God, I've been so busy that I haven't even been able to officially welcome everyone to X-E's 2005 Christmas Season Extravabloganza, starring Knacks and Kuse and a ton of old holiday commercials. The light at the end of my own personal tunnel is the fact that I get to use up all my vacaca days during the last half of December. That is, unless they suddenly decide that I'm so valuable that even a week out of the office would be enough to crumble Viacom. Let's hope not, because Jesus, they're really treating us this year with the amount of Christmas specials airing on television and I'm getting pretty sick of missing them. Granted, it's happening mostly on cable, but a channel is a channel and so long as those channels are part of my cable plan, I've got a reason to plow through giant cartons of red and green Goldfish crackers in single TV sittings.

The Advent Calendar has been updated for Monday, and shit's really starting to heat up. You must believe me when I say that your guess is as good as mine -- I have no idea where this thing's headed. The Advert Calendar celebrates Christmas the only way it knows how -- with an old commercial featuring Santa Claus doing a pitch for Mattel's handheld electronic games, oh hell yes. While we are still tweaking the 2005 version of the Christmas Jukebox, there's no harm in satiating your Yuletide music appetite with last year's. Thank you Chairy. Here's a breakdown of what we've got so far...

It's worth noting that you'll have a lot less trouble making sense of this year's Advent Calendar if you read the features from 2003 and 2004.

It snowed last night. Big, nice snow, too. Yay.

Picked this up a few weeks ago. It still hasn't lost its appeal. Apparently, "Projector Pops" have been around for a while, and they've been popular enough to warrant new holiday-themed editions, including this, the evil infrared death snowman. Works like dees: The top half is a very fruit-scented lollipop, but the bottom half includes this tiiiiiny little window that -- at the push of a button -- shoots sweet Christmas sights on any wall or ceiling. Works in the day, works better at night. Best part is how the lollipop portion lights up all evil like, letting you dine on candy that feels closer to an energon cube.

Survey: What's the one thing you want most for Christmas/whatever this year, and don't be poetic. In related news, I'm whoring it up with my Amazon wishlist.