2. Least Favorite: “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” (dumbest thing I ever heard–and the gal singing sounds as if she’s sucking helium between verses).

3. Karaoke? I’m laughing. “The Ukrainian Bell Carol.” Why? No lyrics. Maybe I could hum it and offend fewer people? I’m worse than the chick who wants the hippo.

4. Which carol am I? “So this is Christmas…” and, yeah, I’d happily give up the material things for even peace on a small scale.

5. Does “Happy Holidays” bother me? No. Holidays is a derivative of “Holy Days”–and that shouldn’t bother anyone. The whole seasonal semantics battle is ridiculous. The “war on Christmas” is not one waged by “liberal heathens”–it was lost to Madison Avenue/Corporate America decades ago.

6. The war in Iraq bothers me. Darfur bothers me. Poverty, disease, illiteracy and hopelessness bother me. Which signs hang in which stores is a preoccupation for those who choose not to see past their own biases.