“Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer… Who’d have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously?”
—Bill Watterson

Playbill reports that a stage production of A Christmas Story is in the works. I hope they do it justice and remember that they’re not adapting a movie, they’re adapting a short story by the late great American humorist and radio legend Jean Shepherd: “Duel In The Snow, Or: Red Ryder Nails the Cleveland Street Kid.”

You can hear Shep himself read the story over here. (That’s Shep on the left, up there, in a scene from the movie.) Better yet, buy yourself a copy of “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash” and read the story for yourself.

Excelsior (and Merry Christmas), you fatheads!

Barbara over at BP Media Relations gives me the heads up that media relations giant BurrellesLuce has published its year-end list of the top 100 U.S. newspapers (see ’em now before they fold!) plus the top 25 blogs, consumer magazines and social networking sites. Access a PDF of the full list here.

I’m not surprised that Huffington Post is the number-one blog, or that geekarati sites like Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget and Ars Technica round out the top five. But I Can Haz Cheezburger? is number 13? Above Seth Godin and PostSecret and The Daily Dish? Egads. Okay, some of the I Can Haz celeb stuff is worth a chuckle. But still. Egads.

Takeaway for marketers: Look at the media properties at the top of these lists. Think about why they’re there. It may not always make good sense or reflect good taste, but there’s a reason for everything. Even lolcats.

Forget those other symbols of the holiday season. The appearance of Santa in the mall? The lighting of the tree in Rockefeller Center? The hanging of the lights on your house? All those sappy Christmas movies?

Feh.

Christmas officially begins when Darlene Love sings “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on Letterman.

Tonight’s the night. Holiday teevee doesn’t get any better.

DECEMBER 24 UPDATE: See last night’s performance here. Darlene is 67 years old. Dayam.

The jolly fat man provides a seasonal dose of common sense over on iMedia Connection.

I’m not sure why Jim Nichols had to step in and ghost-write for Santa — he’s busy, of course, but if he has time to blog, he ought to have time to hurl a few lumps of coal in the direction of business.