If "CHRISTMAS SONG PERFORMED BY NEIL DIAMOND, STRYPER AND BARNEY" was in your letter to Santa this year, boy, are you in luck.

Presenting, I'm pretty sure for the first time, Winter Wonderland sung by the greatest mix of stars our planet has to offer.

It truly is a winter wonderland.

Advice from my friend, Tom, on how to make a Holiday Yule Log your family will cherish (plus an unhelpful drawing lesson as a bonus.)

And do go here to check out his latest video which provides even more insight into where the brilliant ideas for his crappy comic strip come from. (Adult language warning.)

It is the time of yule, and I re-gift this unto you...

Like most people, I tend to only think about elves during the usual times -- around Christmas, and when I'm having sex. But the other day Mark and I were discussing just how versatile these pointy-eared little freaks really are.

Without further delay, The Sneeze proudly presents:

THE MAGICAL SKILL SET OF ELVES
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Building Toys: Elves work tirelessly all year long so on Christmas Eve, Santa can deliver delightful toys to all the good little girls and boys. Yaaay! (Unless their parents are poor, in which case Santa brings crappy toys, or maybe an orange. Awww.)

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Baking Cookies: I believe it was a young Stephen Hawking who said, "If cookies were ho's, then elves be they pimp." (I might be paraphrasing a bit-- it was either that or some crap about the universe.) The point is, elves make some kick-ass cookies.

The Keeblers prefer to do their baking in large hollow trees, despite the enormous fire hazard. Each year hundreds of elves and woodland creatures die in baking related forest fires, but Fudge Grahams taste awesome, so fuck it.

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Making Cereal: Snap, Crackle and Pop are best known for inventing Rice Krispies cereal. Legend has it they had a fourth brother named "Soggy," who died suspiciously the night before the cereal was unveiled in 1932. The three assailants were never found.

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Shooting arrows into people: Lord of the Rings has taught us that when elves are not sending out joy in the form of toys, cereal and cookies, they are sending razor sharp arrows deep into the skulls of their enemies. A good rule of thumb is: Don't bother them, and they won't bother you. Elves are a lot like bees. (Who make cookies.)

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Dentistry: In at least one documented case, an elf named Hermie left the toy biz to strike out on his own and become a practicing dentist. During his 2nd root canal he thought to himself, "This sucks." He was last seen crying somewhere near Santa's workshop.

Last month I dropped by the annual Elf Expo in Vegas, and I was pleasantly surprised to see them all at an autograph table. When they found out I was the guy who does The Sneeze they even took 10% off the price of a signed publicity photo. Elves may be cheap, but they still rock! Check it out!

As parents, there are many values and lessons we'd like to share with our children so they can grow up to become upstanding and productive members of society, who know how to wipe themselves.

Sadly, my 5-year-old has been reluctant to fly on his own in this area and is still looking for assistance in the clean up effort of his own personal Katrinas.

Apparently, after several rounds of negotiations, my wife struck a deal with him. They've agreed that she'd help him out one day a week. Fridays.

It seems like she got a pretty good deal, but it has now lead to a daily 7 AM ritual in which my son yells from the bathroom-- (and if you haven't heard the recordings of him, just think Cartman with a lisp), "MOMMM?! IZ DITH THE DAY THAT YOU HELP WIPE MYTHELF?!"

6 out of 7 times, it's not the answer he's looking for.

Like an addict in need of a fix, he also tries to rope me into this, which I find hilarious. It often starts with him asking me to keep him company in the bathroom because he's "afraid of my robe."

Things quickly get back to, "Dad, iz dith the day that you help wipe mythelf?"

"Nope."

"Are you thure?! Thometimez Mom cut-th me thum thlaa-ack."

At that point I usually feel bad. And while I won't actually do it for him, I'll give him some pointers and a visual assist. I'm like a caddy in golf. I size up the shot, maybe make a suggestion on the best angle for success and then, more often than not, watch him not even come close to the hole.

And where a caddy might suggest a 3-iron, I might suggest he not use 50 sheets of toilet paper at a time.

Early this morning I nudged my wife until her eyes opened and asked her if this was the day she helps wipe myself. I was informed this was not humorous.

I'm sure it's tomorrow. I'll just ask her again in the morning.

Here's the latest on the Tree Brain Tiki Mugs being made by Henrik. If you're new to this, there's this crazy fungus on the tree... and we made a band... and now Henrik... okay-- if you're lost, just nod and smile for now and I'll recap next time, I promise.

The fiery stress begins tomorrow morning, 7am Hawaii time. Cross your fingers!

I may make a new set of brain tops - I'm not thrilled with these, and I think I could crank out some better ones now that I have the tree top built. I kinda did things backwards building the brains first. I know what you are thinking: "geez Henrik - it has been, like, 6 months already! And you are gonna go back to square one on the brains?!" Fear not. I just want these woody idols to be the best they can be. The brains will go fast. I promise. Kinda.

Henrik

Check out all of Henrik's insanely great tiki mug creations at VanTiki and be sure to get on his free mailing list!

Thanks, Henrik!

By request for Keith and my friend Kevin at Forgotten NY, here is a special Christmas post from a few years ago...

My four-year-old didn't ask for much this Christmas. His main request was a little scooter "with a horn so people will know I'm coming." He even drew a picture of it in his letter to Santa.

The fat man came through with the scooter, and being the awesome Daddy, I helped out by going to Toys 'R Us to get the horn. It's pretty funny to see this big ol' bike horn mounted on this little scooter.

It seems so obvious now, but the boy totally set me up. How could I not realize the horrendous combination of "7:30 Christmas morning" and "Bike horn?"

Under the guise of cute, my son had hatched his plan for the loudest Christmas ever and succeeded. He even used me as a pawn to make it happen.

I have created a special sound bite just for you. This is not a re-enactment. This is actual audio of my horn-filled Christmas morning pulled from our video camera. (To truly enjoy the experience as I did, I suggest you turn up your speakers as loud as they can possibly go. And play it over and over.)

_{(or download an mp3)}

Note how the official little brother babbles something in between the honking. He's speaking in Baby, but it loosely translates to "Ha ha!!! You wanted us and now you will pay! This is what you get for having sex with Mommy!!!"

The boy has a point. In the future I'm going to attach the horn to my weiner to warn my wife when I'm coming.

Let me be a cautionary tale, guys. Don't get your kids noisy presents. Get them something quiet like pillows or raisins.

(But for what it's worth, they still ride that scooter all the time.)

Christmas begins with our warm-up tree.

I don't know why, but we get things going by decorating a crappy, two foot tall fake tree and then about a week later I go out and get a real one. At that point I assume the little tree remains as a back-up in case of yuletide emergencies.

The boys excitedly decorated the pre-tree (which took a minute and a half), then we dimmed the room lights in preparation of the ceremonial plugging-in. Upon ignition, my 5-year-old became possessed by the gods of dance. As he spazzed out, he demanded we join him, so I blasted what seemed like an appropriate holiday tune, All The Single Ladies by Beyonce, and we all danced around the tiny tree in the dark like crazy people.

These were 3 of my favorite minutes of 2008.

It's not too hard to look back on perfect moments in time after they're gone, but it's rare, at least for me, to realize it while they're happening. So I have my little one to thank for a surreal, perfect snippet of family joy.

Unfortunately, other snippets that come to mind courtesy of him also include: eating my father-in-law's ear medicine, flushing an assortment of unflushables down the toilet and spitefully dropping my wife's cell phone down the living room heating vent. So it is with much anticipation that I look forward to this year's box of Christmas Raisins.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, 2 years ago I was curious to see how my then 3-year-old would react to receiving a little box of raisins on Christmas morning as compared to the other expensive gifts he was getting. A fantastic tradition was born.

A year later we did the experiment again with truly wonderful results. (Click here for actual audio of that morning.)

Here we are again, poised to see how a now 5-year-old will react to Raisins for Christmas. And what will hopefully be another perfect moment in time. At least for me.

My wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary on Sunday and, unfortunately, I was completely sick for it. It does uphold something of a tradition though, because 12 years earlier on our wedding day I was also a gross, mucous-filled mess.

I could feel myself getting ill two days before our wedding and there really wasn't much I could do to stop it. On the morning of the big day, I managed to tape myself together with Afrin, Advil, Ricola and anything else I could suck on or squirt inside me.

The wedding went fine and I don't even look sick in the pictures, but about 3/4 of the way through the reception I could feel myself starting to fall apart. By that night I was sweaty, shaky, mucous machine.

I can very clearly remember sitting on the bed with my shiny new wife as we opened all the wedding cards to the sound of me wheezing. She made me tea and suggested I try to get some sleep since we had an early flight in the morning for our honeymoon.

Me with stuffy nose: "But we hab to... consummade the... marriage."

My wife: "It's okay. I know you feel terrible."

Me: "No... it's our weddig nide. We hab to... hab... sex."

And with that I dragged my germ-ridden body on top of her and did what I had to do -- making our union official with a single, diseased act of love.

Since I believe in the importance of family traditions, I'm happy to report this anniversary also included the erotic hacking up of phlegm as foreplay.

And while I hate to break the hearts of all the ladies out there -- this type of deep love and romance is only reserved for my one special woman.

Happy Anniversary, Wife! I love you more than grape Dimetapp!