041 - Welcome to Christmas

It's our Christmas episode! With 2018's WELCOME TO CHRISTMAS and: Worry about your driving ... THEME ... Let's talk about our Christmases! ... Going someplace colder than NYC to not do anything ... Little Rock, a place with a winter ... Cleaning before leaving ... Puddle of Mudd roadie day ... Lax-cooking relatives vs. cooking nerds ... Rope-a-doped into making dinner ... Cousin Dave ruins the demi-glace ... Avocado on sausage pasta: DIS-RE-SPECT-FUL ... Cemetery Man shout-out ... Baked pasta funeral vibe ... Look at you drinkin' nog ... Do your best and have fun ... Scandinavian sot suppe ... Half a century of fart jokes ... F*ckin' smelts ... Penis fish ... BREAK ... The Expositional Challenge ... Plot cleanup ... Second-guessing the wisdom of giant corporations and unlimited growth ... Townsfolk embracing debate ... Decent jokes and callbacks ... Discount-incentivizing the ornament hunt ... Doc Hollywooding the stranger again ... Eric Mabius' chaste gender/sex ambivalence ... Interiority vs. Indifference ... Disconnected repartee and forced meaningful glances ... Honoring first responders ... UK cop costuming ... "Mabius, play Signed, Sealed and Delivered...and armed" ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: No angels, yes moppets ... Eat Your Heart Out: Normal cookies, normal coffee shop, eating like a trapped houseguest, where are the damn turkey legs and where's the damn ham? ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: Eric Mabius' Signed, Sealed, Delivered gritty backstory vs. The Sweetest Christmas's sister city ... Overdetermined: Everything vs. A Christmas Carol, Haruki Murakami's Die Hard, and sister-on-sister guilt-tripping ... Crossover: A Groundhog Day of employment competency and a town cursed by permanent Christmas ... BREAK ... Hallmark Bechdel Test: A narrow pass limned by a woman's empty life ... Great Moments in Moppetry: Put some respect on that moppet (2) ... Partner Chat: Bailed for spreadsheets and chores ... The Leftovers: "It's Christmastown" ... Macho Man Umberto Eco ... Clownshow tree decorating ... BS Christmas tree lot "game" ... Spider egg sac Christmas tree ... Lorem Ipsum Christmas song ... Madison Gage ... Rating: 3 ... Merry Christmas! ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "If U Want It," from Cyber-Vision, by Drew Fairweather • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane