(Scrooge would’ve been proud. For a while.)
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Christmas. Arguably, the most well-known holiday in the history of history, if you discount that day in 3050 BC when the Arabs invented zero trans-fat, racial profiling, and fruitcake re-gifting.

Okay, not all Arabs were responsible for fruitcake. According to legend, fruitcake was invented by a confectioner named Mischel-Toeh, who founded the first-ever Semite bakery, “House Wheat It Is.” (Mischel-Toeh would later establish the first non-denominational deli-bookstore combo, “To Bialy Or Not To Bialy.”)

Admittedly, Christmas is an odd tradition, especially when we try to explain it to children. Reindeer fly. Snowmen live. Strange, strangely-clad, obese, bearded men engage in chimney-oriented home invasions, eat other people’s food, and give away stuff, with no regard to any quid pro quo, as if they were fat, hirsute, red-coated liberals.

No wonder kids are confused. Heck, adults are confused. I mean, let’s face it, adults – getting taller didn’t really make us any smarter – it just made us taller. (and our clothes tighter)

But, these days, saying “Christmas” aloud is not allowed, unless you’re selling a product so wildly popular that shoppers would swarm in even as you shrieked “Merry Off-Shore Drilling!” at them.

The only holiday tradition still sacred is the one in which neighbors compete to see who can squeeze 57,500 marginally-yule-related ornaments onto a drab of distressed lawn that’s sized to support, at best, six.

What’s left? That holiest of holiday icons — shopping. So, since we can’t say Christmas, let’s talk about shopping for presents. Here’s a list of some of this year’s favorites:

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Let’s begin our gift list with that government-backed gift albatross that nobody wanted as a gift in the first place – the Electric Car. First of all, thanks to that other Santa – the one in the White House – you already bought the electric car, you generous taxpayer, you. There’s simply no need for you to buy it again.

Here’s how brilliant the electric car is. It hurls you down the highway at a top speed of ten miles per generation (less if any passengers have facial hair, or there’s an oncoming breeze). It’ll transport you about forty miles on a dose of electricity, if you’ve a week to spare.

Here’s the little glitch. In the contiguous forty-eight states, there are over 2.9 million miles of paved roads; however, in those same forty-eight states, there are exactly four publicly-available places to recharge your electric car.

But don’t sweat it, electric car owner. Soon, there will be, oh, six or seven stations nationally … unless Congress gets involved, which could result in there being only three, all coincidentally located on the grounds of a tax-exempt country manor owned by the ranking member of a Senate select committee.

It just makes no sense. Only four places to get replacement electricity? I personally know more than four places where I can get a replacement larynx. (Sadly, all four larynx shops are in South Florida – and unlisted – but you can always hitch a ride with some Jersey Shore grandma making a weekend cocaine run. While you’re down there, be a tourista:  get mauled by a mutant Everglades alligator and take in a snuff film.)

What America really needs is a snap-in device that will de-convert an electric car back to a 1964 Mustang. Or a horse-drawn carriage. Or just a horse. With a horse, the average American could get to the mall and deliver the mail.

It makes one wonder why the electric car ever got named the “Volt.” Should’ve been named the “Watt?”

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Because the world can never have enough burger-making devices, we now have the “revolutionary” new seven-option griddle from SqueezinArt. After all, nothing says “I love you” like another gift-wrapped slab of dishwasher-safe Teflon.

“Merry Christmas, honey. Here’s a flat piece of coated metal that heats up. Lunch ready?”

This culinary breakthrough is a must-have, despite the fact that your pantry floor is already littered with one or more of the previously revolutionary griddles you received in previous holiday seasons:

• The George Foreman griddle, which tenderizes burgers using a patented process known as beating them senseless
• The Black-and-Decker griddle, which not only cooks burgers but also saws the buns in half and constructs a picnic table (patio not included)
• The Hamilton Beach griddle, which we think was named after someone in the Carter administration. It doesn’t actually cook burgers, but it lusts after them.

But now, with the revolutionary SqueezinArt griddle, you can cook burgers using the revolutionary “lid open” option, or the revolutionary “lid closed” option, which somehow equals seven options, suggesting that the griddle was designed by the Congressional Budget Office.

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Parents of aspiring toddlers will flock to pick up a “My First Genetically Engineered Avian Flu” chemistry set. Imagine the parental pride as your budding chemist learns to comprehend useful vocabulary terms like “pandemic” and “acute toxic kill radius!”

Be sure to stand upwind.

Shopper’s Note:  the “deluxe” version includes a complimentary “nolo contendere” waiver from Eric Holder’s Justice Department and Gun Laundry, as well as a $28 billion R&D coupon from the Pentagon.

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For the music-lover on your list, be sure to pick up a copy of the all-new holiday CD, “Yule Hate This,” an eclectic collection of carols and chaos brought to you by Largie Small Puff Step-Daddy and those good folks at Angry Goth Zombie Records.

For openers, the unsuspecting listener is subjected to an 18-minute live version of Wu Tang’s “Jizzle Bells,” followed by Lindsay Lohan doing a cover of “All I Was Wanted For During Christmas.” Some forty minutes later, the punishment ends with the Nick Nolte Noel Singers, more-or-less emitting a rousing version of “The Twelve Days Of 500 Bottles Of Christmas Beer On The Wall.”

Shopper’s Note:  Be sure to get your loved ones far, far away before anybody slips this foul thing in the ol’ CD player.

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Unfortunately, the Snuggie is back this year with a vengeance. Apparently, there’s just no avoiding these things. It’s like some inescapable, recurrent family curse, or a year-end celebrity news wrap-up from Barbara Walters.

What’s infinitely worse is that, like your clever youngster’s modified Avian Flu virus, the Snuggie seems to be mutating. We’re being invaded by imperfectly-cloned cousins, malformed outfits masquerading as acceptable fashion. There’s now something called the Hoodie-Footie, which makes otherwise normal females look like a terry-cloth dishrag, but with eyelashes and breasts.

America, we need to take control of this situation, because, if we’re not careful, we could see the re-emergence of velour.

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You’re going to think I’m insane (if you don’t already think I’m insane), but I have to tell you that there is an “Iowa Caucus” iPhone app. There really is. Now you can have instant access to live film footage of Republican Presidential candidates as they carom around both cities in Iowa, documenting their Leader-Of-The-Free-World credentials by getting on a bus, getting off a bus, denying having mocked an opponent’s bus in 1968, or getting endorsed by a bus. (fried lard on a stick not included)

I don’t mean to be the stormcrow or anything, but I believe this particular omen was mentioned as a “last call” harbinger in the doomsday memoirs of Nostradamus – right there in his Last Days schedule, in-between “city-sucking gaps in the Earth’s crust” and “Geraldo Rivera getting a prime-time series.”

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The hot new interactive game this year is “How to Outwit Airport Security Without Having To Get Naked In Cleveland,” v2.1, available for the Wii (by Ninja-Kendo), the Micro$oft X-Box (actual functionality not included), and the Sony Hey-We-Make-Game-Consoles-Too. Unlike previous diversions which catered to familial, multi-player interaction, this year’s game is specifically designed for just one participant – just one sad, quiet, lonely, disaffected, bitter participant. Just one jaded juvenile in a jungle-gym crowd.

Just one missed twisted mister, just one more “stunned neighbors who were interviewed recalled a kind, quiet young man” kind of kind, quiet young man. Just one, simple, strong candidate for an “America’s Most Wanted” full-hour episode about a seemingly normal, plaid-shorts-wearing, obsessive teeth-grinder.

But enough about Joe Biden.

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So, be careful out there, in this holiday traffic, and be sure not to forget the true reason for the season:  out-lawn ornamenting your neighbors.

And I hope you have a very Merry … um … Wednesday.

Or whatever.