Well, Christmas may be just a few days away, but we have to admit that of all the Charlie Browns in the world, we're the Charlie Browniest-- at the top of the half-hour, way before Linus gives his little speech onstage and the gang waves their arms around that dried-out twig and it magically turns lush and full-bodied as if they'd just doused it in Prell. Yes, we're like some bizarre genetic splicing between Scrooge and the Grinch ("Grooge" or "Scrinch"?), or maybe even a Scrooge, Grinch, and banana smoothie, only without the overt malice. Or the banana. In short, kiddies, we're just not feeling particularly Christmassy right now.

Why not, you ask? Who can say? Maybe it's the fact that, as faithful viewer wazdog points out, Forbes just totally copped our "Apple saga as soap opera" premise without even bothering to ask, let alone licensing it for the oodles of cash we so obviously deserve. Or maybe it's more to do with the way Microsoft is apparently doing its best to crib our (thankfully inimitable) style, again, sans credit and sans payment, as reported by faithful viewer Rusty Smith. Most likely it's a combination of factors, not the least of which is a galling lack of time, energy, and resources to do the season up right.

As you well know, it takes a supreme amount of effort to obtain and decorate a tree, bake cookies, hang lights, and set the traditional Christmas Eve bear trap for Santa in the fireplace in hopes of scoring a whole bag full of loot. Due to situational constraints on our resources, so far the only holiday act we've been able to accomplish beyond sending out cards and the whole obligatory shopping/wrapping/shipping of gifts thing consists of obtaining and displaying a USB Christmas tree light, which is plugged into a sleeping Blueberry iBook. Festive, yes, but even the Mighty Geek Power of the USB Christmas tree light isn't enough to make the season feel here yet, you know?

Add to that the appalling fact that someone actually stole the light-up baby Jesus from Jack's grandparents' outdoor manger scene and, well, the world just doesn't seem all that imbued with the magic of the Christmas spirit.

Heck, things are even poopy in the Apple realm: the San Jose Business Journal reports that a 34-year-old Sunnyvale woman was indicted just last week for allegedly defrauding Apple-- her employer at the time, mind you-- by ordering "approximately $120,000 of digital photography equipment from vendors on Apple's account without authorization" and then reselling the gear on eBay. It's one thing to drag our beloved eBay into the muck (people are always pulling that sort of crap; comes with the territory), but to be blessed with the divine honor of working for Apple Itself™ and then to turn around and swipe an eighth of a million dollars, well, someone's getting a lump of coal in her stocking this year. And, with any luck, a stretch in the jar.

In light of all this, we actually considered canceling Christmas outright-- yes, of course we have the authority to do that; what, you didn't know?-- but we think we've hit upon a solution that'll make everyone happy. (Well, all Mac users, anyway, and really, who else counts?) We plan to go through the Christmas motions this Thursday, but postpone the real celebration until a couple of weeks later: Tuesday, January 6th. Yes, that's Keynote Day, for those keeping score at home... and if anything is sure to slather us in a thick layer of peace on earth and good will toward men (and women and antelopes and Kakapos and yes, even telemarketers to a limited extent), it's a solid dose of Reality Distortion Field energy wrapped around a chewy center of New Stuff from Apple. Steve is doing the keynote, and it's going to be big enough to webcast; that's good enough to give us visions of tablet Macs dancing in our heads. Ahhhh... Christmas spirit at last!

"So AtAT," you ask, "does this mean that you'll be broadcasting a new episode this Thursday instead of taking the day off?" Ha! Dream on, pally-- you can postpone the spirit of Christmas, but the business closings are carved in stone. We've got four cartons of Nog in the fridge with our names on 'em (well, not literally, but we can run in there with a Sharpie if you insist), and we're going to down 'em all and then sleep for, like, six hours or some crazy amount like that. We suggest you do the same. You'll need to rest up for Santa Steve on the 6th. Have you all been good little boys and girls?