Christmas is about to sneak up on us again. When I doubt my gift selecting ability, I turn to tradition as a guide, ensuring that my gifts will adhere to the good, honest, decent American values that made this country, and the show Mad Men, great. That's why this year, I'll be giving Camel cigarettes. Former President Reagan's endorsement notwithstanding, I was initially skeptical of cigarettes as a gift, since they get so much bad press, but that was before I found out that more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette. So Merry Christmas everyone! Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

He certainly made the rest of his family a part of the background.

Make hay when the sun shines. That's David Beresford-Redman's motto. After ignoring the media since his son, Bruce, who is a former producer of Survivor, was accused of murdering his wife in Mexico, David decided he'd make the media work for him. To sell cars. He handed out fliers to reporters the other day, promising an on-camera interview to the organization that found buyers for the three vehicles. The '03 Porsche Targa was described as a "gorgeous, fast, clean car". I've got no reason not to believe him, and I don't want to risk pissing his son off by bad-mouthing his car. Of course, the most interesting aspect of this story is that DBR is one of those guys who wears brown-tinted sunglasses, which I thought only existed in pictures of my Dad and uncles from the seventies. The Beresford-Redmans are no relation to rapper Redman.

Christmas. Yeah, we're going there. I never said this would be a smooth ride. Christmas is of course the celebration of the day Jesus was born and placed in a manger because there was "no room at the inn". Seriously?  Who was running this inn? Messianic prophecy or not, it's a couple who had a baby 5 minutes ago, you can't make some space? Hell wouldn't even pull that shit, and we're talking about a place that dedicates an entire high-rise to gleefully forcing glass shards under the eyelids of false witnesses.

Christmas is also the beginning of Christmastide, the so-called 12 days of Christmas, made famous in the song of the same name. Allow me to take a breath before going into this one. Let's think about this. The first 4 days, the singer's "true love" - and I put that in quotations because I'm not sure I buy that designation for reasons I'll explain - gives her (Yeah, her. I've lived so long I stopped counting my age when we went from Roman to Arabic numerals, and I can tell you this: chicks don't buy guys multiple swans. Sorry boys, ain't gonna happen.) a partridge (with tree), 2 turtle doves, 3 french hens, and 4 colly birds. The song seems to suggest that these things are stacked every day, so on the first day it's a partridge in a pear tree, and on the second day it's 2 turtle doves and a second partridge in a pear tree, and so on. I'm going to assume that's not the case, and that each subsequent mentioning of a gift is a reference to the original, and not a duplicate gift. If I'm wrong, then what I took to be merely absurd is actually whatever is above absurd. Preposterous?

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Too bad it's fake. Nice editing, though.

But ends bad.

In case you were wondering, buses are not a good place to take a nap.

Well, it's happened again. You've blasted through another year and suddenly it's Thanksgiving again. We do a big Thanksgiving down here. It's a good holiday for a diverse crowd, since it's secular and you don't really need to explain much, even to people who have never heard of it. Have a big feast, open a few bottles of wine. Everybody "gets it". And holidays that center around cooking are big in Hell, since heat is easy to come by in a lake of fire that burns hotter than the hottest earthly flame.

I'm hosting this year like I always do. It used to be a real treat for everyone to come to my place, since I lived in the most exclusive neighborhood in all of Hell. Guests would make jokes like "What's the cover charge going to be?" But while my neighborhood was nice when I moved in, it's pretty shitty now. One of the hazards of eternity, I guess, unless you want to move every hundred years. Now the place is really run down and all the businesses have left. I knew we'd hit the skids when I drove by a Souplantation with my neighbor Ron and he said, without irony, "It would be really cool if we could get one of those". It's come to that. Now people make jokes like "Yeah, we'll be there, just let me get my flak jacket out of the attic".

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Too bad it didn't count, because of traveling.

Seriously, I think you have to try and park this badly.

The objective of any social situation is to make everyone else feel dumb and always have the last word. Here are a few issues to discuss at tonight's dinner engagement, and a couple ways you can be a pompous, know-it-all prick when talking about them.

Talking Point: Obama's Asia trip was a disaster!
Anyone who brings this up is probably referring to Monday's Slate article written by Eliot Spitzer. But you don't have the schooling to discuss international politics! Divert attention from the real issue by taking a cheap shot at Spitzer for the prostitution scandal (which I'd estimate is still 2 years away from being stale) by doing something like pretending to confuse Spitzer with Charlie Sheen, then exclaiming "Oh sorry, I can't imagine how I mixed those two up!" to peals of laughter. Fair warning, though, in the wrong crowd this could lead to an earnest discussion of Two and a Half Men.

Talking point: Prince William is marrying a commoner!
Key know-it-all prick info: The notion that British royals are bound to marry other royals is actually false (note the use of the word "actually" here. "Actually" is a really good way to sound like a know-it-all prick). They've been marrying outside their own ranks for years. And thank god, because they were becoming known for their inbreeding. As for any issues the Queen has about the marriage, whip this one out: According to George Bernard Shaw in Pygmalion, "It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him"! Everyone is sure to laugh uproariously at this, and you'll be remembered for the most deftly applied Shaw quote of the season!

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