From the staff at News-Herald DotComedy to all of you, we present the 12 "Why's?" of Christmas.

12. Why do we leave cookies for Santa Claus? The jolly old big boy looks like Luciano Pavarotti after he swallowed a kettle drum while waiting for liposuction surgery. Does he really need pastries? Isn’t that like leaving a lighter in the stocking of a crack addict? Mix in a veggie tray, folks. Santa’s cholesterol is through the roof.

11. Why is there a song about the 12 Days of Christmas? Anybody celebrate the birth of Christ on December 13 or January 8? One day of Christmas is enough, so stop with the lords-a-leaping.

10. Why is egg nog popular? Anyone ever get the urge to throw scrambled eggs in the blender with a splash of milk and nutmeg in the middle of May and call it a refreshing beverage?

9. Why do we abbreviate Christmas as Xmas? Nothing really clever here to add, but it reeks of laziness, people. Spell it out, it’s not like we are digging ditches or erecting walls here.

8. Why is it that some people think they can go to church on Christmas Day and be cleansed for 364 days of religious indifference? There’s nothing like a crowded mass on Christmas Day to warm the cockles of your heart only to realize most of the folks on hand had to be dragged kicking and screaming like Steven Spielberg showing up for a Hitler Youth Rally. God knows you are an opportunist and not a faith-filled follower, so stay home and call the Jim Baker hotline instead and save the pew for a more worthy parishioner.

7. Why doesn’t PETA protest when Rudolph and his friends get hooked up to a 2-ton sled to drag a grumpy old man through the sky for 24 hours in the middle of a blizzard? If it were cats hooked up to the sleigh, we wouldn’t be celebrating the moment with songs and cartoons.

6. Why do you allow your child to ask Santa for a pony? Unless you are related to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg or you live on a farm, it’s not realistic and let’s not set the little ones up for disappointment.

5. Why is it that “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” never gets old? Wow, bravo Dr. Seuss, bravo.

4. Why does Mrs. Claus never get any credit for putting up with all the nonsense that must go on at the North Pole? You try dealing with an overweight husband, 2,000 underpaid, overworked midgets with Dr. Spock ears and a barn full of gassy forest creatures and get no songs or Christmas cards written about you. Mrs. Claus has got be one step away from pulling a Lee Harvey Oswald on St. Nick on his way across the North Pole grassy NOEL.

3. Why is the person who invented wrapping paper not on the Mt. Rushmore of inventions? Think about it. Paper, with decorations on it, that you tear apart and throw away that no kid really cares about any way, but is like oxygen to the multi-billion dollar Christmas season because we can’t live without it. Perfect!

2. Why is it so many moms and dads insist on waiting 2 hours at the mall to have their baby strapped to Santa’s lap like some deranged infantile prisoner of war, howling like Jack Frost just ripped off every binky on the planet just to get a photo that is so horrible it can’t be shown in public anyway? Such a phenomenon has to be credited to alcohol.

1. Why does any weight loss expert or doctor bother wasting their time preaching about will power and discipline during the holidays? There’s nothing more annoying than Richard Simmons popping on TV during the Christmas Day parade to tell us to hold off on second helpings of mashed potatoes or candy cane-covered, cookie-flavored, turkey. Hey Rich, go grab a drumstick basted with evergreen needles and regret and leave us normal humans with an appetite for enjoyment and holiday cheer all the heck alone.

Merry Christmas.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with a partridge in a pear tree.

BTilton@News-Herald.com

There has been some debate and conversation lately over what is too early to start listening to Christmas music.

If you don’t like, ho-ho-ho hold on to your hats for a radical theory … change the station and move on, folks!

The staff here at N-H DotComedy hears from fans, friends and family all the time. Yes, we get to deal with the “F-Words” a lot, and not in the way you might all guess.

Is it a bit much for a local radio station to start playing Christmas songs non-stop before Thanksgiving? Perhaps. Do we need to hear about Mommy kissing Santa Claus four weeks before Tom Turkey gets hunted down, plucked, cooked and lands on your plate? Maybe.

Our point is, what is the big deal? Sorry, with so much else going on in the world, is the programming of WDOK or WMJI or WXMAS or WWHYSOANGRY or any other station in Cleveland so problematic that we all have to send letters to senators, President Obama and Santa Claus complaining?

In this day and age with Sirius, XM, Ipods the Internets, and, um, a knob or button to simply go to another channel, is this really that big of a deal?

If the sound of “Jingle Bells” drives you to the edge of Jack the Ripper madness, listen to Metallica instead. Hate that “The 12 Days of Christmas” is on at 12 noon on a Wednesday? Pop in a CD or a book on tape.

It’s the holiday season, be festive not violent. Please.

We agree that your Fourth of July party shouldn’t be set off with a techno version of “Silent Night”. There is nothing rocking or redeeming by hearing Bruce Springstreen belting out “Santa Claus in Coming to Town” on St. Patrick’s Day. There has to be limitations to some of this Christmas music, sure.

But as long as Black Friday or Christmas Eve are on the radar, who is it hurting that a couple of Cleveland radio stations have chosen to go all Yule, all the time?

It's the holiday season, the holiday season. So whoop-de-do, and hickory dock, and don't forget, the Burl Ives is on the clock. Folks, change the channel and stop complaining, it really isn't that big of a deal.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with Santa Claus … he’ll be tuned into a Cleveland radio station on his sleigh ride into Lake County, no doubt.

Btilton@News-Herald.com