christmas

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to buy all the stuff on your Amazon Wish List that you didn’t get for the holidays. Security? Thumb-Print Verification. Tools? Your sleeping mother’s thumb.

via Erepublik

Sorry, Ethan Hunt. This mission belongs to 6-year-old Ashlynd Howell.

In a piece about how online shopping is killing Christmas shopping from The Wall Street Journal, the paper breezed over a tidbit about future world-leader Ashlynd Howell, writing:

"While Bethany Howell napped on the couch last week, her daughter Ashlynd, 6 years old, used her mother’s thumb to unlock her phone and open the Amazon app. “$250 later, she has shopped for all her Christmas presents on Amazon,” said Ms. Howell, of Little Rock, Ark."

Surprisingly, The Wall Street Journal buried the lead on a story that was probably written in 1997 because online shopping is killing the holidays and not this:

via Tumblr

Anyway, Ashlynd made the most of her shopping spree, purchasing 13 Pokémon or Pokémon-related items. She was, reportedly, “really proud of herself.”

H/T Huffington Post

Getting coal as a gift is one thing, but using gifts as coal is quite another.

One dad pulled a page out of the Jimmy Kimmel Guide to Parenting and gave his kids a traumatic experience for Christmas. Who says Christmas is over?

via Reddit

When his kids wouldn’t go to bed or something, YouTuber Scotty B asked his daughter to get a gift from under the tree. He then took the gift and tossed into the fire. That’s when all Hell (or just some well-deserved whining) broke loose.

His daughter called mom, and what happens next will blow your mind.

Dad reveals that it was just a Christmas joke, and the girl threatens, “I’m still telling my friends on you.”

Seem harmless enough until you realize her friends include Santa Claus. Game. Set. Match. 

via Imgur

H/T Mashable

One part "White Christmas," two parts “Baby Please Come Home.”

What is it that makes Christmas music so Christmassy? Is it the chestnuts? The nutmeg? The cinnamon? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

According to this new video from Vox, it’s a special chord found in some Christmas song classics that give it that special yuletide feel.

In this video, Vox talks to Adam Ragusea from Mercer University, who explains the influences of Mariah Carey’s hit and breaks the songs down note by note. When played together, Carey’s song sounds an awful lot like Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” and the Phil Spector-penned “Baby Please Come Home.” But there’s one chord in particular that makes them brings them all together. In music terms, it’s going from a “tonic chord” to a “diminished chord.” But all you need to do is hear how similar these things seem to get the gist.

via Vox

Check out the video above, and enjoy the songs below. See if you can hear what makes them so Christmassy.

Seriously, don't let your kids see this. 

The War on Christmas has been going since the beginning of Christmas, apparently. 

Adam might have ruined the history behind It’s a Wonderful Life, but today today he’s going for the yuletide jugular.

In this clip from “Adam Ruins Christmas,” Adam Conover takes audiences on an animated journey back to ancient solstice festivals to mark the end of Harvests. These parties were filled with cool things like cross dressing and fire — not tinsel, Aunt Mary-Anne. They were also the original Christmas celebrations, before a certain someone crashed the party.

Eventually, Adam tells that when Christians took over, they gradually introduced Jesus into these celebrations as a compromise. Citizens of newfound Christian municpalities could continue their celebrations if they included Jesus, so December 25 became Jesus' birthday party. 

Ah, the yule log, is there anything better to cozy up to on a cold wintry night?

Not even a real fireplace could compare. After all, there’s no way to change the channel on a fireplace. 

Well, I’ll give you this: One of the great things about a real fireplace is that you can actually burn something in it. Whether it’s a false ledger you use to evade your taxes, your medical records, or a written confession to a crime, nothing purifies you body and soul like a nice, cleansing fire.

via Mashable

So in the spirit of giving you something to burn, the folks over at The Daily Show have given you the next best thing: A burning constitution over Christmas carols and the dulcet tones of that reality TV gameshow host who won the presidency last month delivering some of his famous catchphrases, like “we’re going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again” and “bing bing bong bong.” Five-hours of Christmas cheer. Oh, it feels great to say that again: "Christmas." Remember when saying “Christmas” was punishable by death?

So put your arm around that special someone, take a sip of cocoa, and get ready for 2017 because, hoo, boy, it’s going to be a lot worse than this piece of garbage year.

via Lerrah

H/T Huffington Post

Traditionally the worst part of the holiday gift giving season, Secret Santa generally sends offices around the world into a tizzy. Employees often try and fail to get something for their co-workers that won’t just sit in a drawer somewhere. Alas, any gift purchased from a CVS that stay under the $20 limit are not destined to be anyone’s favorite.

But every now and then you get that person who is willing to break with tradition, spend a little more, and make everyone else in the office feel bad. That person this year was Bill Gates, former richest man in the world and current one of the richest men in the world.

via Seeing Things in a New Light Ford

Gates, who has done these Reddit Secret Santa exchanges for the last few years, seemed to outdo even himself, presenting Reddit user Aerrix with a ton of video game merch, including a Nintendo NES Classic, some Zelda gloves, and an X-Box, which he presumably didn’t even pay for. He’s probably just re-gifting that one.

“Merry Christmas to all yall out there, and to Mr. Gates, who has the biggest heart and REALLY KNOWS HOW TO TREAT A GIRL TO SOME VIDEO GAMES (and video game paraphernalia)! I’m just blown away by his generosity, which went even further than all these gifts because he submitted a donation to code.org in my name to give more students the chance to learn computer science, which is AWESOME because it’s something near and dear to my heart as my husband is a programmer and my brother has a degree in computer science!

Thank you SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO much Mr. Gates! I’ll never EVAR forget this Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D”

Reddit does these Secret Santa exchanges based on interests. She smartly picked video games. Check out everything that was waiting for her under the tree:

I won Secret Santa...Bill Gates was my Santa!