Welcome to The 12 Days of Thatz Not Okay, a special holiday edition of a regular column in which I school inquiring readers on what is and is not okay. Check back tomorrow for our next seasonal installment. As always, please send your questions (max: 200 words) to caity.weaver@gawker.com with the subject "Thatz Not Okay."

In a needlessly long, drawn-out and eventually tack-spitting online discussion of this season's perpetual "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy holidays" vs. "Joyous Hannuchristmakwanzticember," yours truly found herself dumstruck by one participant's announcement that s/he ASKS "Do you celebrate Christmas?" BEFORE offering any kind of well wishes, so as to be able to dispense a proper "Merry Christmas" to fellow Christians and a "Happy holidays" to everybody else.

Yours truly is of the opinion that a sincere wish for a happy and prosperous midwinter season is a marvelous thing, and generally is happy to accept such a wish delivered in any verbal configuration.

HOWEVER, in the bigger picture, does the act of dispensing such wishes entitle the wisher to pointedly ask the about-to-be-wished-upon what the wishee's religious practices are, as a precondition to dispensing said wish?

It has never occurred to me that what or how I choose to celebrate is the business of anybody who does not already know the answer. And while my initial reaction to this assertion of the right to interrogate somebody about their seasonal celebration habits was one of gobsmacked incredulity, perhaps I missed a memo, and sussing out somebody for their Christianity (or lack thereof) before offering good wishes is now a Thing. Is that OK?

Thatz not okay.

Wishing someone a Merry Christmas is the emptiest of empty gestures. When you say “Merry Christmas,” what you are really saying is “It's December.” Maybe you are saying "I think you are an asshole" (if you use it in a line like "MERRY CHRISTMAS, BUDDY" while peeling out of a 7-Eleven parking lot with your middle finger raised to the sky). "Merry Christmas" is like "Good morning" in the sense that you say it without particularly caring whether the person you are saying it to ends up having one. It's even less meaningful, in fact, because "Merry Christmas" doesn't have an accompanying hand motion, like a wave. It's all verbal.

All of this is to say: If you are thinking at all about how and when to say Merry Christmas, you are over-thinking it.

The reason people offer a blanket “Happy holidays!” instead of restricting their wishes to Christmas, Hanukkah, or #ThrowbackThursday is to avoid making someone feel like an awkward outsider if he or she doesn't observe those days. All the politeness points you acquire by saying “Happy holidays” are rendered null and void (cash value: $0.00) if you preface your well-wishes with a religious interrogation. The whole idea of "Happy holidays" is that you don't need to know what holidays someone celebrates in order to use it. An even safer bet would be just to sing the theme from Happy Days (since some people don't observe any holidays at all), but this is too time-consuming to gain widespread support.

As with all greetings, the important factor here is intent. If a person makes you feel bad for wishing them a Merry Christmas, that’s on them. (And you've WASTED a "Merry Christmas" because they don't deserve one!) Unless you work in a rectory, synagogue, or Kingdom Hall, most of the people you will encounter in your everyday life probably accept Christmas as a pretty secular event at this point. Just as you are unlikely to offend someone by wishing them a Happy St. Patrick’s Day ("No green beer for me, I'm Protestant!"), people probably won't take offense if you smile at them and produce a short, kind sentence. "Merry Christmas" isn't a spell that magically turns devout Muslims into Christians. It's a seasonal cultural greeting.

If you are the sort of person who is perturbed by the idea of accidentally wishing the wrong kind of nice time upon a stranger, it’s no skin off your nose to just say “Happy holidays!” or even “Have a real chill day.” But take comfort in the fact that it is virtually impossible to make an error when expressing your desire that someone have a pleasant day. (By the same token, if someone wishes you, say, a happy Hanukkah, you don't need to tell them "I'm not Jewish!" You just need to say "Thanks! You too.")

Don’t turn Christmas into a fun-sized Inquisition. Save that for Ash Wednesday, when it's a lot easier to do on sight.

And don't have long Internet fights about the proper way to express good tidings unless it's in the comments of this post.

Submit your "Thatz Not Okay" questions here. Art by Jim Cooke.

That Sarah Palin rushed to defend Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson's explicit anti-gay comments was not all that surprising. But that Palin didn't even bother to read what Robertson actually said before defending him, well, that's not all that surprising either.

Appearing on last night's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Palin reiterated her bogus claim that Robertson's was merely expressing his "personal opinion" and was being intimidated and threatened for exercising his right to free speech.

Robertson was indefinitely suspended from his A&E show last week over homophobic remarks he made during an interview with GQ.

"It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man's anus," Robertson was quoted as saying. "That's just me. I'm just thinking: There's more there! She's got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I'm saying?"

"It is one thing to express your opinion," Van Susteren shot back. "Do you have any problem about the manners of how he said it. I mean, we don't talk about it on television much, but if you actually read the article, there's a rather graphic and offensive, or at least I think, offensive description of it...do you have any objection on manners aspect, how he said it?"

"I haven't read the article," Palin responded with prideful ignorance. "I don't know exactly how he said it."

Sarah Palin: She has no idea how what you actually said, but she'll defend to the death your right to say it, so long as it's about how much you hate gays.

[video via Right Sightings]

In a video uploaded to YouTube and promoted by her father's administration today, Chiara de Blasio, the 18 year-old daughter of mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, confirmed that she has struggled with depression and substance abuse:

"It made it easier, the more I drank and did drugs, to share some common ground with people who I wouldn't have. It didn't start out as a huge thing for me, but then it became a very huge thing for me."

In the video, Chiara, who says she's suffered from depression since adolescence, details how enrolling at Santa Clara University exacerbated her drug abuse, and how she sought treatment at an in-patient center in New York City—encouraging anyone encountering the same struggles she did to reach out for help.

Chiara’s then-only-rumored drug abuse was a major, though effectively hidden, topic of discussion among reporters covering the New York mayoral race over the summer and fall of 2013. Concerns about those rumors, multiple sources told Gawker, led the de Blasio campaign to be extra-careful about press coverage of Chiara, especially the name of her college.

Who will be celebrating the birth of Christ in darkened movie houses watching Scorsese orgies? pic.twitter.com/n8WcmLWyAq

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) December 24, 2013

Here's some horrible footage from Washington, D.C. station WJLA. The ABC affiliate was covering a toy giveaway in the southeast side of the city when somebody shot Santa Claus in the back.

Sadly folks I'm not kidding. Someone did in fact shoot Santa during a toy giveaway in SE DC today. We have exclusive video on @ABC7News

— Kris Van Cleave (@ABC7Kris) December 24, 2013

Santa wanted to continue w/toy giveaway. Police looking for person responsible for pellet gun shooting of Santa pic.twitter.com/WOLEf9E64A

— Kris Van Cleave (@ABC7Kris) December 24, 2013

.@DCPoliceDept officers on scene believe pellet gun shots came from a 2nd story window. No suspect in pellet shooting of Santa. Santa is OK

— Kris Van Cleave (@ABC7Kris) December 24, 2013

Be sure to head over to ABC7 for the latest news and the full video.

The New York Post knows a broad when it sees one. On Sunday the unprofitable tabloid published photos of Bill de Blasio’s chief spokeswoman, Lis Smith, inviting disgraced New York Governor and married man Eliot Spitzer into her Soho apartment. Very understandably, the paper wants her fired.

Here is Post columnist Andrea Peyser, raving about Smith (“not just any ordinary bimbo”) and “ex-Love Gov” Spitzer’s newfound bond, which “makes me ashamed to call myself a New Yorker.”

Don't underestimate Lis’ status as a hot and fit political insider. She was Eliot's spokeswoman during his disastrous primary campaign for city comptroller this year. ... The union of the ambitious, youngish cookie and the megarich heir to Daddy’s real-estate empire has cemented New York’s image as a sexual mosh pit in which male politicians (Spitzer, Anthony Weiner) forget their marriage vows, and women use married degenerates to advance their careers.

I hope Lis and Eliot enjoy a long, happy life living in sin. Just do it somewhere else.

And here is reporter Tara Palmeri, investigating Smith’s dating career. Citing unnamed “sources,” Palermi begins with her high school yearbook:

Spitzer gal pal Lis Smith took her inspiration from Lady Macbeth, Machiavelli and Nietzsche while at tony Bronxville HS — quoting the trio on her 2001 senior yearbook page. "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't,'' she wrote, citing Lady Macbeth.

Palmeri helpfully highlights Smith’s lack of girlfriends with whom she might have done girly things (instead of fucking Eliot Spitzer):

Another political insider said that, as with Spitzer, it was just like Smith to get tangled up with someone in power where she worked. Smith was Spitzer's communications director for his failed bid for city comptroller when the pair began a relationship, sources have said. "She definitely dates men in positions of power and politics,'' the source said. "She's not a girl's girl. She doesn't have any girlfriends."

I mean—what else is there to say? Lis Smith doesn’t have gal pals! She’s living in sin!

The New York Post obviously has the new administration’s very best interests at heart, so de Blasio should fire Lis Smith—publicly, dramatically, and immediately. And since the paper overflows with levelheaded moral judgement, we should take their advice completely seriously.

The Italian marketing team for Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave seems to have the wrong idea when it comes to what the film is about. Contrary to what some may think, the movie details the time a free black man named Solomon Northup was kidnapped and sold into bondage in the antebellum South. It is not, as these Italian posters might lead you to believe, a buddy film highlighting the antics and struggles of Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender.

Production and distribution company Lionsgate, whose Summit subsidiary is handling 12 Years a Slave overseas, said in a statement that it is attempting to recall these "unauthorised" posters, pictures of which were published yesterday on the blog Carefree Black Girl:

The 12 Years a Slave theatrical posters featuring Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender that were recently released in Italy were unauthorised and were not approved by any of the producers or licensors of the film. Summit Entertainment, acting as exclusive sales agent for the licensors, is investigating and taking immediate action to stop the distribution of any unauthorised posters and to have those posters currently in the marketplace recalled.

For contrast, here is 12 Years a Slave's American poster, which instead focuses on Chiwetel Ejiofor, the black actor who stars in nearly every shot of the film (Brad Pitt is in the movie for about five minutes):

[Image via Twitter user @desusnice]

The Race War on Christmas sparked by Megyn Kelly's claim that Santa Claus is a white man was settled once and for all the way all truly ridiculous debates should be: In a wrestling ring.

Last night's WWE Raw pit a black "Good Santa" (Mark Henry) against a white "Bad Santa" (Damien Sandow) in the ultimate holy fight for the very soul of Christmas.

After Bad Santa threatened to cancel the holiday and make the children of the world work for their gifts, Good Santa stepped in to restore order with a few choice props and a roundhouse kick to the face.

God bless us, every one.

[video via WWE]

How has Rap Genius distinguished itself all the other lyrics sites? With sweet, sweet old school spam techniques, or at Silicon Valley likes to call it "growth hacking." The tactic is so shady that Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, felt compelled to publicly state that his team is "aware and looking into it."

Yesterday John Marbach, a former Thiel Fellow and Y Combinator alum, posted an email on his blog from Rap Genius cofounder Mahbod Moghadam. Yes, that joker. Marbach reached out to the company about the "Rap Genius Blog Affiliate" program they promoted on Facebook.

In response, Moghadam gave away their big secret. He instructed Marbach to embed links to the Rap Genius pages for Justin Bieber's new album in the bottom of one of his post, guaranteeing "MASSIVE traffic." Embed those links, Moghadam assured him, and your post "will bloooowwwww up!"

The chance that Marbach—who pitched Thiel on an education startup, but founded an email filtering service—would write a blog post relevant to Justin Bieber's new album is miniscule. Rap Genius is well aware of that. They're just in it for the SERP, Marbach explains:

Their business depends on their search engine ranking position (SERP's) on Google. Hyperlinks connect the web and determine SERP's. Thus, the most powerful weapon RapGenius can deploy is a series of powerful hyperlinks. You can see in Mahbod's email that he is asking for hyperlinks from high-page rank sites (personal blogs) with anchor text that mentions tracks from Bieber's most recent album.

Furthermore, the 80-20 rule applied to RapGenius's business indicates that 80% of their traffic comes from only a select 20% of their lyrics database. According to Alexa.com, "Get Lucky" and "Holy Grail" were the top traffic drivers to RapGenius for most of 2013. However, music is highly cyclical, and the traffic from previous winners will eventually fade. Looking forward into 2014, it's only logical that RapGenius would hope for Bieber's new songs to refer them enormous traffic.

Marbach said he was surprised that Rap Genius, which raised $15 million from Andreessen Horowitz, would "openly execute such a frugal strategy for their link-building efforts." I dunno about "open," emails from Rap Genius cofounders have been getting leaked left and right. On Twitter, other words were used to describe the company's strategy.

Growth hacking = using 2005-era spam tactics. http://t.co/5ISCPmMEkp cc @samfbiddle @nitashatiku

— Max Woolf (@minimaxir) December 23, 2013

This is not the first time that Rap Genius has been accused of resurrecting things from the mid-aughts to their own advantage.

Update: The Rap Genius cofounders apologized for the tactics in an open letter to Google.

tl;dr: We effed up, other lyrics sites are almost definitely doing worse stuff, and we'll stop. We'd love for Google to take a closer look at the whole lyrics search landscape and see whether it can make changes that would improve lyric search results.

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

[Image via Getty, email screenshot via jmarbach.com]

Milwaukee has begun repurposing its surplus of cheese brine to de-ice its roads: "You want to use provolone or mozzarella. Those have the best salt content. You have to do practically nothing to it."

Internet historians will no doubt look back at 2013 as the year we finally reached peak hyperbole.

Okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but there is no denying we encountered a lot of puffery this year: The viral videos of 2013 were louder, shorter, weirder, funnier, faker, heartwarmier, tearjerkier, and, most importantly, far more viral than ever before.

There was perhaps no better sign of things to come than "Gentleman." Attempting to repeat the success of last year's smash earworm "Gangnam Style," South Korean phenomenon Psy released his follow-up music video earlier this year, to record-setting fanfare. With over 600 million hits, "Gentleman" is officially YouTube's most viewed video of the year.

But just as 2013's viral videos experienced unprecedented rises in engagement, so too was their rapid return to Earth equally as meteoric. That is to say, they burned up on reentry. Go ahead: Hum the first few bars of "Gentleman." (And while you're at it, do the Harlem Shake and tell me what the Fox say.)

Of course, the reason these trending topics faded from memory so soon after becoming so ubiquitous is because of that other thing 2013 did so well: Take advantage of us.

It started innocently enough, with marketers doing what marketers do: Taking something organically wonderful and saturating the web with sickening simulacra. But after a while we stopped being able to tell the difference. Or it didn't matter.

Sure, we knew it was an ad for something, but we shared it anyway.

And sometimes we knew what it was an ad for and we shared it anyway.

And sometimes we didn't know it was an ad and we shared it and then when we found out it was an ad we weren't even mad.

And eventually everything on the Internet became a hoax and we shared it anyway.

But something had changed. We rarely let anything trend for longer than a few days. Psy trended for months after "Gangnam Style"; after "Gentleman," he barely made it out of April:

Maybe climbing the mountain of lab-engineered "viral content" has finally taken its toll on our collective attention spans. Or maybe we like to climb quickly to avoid uncomfortable revelations. Or maybe we're more aware of our own disorientation than we'd like to let on.

Or maybe we're worried about having to take the long way down.

Which brings us back here, to the peak. The acme. The confluence of exaggeration, and exploitation, and hoaxes. Or, as Upworthy calls them, the "awesome," the "meaningful," and the "visual."

It's no coincidence that the defining website of 2013 was founded by the former executive director of MoveOn.org and the former managing editor of The Onion, and funded early on by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. And it's no coincidence that 2013 was the year Upworthy took off.

My colleague Tom Scocca has already said everything there is to say on smarm and the cynics who promote it. I can only confirm: from the perspective of the viral-mongers, in 2013 at least, smarm sells.

The Internet's bread and butter continues to be its ABCs: Animals, Babies, and other Cute things. Local news reports and bloopers, public proposals and public pranks, YouTube celebrities and YouTube shows, WINs and FAILs can all still put asses in the ergonomic office chairs.

But the most efficient traffic-suck of the year has been the smarmy, saccharine, self-indulgent triviality cynically peddled by Upworthy, Viral Nova, and their ilk. Amuses bouches masquerading as seven-course meals. They are the natural product of these synthetic times: You'll Never Believe How Little Substance This Story Actually Has.

Maybe next year we can resolve to stop chasing light-headed headlines up viral slopes and maybe spend some time at base camp getting to truly know a story before making a mountain out of it.

[illustration by Jim Cooke]

We've just learned that Simon Pegg will star in Absolutely Anything, a brand new film that reunites the surviving Monty Python castmembers. But how will this movie stack up to the canon of Monty Python spinoffs? Here are 12 Python side projects, ranked in order of greatness.

Note: For the purposes of this list, we're focusing on projects that had two or more members of the Python crew involved — and the more Pythons involved, the stronger the claim.

12) Splitting Heirs

Who's involved: Eric Idle (Writer/Star), John Cleese (actor)

What's it about: A soggy "switched at birth" epic in which Idle is the true heir to a dukedom but they accidentally give it to Rick Moranis instead. Instead of a manic farce, in the mold of Start the Revolution Without Me, it's a mopey gentle comedy in which you don't really care who gets to be the duke. Cleese is a barrister who suggests just killing the imposter duke. It has 8 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert panned it. See the whole movie for yourself, above.

11) Erik The Viking

Who's involved: Terry Jones (writer/director/actor), John Cleese (actor)

What's it about: Jones adapts his children's book into a mock-fantasy epic about a reluctant Viking warrior (Tim Robbins) who doesn't want to rape and pillage, and thus goes on a quest to put an end to Ragnarok, the war of the gods. It's cute but nothing to write home about, and the rape jokes get tiresome. Cleese is pretty great as the baddie, who wants to keep the war going. The whole movie is right here.

10) Yellowbeard

Who's involved: Graham Chapman (writer/star), Eric Idle (actor), John Cleese (actor),

What's it about: Once again, you can watch the whole thing right here! It's a lightweight pirate spoof in which Chapman is the notorious pirate Yellowbeard, who's searching for his lost treasure — but the map to the treasure is tattooed on the head of his useless son. Sadly, much like the Viking movie, the pirate movie is lacking a certain amount of lightness on its feet and feels at times like a comedy sketch that's just going on too long.

9) Broaden Your Mind

Who's involved: John Cleese (writer), Michael Palin (writer/actor), Terry Jones (writer/actor), Terry Gilliam (writer), Eric Idle (writer), Graham Chapman (writer/actor)

What's it about: Around the same time Monty Python was becoming a huge sensation, another British comedy series was sort of sneaking under the radar — the more kid-friendly slapstick show The Goodies. And before either Python or The Goodies existed, the three Goodies had this sketch show which featured many of the Pythons in various roles. The Goodies and Cleese knew each other from Cambridge University's Footlights comedy revue, and also took part in the radio show I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again. Sadly, not much exists of Broaden Your Mind, and what there is isn't all that funny.

8) The Rutles: All You Need is Cash

Who's involved: Eric Idle (writer/director/star), Michael Palin (actor)

What's it about: A wacky spoof of the Beatles, with George Harrison and various other famous people involved. Spun off from the TV show Rutland Weekend Television, it goes ridiculously far to try and shadow the real-life Beatles' history, to the point where the comedy feels a bit subdued at times. Also depends a bit too much on cameos from Mick Jagger, rather than going full-bore with the satire.

7) Do Not Adjust Your Set

Who's involved: Eric Idle (writer/actor), Terry Gilliam (writer), Terry Jones (writer/actor), Michael Palin (writer/actor)

What's it about: Another precursor to Python — this sketch comedy show was aimed at children, but achieved huge crossover success, and some of the sketches were recycled for Python later. It's definitely not as wild or bonkers as Python, but it's crackling with energy and silliness. And unlike Broaden Your Mind, tons of episodes exist, and they're all on Youtube. Also, around the same time, Cleese and Chapman were doing a sketch-comedy show called At Last, the 1948 Show, and it appears that all of those episodes are on Youtube as well! Huzzah!

6) Starship Titanic

Who's involved: John Cleese (voice actor), Terry Jones (voice actor)

What's it about: Douglas Adams created this video game, which was released on CD-ROM, in which you explore a spaceship crashed on Earth and try to get it working again. Cleese voices the Bomb, and Jones is the Parrot. (Jones also wrote a novel based on the game.) There is absolutely tons of information about the game, along with links to surrounding materials, here. Apparently you can still play the game if you install the right emulator program. And by all accounts, it's a fun lark, full of great puzzles and lovely humor.

5) How to Irritate People

Who's involved: John Cleese (writer/star), Graham Chapman (writer/actor), Michael Palin (actor)

What's it about: Sort of a comedy documentary about how to be irritating, hosted by Cleese himself, which is an excuse to have lots of comedy sketches about people being irritating. Looks like all of it is on Youtube, in various clips, and it's got a very Python-esque vibe to it. The first sketch is about the well-known phenomenon of commenting obnoxiously while other people are trying to watch television.

4) Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Who's involved: Terry Jones (writer/director/star), Eric Idle (actor), John Cleese (actor), Michael Palin (actor)

What's it about: A live-action movie version of Wind in the Willows, the classic children's fantasy. Jones is the toad who just wants to ride around in his motorcar, which winds up getting him into lots of ridiculous trouble. Unlike some of the other narrative films on this list, like Erik the Viking or Yellowbeard, this feels less like a comedy sketch blown up to movie length and more like a fun silly fantasy romp aimed at kids. I walked out of the theater grinning dementedly. The whole thing appears to be on Youtube.

3) Ripping Yarns

Who's involved: Terry Jones (writer/actor), Michael Palin (writer/actor), John Cleese (cameo).

What's it about: Words cannot express how much I love this show, which is a collection of spoofs of boys' own adventure stories. One week, it'll be about escaping from a Nazi prison, the next it'll be about fitting in at a tough boarding school. One of the best is an explorer story called "Across the Andes by Frog," in which the frogs don't entirely make it. What makes this show so great is that it celebrates as well as mocking the pulpy stories that it's spoofing. There are also two book tie-ins.

2) A Fish Called Wanda

Who's involved: John Cleese (writer/actor), Michael Palin (actor).

What's it about: A zany heist-comedy, in which Cleese plays a vain barrister and Palin plays a stammering crook. Along with Clockwise and a couple other films, this represents the best of Cleese's movie output, with pretty much every set piece being perfect and wonderful. The cast reunited for another film, Fierce Creatures, which we will never speak of again. (Apparently, Fierce Creatures ran into huge trouble because audiences didn't like an early cut, directed by the director of Splitting Heirs — so a year later, they did massive reshoots with a different director.)

1) All of Terry Gilliam's Early Films

Who's involved: We're compressing Jabberwocky, Time Bandits, Brazil and Baron Munchausen into one category because otherwise this list would be dominated by Gilliam films. Palin is in Jabberwocky, Brazil and Time Bandits (which he co-wrote), Eric Idle is in Munchausen, Cleese is in Time Bandits, and Jones is in Jabberwocky.

What's it about: These films are brilliant, and you should see them. Especially Brazil, a bleak dystopian comedy. And Time Bandits, a surprisingly savage film about time-traveling little people who take a child with them. Seriously, marathon these films over the holiday weekend.

So...what did we leave out?

If all you wanted from Santa was a Sherlock mini-episode and a glimpse of Dean Pelton, today is your lucky day. Merry Christmas! And I'll take this opportunity to also wish a very Merry Christmas to those of you who watched The Sound of Music Live! even though you've ruined TV forever.

• The trailer for season 5 of Community has been released, and it's just like a promo for Mad Men. Which is totally cool and exciting because Trudy Campbell is in both! Also cool: watching NBC desperately hope they'll have a hit show that isn't a live musical. [TVLine]
• Speaking of live musicals, with the Live+7 DVR playback factored in, NBC's The Sound of Music Live! was watched by 21.84 million viewers. This makes it NBC's most watched Thursday night since the Frasier finale in 2004. The problem is that Frasier was actually a good show and instead of making more shows like Frasier, NBC will start making more musicals starring American Idols. Can I imagine myself watching Easter 2015's Jesus Christ Superstar Live! starring Bo Bice? Yes, of course. Is it a terrible idea? Yes, of course. [TVLine]
• Viacom and Time Warner have announced a new carriage agreement and you should be excited because it means the TWC TV app will suck a lot less (this is by no means a significant feat). The deal will also make the entertainment network EPIX available to Time Warner Cable subscribers. [Deadline]
• Here's a cool tidbit about the bully from A Christmas Story that you can share with your family as you watch A Christmas Story a million times in a row starting tonight at 8 p.m. on TBS. "Isn't it nice that a movie bully is against real bullies, mom?" She'll think it's so nice. [NBC]
• Fox has passed on the Navy drama pilot Wild Blue due the difficulty of finding both a big star and a big aircraft carrier for filming. The bright side is that Josh Salatin is now available to come back for season 3 of The Carrie Diaries. And what would I like for Christmas, you might wonder? Easy. A third season of The Carrie Diaries. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Here's Lizzy Caplan acting out memes and isn't she great? She's better in scenes with Ulysses, but beggars can't be choosers, especially on Christmas Eve. This video will at least help deal with the Masters of Sex withdrawals. [Bullett]
• In case you're wondering, Jonah Hill is a very serious actor now and his prosthetic dick should be taken very seriously. [The Daily Beast]
• And in case you're one of those people, the BBC has released a mini-episode of Sherlock in anticipation of the show's January premiere. [Buzzfeed]
• Finally, Miley Cyrus has a new dance and it's terrible. Terrible, terrible faux hair/washing nonsense. Start practicing now. [TMZ]

Breakdowns is a daily roundup of all the news that wasn't interesting enough to deserve two paragraphs.

Does your family have a weird holiday tradition? Come tell us in this post! And if you say your family doesn't have any weird traditions, we'll know you're lying.

[image via AP]

Deadspin Somebody Shot A D.C. Santa Claus While TV Crew Was Filming | Gizmodo Turn Any Door into Han Solo Stuck in Carbonite | Kotaku The Best Videos We Made In 2013 | Lifehacker What to Do on Christmas When You Don't Celebrate It | Kinja Popular Posts

This could very well be little Laney Brown's very last Christmas.

The 8-year-old Pennsylvania native, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia back in May, was sent home from the hospital last week after doctors determined there was little more they could do for her.

She was given weeks to live.

Wanting to make this Christmas one to last, her family took to the Team Landey Facebook page to share with her supporters Laney's last wish: To hear Christmas carols for the last time.

Word of the "Christmas Caroling for Laney" event spread far and wide, and by Saturday night, nearly 10,000 carolers had gathered outside Laney's window to sing her favorite Christmas standards.

(To put that into perspective, Laney's home town of West Reading has a total population of just over 4,000.)

"Just the different stories her mother has posted regularly showing her strength, her courage, her humor - this is heartbreaking," caroler Megan McGee told WPVI. "All she wants is carols and we can do that."

Though she was too weak to greet her caroling supporters, Laney's family said she could hear the crowd loud and clear from her bed. "I can hear you now!!!" read a post from Laney on her Facebook page. "Love you!"

It was accompanyed by a photo of Laney giving two thumbs up.

This was the second big birthday present Laney received last week: On Friday, her actual birthday, Laney got a special FaceTime call from her idol (and Berks County native), Taylor Swift.

"Taylor was fabulous!!" Laney's mom posted shortly after. "She really engaged Laney in conversation. Laney lit up and had a huge smile on her face. ... We will hold that memory in our hearts forever."

[H/T: Daily Picks and Flicks, screengrabs/photos via Facebook]

Colorado quietly issued 348 licenses to marijuana purveyors yesterday, clearing the way for stores to start selling legal weed. Although those businesses also have to adhere to local government ordinances, at least eight stores in Denver are ready to begin selling when the new laws kick into effect on January 1st.

Police were able to track down the four men who carjacked and killed a Hoboken attorney at the Short Hills Mall, in part because the suspects traveled to the crime scene in a car registered to the mother of one of the men.

Dustin Friedland and his wife Jamie had just finished Christmas shopping at the Mall at Short Hills last Sunday when four men held them up at gunpoint as they loaded packages into their car.

There was a struggle and one of the men shot Dustin in the head before escaping in the Friedland's Range Rover. Authorities say Dustin may have been trying to protect his wife, who was already inside the car. She was pulled out at gunpoint, but was not harmed.

Prosecutors say the four men had been casing out the mall's parking lot — which cut back on security in the last few years — looking for an expensive car to steal.

“We used to be contacted by that mall to provide additional people for their parking lot on the outside of the mall, and we haven’t heard from them in a while," Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura told NJ.com. “I think that those malls have a responsibility to make sure those folks on the outside are secure.”

Karif Ford, 31, Basim Henry, 32, Kevin Roberts, 35, and Hanif Thompson, 29, were all arrested on Friday night on charges of murder, felony murder, possession of a weapon, and carjacking.

According to court documents, police tracked down the suspects through a mall surveillance video that showed them arriving at the scene in a Chevrolet Suburban registered to Henry's mother. The Range Rover was found abandoned in Newark, about 15 miles away, last Monday.

They are all being held on a $2 million bail.

[image via AP]

When Susan Rice appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday, she characterized the NSA as having "inadvertently made false representations," and refused to discuss trading Edward Snowden amnesty for information, saying, "Lesley, you know I'm not going to get into a negotiation with you on camera about something that sensitive."

[Australians celebrate Christmas Day as a man named Jesus does a handstand on Bondi Beach in Sydney. Image by Don Arnold via Getty.]