It's 3:30 in the morning and I'm just now sitting down to write this. If it comes out wonky, that's my excuse.

I've never been a Black Friday maniac, but since so many stores were opening unusually early this year, I felt I had to take part. It had nothing to do with the discounts: I simply enjoy shopping in the middle of the night. Add in hundreds of strangers, and it's like some kind of mutant party.

The big stores were scheduled to open at midnight, if not earlier. I told Ms. X of my planned adventures last night, and while willing to join in, I can't say that she was ecstatic. Actually, she was banking on me being too tired from Thanksgiving's normal festivities to actually do it. By the thirty-seventh time she asked if I'd had enough turkey, I caught on.

But I wasn't going to miss this. No amount of tryptophan could stop me. We headed out at around 12:30, wondering if this was really going to be as insane as the news people always say it is. We've gone to Black Friday sales before, but nowhere near the peak hours. Even though the various circulars promoted everything from $3 DVDs to $200 42" televisions, I just couldn't imagine Best Buy being that busy in the middle of the night.

Holy fuck, was I wrong.

The drive towards Staten Island's big retail area was pleasant. We had the roads to ourselves, and Christmas music was on the radio. We seemed to be the only people moving or making noise.

I started imagining awesome department store visits, where no more than twenty competing buyers would stand in my way. [more]

This is your all-purpose Thanksgiving thread. Discuss what you’re eating, where you’re going and who you’re seeing.

What are you thankful for? Is it turkeys? It should be. So many turkeys gave their lives for tomorrow’s dinner.

Let us honor their sacrifices with random turkey facts, stolen from the Internet at large. [more]

As McDonald's commercials taught us time and time again, no food is as Christmassy as a good ol' Chicken McNugget.

I'm dead serious. Being a television-glued, holiday-obsessed fast food fanatic throughout the '80s, I had every reason to draw this conclusion. Each year, McDonald's rolled out a new (or several new) commercials which definitively connected Chicken McNuggets to Santa Claus.

The McNugs were presented as the ultimate "holiday party food," and I bought it hook, line and buckaw. Typically, the ads starred fancily dressed adults palling around in hoity-toity dining rooms, with only a sloppy box of fried chicken to betray their base normality. I grew up believing that successful people had Christmas parties full of cocktail dresses and Chicken McNuggets, and I so couldn't wait to be a part of that.

In 1987, the sauce got sweeter. Sensing that they were on the cusp of making Chicken McNuggets the official food of Christmastime, McDonald's went all-in and just dared the rest of us to call. That year, we got Holiday Chicken McNuggets. [more]

So, I’ve been fixing up the old Advent Calendars, and it finally hit me that I really don’t want to do it this year.

I’m going to, but it’s going to be really short. Short, jokey and simple. Snowman, gift, and that’s all I’ll promise. Think "2002," with less misspellings.

The truth is, after last year, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t do it again this year. It’s not about hating it or being “over” it – it’s just a big huge to-do and it absolutely EATS my Decembers. After ten years, I want a little more freedom during Christmastime.

When I posted the MM teaser video, I didn’t expect – though I should have – that people would take it as a replacement for the AC. In my mind, they didn’t correlate. So when I got feedback like that, I sort of panicked and said I’d do the normal one.

But, I don’t want to.

Thus, it’ll be short and sweet. Just a fair warning. Sorry to disappoint anyone. This doesn’t affect anything else X-E related…it’s simply a matter of not wanting to spend several hours every day in December “doing that” this year.