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.

Refresher course on what this here is all about:

From now through Christmas, I'm revisiting several of the best gifts Santa ever chucked my way. They're wrapped up and scattered throughout our apartment, like colorful but static rats, waiting for their opportunities to strike. Sorry, I don't know where the rat thing came from.

They're the gifts that made me me, but I think today's gift also made several of you you. It's something millions upon millions of kids had at one point or another, and probably several times over. It's shown below, hidden by cheapo Rudolph wrapping paper:

Any guesses?

I'll give you a hint: It has a lot of pieces.

Come on. Think.

Or do you need a peek? [more]

Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah, blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah? Blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah, blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Why do I feel compelled to review this in any natural way? It's a limited edition Friendly's "Spumoni Roll," but you can see that. What am I supposed to add? It's not like people won't notice that the words were just disguising a Spumoni Roll picture gallery as an "article."

Photo, two paragraphs, photo, two paragraphs. So many words and nothing really to them.

I refuse to do that today. I did it yesterday and I'll do it tomorrow, but I won't do it today. Not to the Spumoni Roll.

Its unabashed Christmas glee inspires me to use this site the way it should be used, without holding to archaic concepts that benefit no one, least of all Friendly's cofounder Curtis Blake.

I wonder if he's still alive?

That's what I want to do.

It has to beat a normal review, right? It's better for me, better for us all. X-E shouldn't be a chore to construct, and it certainly shouldn't be a chore to read. People come here for smiles, not because they need someone to tell them what ice cream to buy.

You'd rather see me turn the cake into a monster.

I'd rather turn the cake into a monster, too. [more]