Christmas was coming, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, even though it was the copy desk of a major metropolitan newspaper because we deploy the nerve toxin at the first hint of this goddamn opening cliché.

Remember, the background of every Christmas movie miracle is another thousand families in equally desperate circumstances who just weren’t quite good enough to get a last minute save. Their Christmases suck.

Every year at least one man starts giving out random presents in an attempt to assuage guilt after manslaughtering someone in a costume. He’s arrested before the New Year, but usually released into the care of his family due to guilt-induced mental incompetence causing him to believe he’s Santa, which turns out to be his best excuse yet for sitting around unemployed most of the year.

Repeat after me: there is no plant in the world which justifies sexual assault. Not even when it’s been killed, dismembered, and its young have been suspended from the roof as a trophy.

If your kid desperately needs one special toy or the holidays are totally ruined, holy crap, you screwed up raising that kid. That is the TV’s kid now.

If your mother or father still prefers to work over the holidays despite the fact you’re already fed, clothed, and live in a house large enough to accommodate multiple camera crews and tracking shots, take the bloody hint. Leave them in peace. Enjoy your new Xbone and PS4.

And don’t forget the greatest Christmas movie ever made.