1. Okay, so, I’m not really a huge fan of egg nog - I prefer my beverages and eggs to exist in peaceful segregation, thank you - but the egg nog candles at the Illuminations store were too tempting. They smell like egg nog but require no actual nog consumption of any kind. I mean, there’s less rum, but more burning!

2. Incidentally, don’t buy the evergreen candles from Illuminations because that shit is nasty, yo. But that’s not the second factor. Let me start over.

2. It doesn’t matter how tired and irritable and cranky I might be after a long and Linguisticsful day - walking around the Greenmarket in Union Square and sniffing their Christmas trees is like this instant December contact high that makes something like buying nog-scented candles seem completely worthwhile and a valuable Monday afternoon pursuit in and of itself.

3. I’m, like, almost done with my Christmas shopping. Or if not almost done I’ve at least seriously made a dent in it. A sizeable dent. Like the kind of dent you’d get if you were Gun Jack fighting Panda, and Gun Jack were constructed in the same way as my old Volvo and Panda were being played by me. Because I rule with Panda, as my unfortunate defeated opponents could tell you if they weren’t too ashamed of getting beaten up by a big, cuddly bear.

4. The XMas Lights from gooddoug.com.

5. My yeti finger puppet may look friendly in a wintery sort of way, but I assure you - he’ll rip your digit clean off if he detects any sort of insertion attempt. He may be a finger puppet, but he’s not easy.