Christmas Housekeeping

First of all, Christmas ads from the candidates are out. Let me summarize, putting them in order of best to worst:

1. Mike Huckabee - He was the first one out, the spoken message was simple, the "white cross" bookshelf was probably calculated, and there were no overt politics. Good one, Mike.

2. Barack Obama - Also has a good message, but with a nudge of politics. He has his family with him and comes off just about as good. Makes Barack look great compared to his Democrat rivals.

3. Hillary Clinton - Here comes the most creative of all the commercials. As you can see, the stump speech ads don't sit as well here. But the premise is good and almost humanizes Hillary.

4. Rudy Giuliani - Humor at the end saves this from being a pure stump speech. Otherwise, Rudy bumbles through it. It feels contrived for the most part, though.

5. John Edwards - Stump speech in ad form. Compared to the others, crap. Why did you even bother, John? I think you said 'Merry Christmas,' but I could be wrong.

Speaking of which, Lowes and Nickelodeon, It's okay to use the word Christmas. These two stood out while watching TV today and cleaning up the web browser for my 3-year-old.

And speaking of remembering Christmas, someone should have reminded the parents that got in a fight at their children's Christmas pageant about that. Where are the cops with candy cane-shaped tasers when your need them?

Lastly, despite all the bad stories I see on the news, there's still something heartwarming. Yesterday it was the rescue of a man and his three children from the forest after a few days of being lost. They went in to get a tree and ended up huddling under a bridge to survive. It would be great if we had that many happy endings this time of year.

Okay, enough for today.