• A Muppet Family Christmas – Best. Christmas Movie. Ever.
• Good Will Towards Men – like Wil Wheaton says, “Don’t be a dick.”
• …And Also Towards Chicks, Too! – because it’s not 1920 anymore, you know…

What makes your house a home?

Is it the loving pictures of friends and family hanging on the wall? Or perhaps it’s your collection of antique vases that you and your husband have amassed from your travels throughout the Orient? Any chance it’s that ever-growing amassment of dolphin memorabilia that you’ve been building since you turned the ripe age of five and once mentioned in passing that you thought they were kinda neat?

If that latest example rings all too true, then maybe we should get together and compare notes…

You see, my fiancée Sara has a bit of an unhealthy obsession with dolphins, meaning that one time when she was little she may have mentioned to Santa Claus or some distant aunt that she likes dolphins and thus ever since, every single gift that she’s ever received … EVER … has been in some way, shape, or form been associated with dolphins. Puzzles, coasters, nightlights – if you can dream it, chances are she’s gotten one with a picture of a dolphin plastered on it some time in her life! And likewise, since we started living together about two years ago, our collective home has featured the likes of more dolphin-related paraphernalia than we’ve know what to do with – pictures on the walls, shower curtains, those coasters that I mentioned earlier.

Which is fine – I’ve got my own guilty pleasures, too, such as collecting more Disney memorabilia than anyone who doesn’t have kids should publicly possess to my own collection of antique vases from my travels throughout the Orient … all of which, oddly enough, have Mickey Mouse’s face on them! And really, all of this is fine with me – it’s this kind of stuff that does, in fact, make our home our own, and if we could just somehow find a picture of Mickey Mouse riding a dolphin, the merging of our collections would be complete!

So I guess it’s not so much the gifts that we’ve received from other people that have pushed me over the edge – in fact, you could probably even argue that it’s sort of something that I accidentally brought upon us myself. You see, I too bought into Sara’s passion for dolphins when we were first courting many moons ago and wanted to get her something really special that I knew she’d treasure for a long time. And so I stumbled upon a small collection of aquatic statues from The Bradford Exchange that featured a variety of dolphins swimming and frolicking and doing whatever else it is that dolphins do under the sea. They ended up turning out really cool when the first one showed up, so I ordered a few more and stuck them away to give to her all at once for Christmas later on that year.

Trouble is, said collection has since been long completed, but the mailings from The Bradford Exchange just keep on coming! I don’t know how they operate, but it seems that apparently I’m now on some sort of dolphin mailing list so that anything they can come up with to cast out of porcelain and paint a picture of Flipper on, I’m right there among the first to be solicited for their latest treasures. And it’s not only plates, like those hideous Elvis collector’s plates that you used to see advertised on TV before they decided that it was cheaper and easier to just make a bunch of mailing lists and market to genre-specific suckers like me! Think dolphin Christmas tree ornaments, dolphin wind chimes, dolphin special commemorative end tables – the possibilities, and likewise the amount of mailings that I receive from The Bradford Exchange, are endless.

If you can find it anywhere in the home, even if it’s on the knick-knack shelf or tucked away in a closet somewhere, just slap a dolphin on it and sent it to the dolphin mailing list – they’ll eat it up like the Easter ham!

It’s gotten to the point where if it weren’t for the next great birthday or Christmas gift that might show up in those fliers, I’d consider signing up with some sort of dolphin-memorabilia-buyers relocation program or something, but just my luck, the day I do manage to slip off The Bradford Exchange’s radar, out comes that limited edition, gold-embossed four plate set of Mickey and his friends swimming with the dolphins and frankly, I just can’t afford to take that chance!

What’s a dedicated boyfriend to do? If anybody has some ideas, I’ll be over sitting in the dolphin chair drinking a dolphin-tini out of a glass shaped like a, well, you get the idea…

Well, now that that’s over, let’s all just take a deep breath and try to move on!

I know that this particular holiday season was somewhat of a stressful one. It’s amazing how presents and food and decorations and family can all be welcome treats to your life one by one, and yet still somehow manage to cause copious amounts of stress when they’re all piled on top of each other like the ingredients of the new Quadruple-Decker Artery-Clogger from McRonalds. And don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas like a new pair of socks or a freshly baked batch of chocolate chip cookies, but still, after that much chaotic caroling, it’s also understandable for a bit of relief to be sighed when all is said and done…

So here we are, only a few days left in 2007, with 2008 right on our doorstep. Now is the time for life planning and resolution making and the generous knocking back of cocktails…at least on New Years Eve, anyways…for in only a few days we’re about to be given a fresh start. A new hand will be dealt, and it’s up to you whether to raise the stakes, go double down, or do some other poker term that I’m unaware of because I have better things to do than watch other people play poker on TV at three o’clock in the morning.

Nonetheless, 2008 is going to be a whole new ballgame and I think we’re going to see some pretty interesting happenings over the next twelve months. Just how interesting??? Well, funny you should ask…

Scott’s 2008 New Years Predictions…

• Santa Claus will find an extra bag of toys laying around that he mistakenly forgot to deliver earlier this week and head back out for another run in early January, thus fulfilling this child at heart’s Christmas List with the much-coveted Nintendo Wii.
• A mere three months into the new year, I will accomplish what no other man has by not only attaining all of my new years resolutions already, but also choosing new and even harder resolutions and meeting those goals as well. By March 31^st, I will be the wealthiest, most physically fit, hilarious guy on the planet, and I will owe it all to the magic of Oreo cookies.
• This upcoming $600 economic stimulus check from Uncle Sam will solve all of my financial problems.
• A potato chip or cookie company will woo me with their greatest culinary creations ever, then promptly break my heart into a thousand, million pieces six months later by pulling every last one of them from the shelves of my local grocer.
• Gasoline prices won’t really be much of a concern anymore because the big three automakers in Detroit will join forces to revolutionize American transportation with a complex system of monorails, hovercrafts, and teleportation units.
• Paramount will come to its senses and decide not to commit yet another tragedy of the silver screen by canceling the upcoming release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The rest of the film industry will learn from this bold gesture and begin hiring writers to create original scripts once again.
• My wedding planning will take a turn for the better when I’m informed that I’ll only need to work three extra jobs in order to pay it off before I die.
• FOX will churn out the most ridiculous reality show ever, this time involving Playboy playmates who challenge each other to rousing games of checkers, backgammon, and other nostalgic favorites. It will be FOX’s most successful reality show to date.
• The 2008 Summer Olympics will occur in Beijing. Other than costing me two weeks of TV time, I will not care.
• Google will dominate the election and become the first search engine to be elected President of the United States. YouTube will be its quirky, but lovable Vice President. Yahoo! will inquire about running Google Adsense on its site to try to raise a little beer and pizza money.
• In a last blunder of the season-like move, President Bush will pardon the annual turkey for Thanksgiving and then immediately deploy the bird to Iraq for Operation: Freedom Feast.
• After consuming unhealthy quantities of eggnog and gingerbread, yours truly will repurpose this idea next year in an effort to crank out an easy column so that I can get back to my annual Christmas holiday detox.

You call me obsessed like it’s a bad thing…

But what can I say, I’ve lasted an exasperating six months since Apple released the Holy Grail of cell phones. Reading all of the forum threads and product reviews about how absolutely awesome the iPhone is compared to the piece of crap Samsung brick that I’m currently using from Sprint that can barely even be considered a “phone” at this point, practically drooling over those technologically sexy commercials as I play them over and over again on You Tube to the point where my fiancée is beginning to raise some concerns; making paper-mache replicas of this phone to end all phones while I’m supposed to be working, only to find out that paper-mache doesn’t hold up in the rain nearly as well as metal and plastic do … ok, so maybe I’m not quite to that last point yet, but I tell ya – we’re getting awfully close to that level of desperation! Something needs to be done soon before I’m reduced to a wanna-be Apple fan-boy zombie, wandering the streets at night mumbling, “This is your music, these are your pictures, and this is a call … on your iPhone!”

There must be hope, however, especially this time of year when miracles happen on even-numbered streets and wishes are granted with every swipe of a credit card, which is why I’ve decided to go straight to the top to finally see my iPhone craving fulfilled once and for all! No, not Steve Jobs … I asked Mickey Mouse to pass along my number to the boss man, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet, so instead I’m turning to none other than Santa Claus to help make these dreams of touch screens and a phone that actually works a reality. This is the man who in the past has brought talking robots, action figures from The REAL Ghostbusters, and even the original Nintendo Entertainment System into my life, so rest assured that we’ve definitely got our best man on the case!

But there’s just one thing – I’ve got a feeling that the standard milk and cookies, even as delicious as my own personal baking and dairy offerings may be, might not quite be enough to bring the digital revolution into my home on Christmas Morn. You see, sure – Santa likes his snacks, but let’s not forget that he’s also a man of morals, with his list of naughty and nice. And while I can’t say for sure just exactly which end of that spectrum I personally fell in this year, I’m willing to come to the table with some bargaining chips for a better performance in 2008. In fact, I’ve got ten…

1. Pick up my toys without having to be asked … because twenty years later, I’ve finally come realize that Mom wasn’t kidding when she said that stepping on LEGOs hurts like the dickens!
2. Keep the lawn properly maintained … by writing a check to have the lawn guy stop by every couple of weeks. Trust me, I’m the last guy you want hoe hoe hoe’ing around your prized flower beds…
3. Make more of an effort to do laundry before I completely run out of clean underwear. Either that, or at least buy better blinds for those afternoons when every last undergarment is waist-deep in suds and I opt to pass the time by napping on the couch with a full view of the backyard! What a guy can’t even do in the privacy of his own home anymore…
4. Finish all of my vegetables – even the peas!
5. Ok, so maybe not the peas, or brussel sprouts or even spinach unless there are also copious amounts of cream cheese involved, but other than that, you can consider my plate thoroughly cleansed.
6. Have all of our Christmas decorations up a week earlier than we did this year. Hey, they kind of are a tribute to St. Nick, so I’d like to think that the guy would appreciate a gesture like that!
7. Don’t swear. Cut down on the swearing. Don’t swear in front of kids.
8. Do the dishes. Ha, like I could get my fiancée to do them!

· …not that my fiancée isn’t a very hardworking woman, mind you! In fact, I actually like doing the dishes just to help take some of the strain off of her hectic day … yeah, that’s the ticket! Have I told you lately that I love you, babe?!

9. Take out the garbage prior to our garage smelling like a horrible mix of old Chinese food and the remnants of a day at the circus. Who knew the place would take that long to air out?!
10. Leave out an extra large plate of those special cookies that Santa seems to love so much! No, actually I meant gingerbread cookies … I don’t know where your mind was going, but I think it’s time to lay off the Dave Chappelle movies for a while…

That’s all I’ve got, so wish me luck, handsome readers! My digital calling freedom depends on it, because I can’t take another moment of this crap service that I’m getting from Sprint, but that’s another column altogether…

Help me, Santa Claus – you’re my only hope.

Yes, it’s that time of year again – when writers from all around the world throw any remaining sense of skepticism to the ground and let loose in the name of the greatest holiday of all time, the one that we get loads of presents from! Let’s face it, Christmas puts even the most elaborate of birthdays to shame, with enough commercial endorsement to power a small planet and frankly, I love it! Believe you me, if there’s something wrong with enjoying the one day earmarked for tearing into gift after gift picked out especially for me, then I don’t want to be right…

(Of course, Christmas is also about giving and love and blah-blah-blah, but that’s another column for another day. Loosen up a little and enjoy the party!)

So as I was saying, it’s around this time every year when us writers buckle down and spell out on paper just exactly what we’d like to see under that sparkling tree this year, and before you go saying that little children around the world actually do this very same thing, I want to explain one simple thing – no, they don’t. I say this because while young Timmy and his classmates may pen their lists whilst dreams of sugarplums dance through their heads, we – the professional writers – have a sense of purpose because frankly, we know what we want from Santa Claus and we justly have the rhetorical prowess to get it. Maybe with a little cynicism and a good English teacher, Timmy might grow up to have similar powers one day, but for now, this is our realm!

That having been said, my own contribution to the global efforts this year has actually been divided up into two distinct and separate lists for Santa’s ease of delivery – one containing the items that I do, in fact, want and the second explicitly spelling out a few items that I’d rather not see underneath the towering, artificial blue spruce out in my living room this year. Also, you might note that this year I am scaling things back just a bit, as you’ll find no Mustangs or supercomputers that made the cut in 2004 – we’re doing things up simple because that’s just the kind of mood that I’m in right now…

The “Good” List – 2004 edition

· a hat that looks cool on me – hell, I’d even be happy with one that doesn’t look “just plain ridiculous” – I’m just tired of missing out on all the fun that hat-wearing has to offer…

· a subscription to the World of Warcraft - because hey, in the event that I do hit a productive streak and end up in a position to whip through lots of work, I definitely want to have something on-hand to bring me back down to Earth!

· Legos, Legos, and more Legos!!! – I don’t know what it is, but one trip to the Lego Store at Downtown Disney last month and I am itching for some brick nostalgia, let me tell you! In fact, show me the motivation and you just might find a Lego monorail circling our Christmas tree this year…

· Spider-Man 2 for my PS2 – “they” say that this game is “da bomb” like no other and I’ve put off not owning it long enough – anybody else up for a little web slinging?

· …somebody to love… *wink wink* – all you need is love…and I’d probably even just settle for the sex, if the conditions are right…

· one of those old-school yo-yos, with the special retractor built in – because I was never very good at the yo-yo, but that nifty, technologically-advanced number made me feel like a star!

· a pet something or other - now that the fish are all settled and doing their own thing, and until we’re able to come to terms with that whole “love thing” mentioned earlier, I could use something else to keep me busy throughout these cold, winter months here in Florida. How do those little monkeys take to the heat down here, anyways?

The “Bad” List – 2004 edition

· lederhosen – because no matter what the season or what the occasion, it’s just not right…

· cleaning supplies – despite a couple of rumors that my apartment is getting a bit “unsightly,” let’s not kid ourselves, shall we???

· socks - a) I’ll buy ‘em if I need ‘em and b) I live in Florida – how many pairs of socks do you really think that I need, anyways?!

· the Complete Recorded Works of Burt Baccarat - no ill-harbored thoughts…I just happen to have this one already…

And there you have it – short and sweet, with no doubts that I’ll be pleasantly surprised upon waking up Christmas morning! For pointers on writing your own absolutely stellar Christmas list, please PayPal $15 to scottsxmasfund@comedic-genius.com.

Ho-ho-ho, indeed…

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house – not a creature was stirring, because I finished up all of my holiday baking days ago! So here we are – it actually is the night before Christmas, cookies and milk have been set out accordingly and stockings have been hung by the mantle with the utmost of care, and although everything seems to be perfectly in line, just as it is every year, I have to admit that I find myself just a tad bit nervous and concerned that, for some reason, things might not go exactly according to plan. It’s probably nothing, and it’s not like we’ve ever woken up on Christmas day in the past to find a roomful of no presents, but this year I got a tip that things might just very well go down differently than before…

You see, it all started out as I was going through my standard Christmas Eve ritual, consisting of making all of the finalizations on my wish list for the year, enjoying the largest platter of shrimp, cheese and crackers that you’ve ever seen, and watching an array of my favorite Christmas movies. All was fine and dandy until one particular DVD – Christmas Eve on Sesame Street – came to the top of the stack and got me thinking. It’s in this film, mind you, that my miserable friend Oscar the Grouch raises the frighteningly valid point, “How does a guy like Santa Claus, who’s built like a dump truck, gonna come down all of those skinny, little chimneys???” I know, I know…it’s just a movie, but nonetheless, the more and more that I thought about it, the more I realized one thing – he had a point.

Not only did that Grouch have a point, but he had a point that was going to affect whether I would awaken to find all of the amazing toys and gadgets that I’d been dreaming about for the past several months or merely a pile of dry pine needles and a plate of untouched Christmas cookies! Pouring myself another glass of eggnog, as created from my own special recipe (two parts spiced rum, one part ice), I settled into my thinking chair and began to contemplate the very plight millions of children from around the world unknowingly faced that night. What I could actually do to help, that I hadn’t the slightest, but when those gears inside this noggin’ get a grinding, many will vouch that there’s little to be done to slow me down…and I still had more than half a bottle of rum to keep those babies lubricated all night long if need be!

So first of all, I think it’s pretty easy to see why even the craziest of conventional methods simply don’t stand a chance against the laws of science, and more importantly, the laws of how much space stuff takes up. I don’t care how much weight he’s lost, or even if he’s all good and lubed up – the man’s physical attributes alone prevent the obvious in this scenario! And before you even go there, let’s not forget another directive from the main Grouch himself – it’s either the chimney or nothing…no windows, no doors, no incinerator shaft. Of course, this in and of itself raises another important question to consider – what about those houses that don’t even have chimneys?!

I suppose that technically magic is always a possibility, especially with the overwhelming popularity of that Harry Potter these days, that whole concept then brought up the question of whether or not Mrs. Claus was actually a muggle or had powers of her own, thus opening up an entirely new can of worms! I also wondered if it might be possible for Santa to maybe have the elves do the actual delivering, as they’d certainly have a much better chance of ever fitting down those things than he would, but again, my mind soon shifted back to the entertainment industry and I wondered why Santa’s elves are depicted as short, stumpy fellows, while every other fantasy world describes the elven race as a tall and strong, independent type. Maybe we’ve really been mistakening them for dwarves all of these years?

Mind you, I kicked back and forth on this topic for a better part of the evening until it finally hit me, all in a tone of voice quite similar to the very one I used to hear when Mom and Dad caught me up playing video games super-late on Christmas Eve – Santa Claus can’t come as long as you’re still awake. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the nostalgia, or maybe somebody had decided that it would be a hilarious prank to sneak into my house on Christmas Eve and impersonate my Mother, but whichever you prefer, somehow this did surprisingly satisfy me and I was out faster than you can say, “Get your ass to bed or you’re not getting anything for Christmas!”

Nonetheless, I’m happy to admit that it didn’t take that entire bottle to remind me how he does it after all…it saves me from having to go out and pick up another for New Years! Just as we’re taught when we’re five years old and first sit on Santa’s lap in the mall, he’s able to fit down the chimney and deliver all those toys in a single night because that’s just what he does, much in the same way that the Easter Bunny can hide all of those eggs and that Cupid manages to hook me up with the most schizophrenic women on the planet each and every Valentine’s Day! There are some things in life that simply shouldn’t be questioned – even chalked up to magic if need be – and this, my friends, is certainly one of them…

Now on the other hand, how he manages to mass-produce so many toys while working on such a limited crew and a budget comprised primarily of imaginary money – that might be one that deserves a bit of further investigation…but for now, it’s just going to have to wait until next year. Merry Christmas everyone, and may all of your presents be there come morning!