Ok, now that the turkey is in the fridge, the relatives have been sent home, and the carols are on the iTunes playlists, let's talk Christmas. Specifically, let's talk what I can do for you. <reaches into bag of gifts>
For my friends of the essay, every day of the advent I'll be sharing from Essay Daily's wonderful Best American Essays Advent Calendar, in which one writer a day (including me!) writes about one volume of The Best American Essays. In fact, I guess the advent has already started as I'm already two days behind! I'll try to get caught up today, then one a day 'til Christmas.
And for my friends who enjoy the wonderfully seasonally-specific misery the holiday season invokes, I'm brewing up 12 more days of miserable Christmas songs. I'm lining them up now, but in the meantime you can warm up with last year's selections, which I've summed up handily under the just-invented tab Annotated Playlists.