Happy Holy Days, for the war on Xmas has been lost and now it's time to get on the grog ...

Well it's the end of the year, and because this site lost its war on Christmas - what can you do but fight the good fight - we now have to trudge to Melbourne to fight with relatives, endure internecine warfare, and generate an ocean of misery sufficient to provide a year's emotional surfing of the resulting waves.

Don't get me wrong. We love Melbourne, what a wonderful town it is, and and we love the family, and we understand the town is fully wired, as is the family fully wired and inclined to electrocute the unwary.

But this site is taking a holy day or three off to cope with the stress. What with all the family feuding and fighting and fussing there isn't going to be time to keep the wretched commentariat columnists under close watch, let alone review.

And anyway there's a complicating factor. No one will be around to read said reviews, because everyone else will be feuding and fighting with their families. Or playing silly online games like Don't shoot your eye out!, which come and go according to the season (sob, and only scoring 6.5 million points).

You see, if we've learned one thing from loon pond, it's that the readership comes largely from bludgers at work, intent on escaping their duties, and entirely remiss when it comes to keeping the ship of the Australian economy on a straight and steady course.

Idle minds with mischievous time on their hands, and an intense desire to roam the intertubes looking for distractions. Stop it, you're ruining the country for Chairman Rudd, put your shoulder to the wheel, and your false teeth to the grindstone, and make 2010 a year of relentless work you bludgers. Harden the fuck up Australia!

So blogging during the Christmas break would be a bit like Adolf Hitler sending messages out of the bunker to fight the Russians and prevent Berlin from falling. And we know what happened there (and that's the very last dollar for the Godwin's Law swear jar this year, I swear it).

So it's goodbye and good luck and all the best for the holy day season and the new year, and if we avoid becoming road kill on the Hume highway, we'll resume business in the New Year, unless by some chance we might want to defame a relative in the interim.

Meantime, can we leave you with one vitally important message regarding enjoyment of the holy day season.

At our house, we have just one important Xmas ritual. We like to watch our favourite Xmas movie.

Now we know others do too. The soft at heart tend to favour It's A Wonderful Life, in which Jimmy Stewart gets shown an alternate world by a tedious angel, but if that sloppy sentimentality doesn't get to them, they've always got Miracle on 34th Street. Great aunt Irene might request Bing Crosby in White Christmas, at which point she can safely be banished to an old folks' home.

Others tend to go for comedies, like the BB gun riff on view in A Christmas Story, or Bill Murray in Scrooged, or getting even more desperate Will Ferrell in Elf, or god help us, Macaulay Culkin in the Xmas themed Home Alone. Did we mention Tim Allen in The Santa Clause? Pass by in silence. Grinch me if we get too deep in the shallows of the season.

Then there are the themed shows, like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, or The Muppet Christmas Carol, designed to prove that hell is other people's Christmas movie tastes in a never ending lounge room viewing session.

The arty crowd might select John Huston's The Dead, or Alastair Sim doing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, because it's in black and white, or the world war one show Joyeux Noel, thereby proving arty types don't have a clue.

Action or kinky buffs might dig out Gremlins, or have a soft spot for Bruce Willis in Die Hard, though the show belongs to that prize ham Alan Rickman, or perhaps settle for The Nightmare Before Christmas.

And there are more, each with their fans - the wretches who want to watch Holiday Inn, just to hear White Christmas for the millionth time, or the children who settle on payback revenge on their parents by driving them insane making them watch The Polar Express.

Well, we don't allow any of that. Our movie of choice is Bad Santa, and we recommend it as a healthy corrective to the usual humbug of the season. Sure it's got a saccharine up ending (it's a Hollywood movie for god's sake) but along the way it has its pleasures for the thinking pervert.

If you don't have a copy, get one, and if your video store doesn't have it in the weekly section, change stores.

Send the children to bed early, if you have any of the pests, on the pretext that if Santa spots them, they'll get diddly squat, or if you don't have a brood to brood about, sit down with the one you love (or hate, whatever, it's that kind of show), get out a bottle of decent wine, and get on the piss and enjoy. Here's a few teasers, without too many plot spoilers:

1. The opener, brooding about the misery of life. Best done at Xmas, and certainly by new year's eve. Ever noticed how the suicide rate goes up ?

2. Playing games with the children, a favourite Xmas past time.

3. Arriving at work, which we all must do in our own idiosyncratic way:

4. Arguing over a meal, which we love to do in the Xmas season. Shovel that chicken and pudding and hoe in:

5. Exploring a new mall, always a joy during the Xmas season, and remember, always think of the children, just like Senator Conroy:

And while at the mall, why not pick up a Tee? It's all you need to know to guide you through the Xmas and new year season. Party on and play safe:

See where reading Tim Blair, Piers Akerman, Janet Albrechtsen, Gerard Henderson and the like on a regular, never-ending basis gets you? Mad as a march hare, howling at the moon, and thinking that loon pond is just like the Xmas season ... 365/12/7/24 ...