Happy Christmas from SportDork Headquarters!!!  I've decided to dedicate part of today's entry to breaking down the subtle differences between an English and American Christmas, the first of which is the aforementioned salutation.  I get a kick out of 'Happy Christmas' because it reminds me of the scene on the train in the movie Trading Spaces where Eddie Murphy keeps yelling "Merry New Year!!!" in some ridiculous foreign accent.  I've decided to do the same to people I come across over here.  I'll let you know how that works out.

I never expected a Tuesday publication schedule to have me sending out an entry on Christmas, but this way you can consider it one more present under the tree on Christmas morning.  Granted, it might not be the first one you'll open, but a Christmas entry provides a valuable public service to you, the reader.  It offers a perfect opportunity to escape the family while you attend to some important "work-related matters" back in your home office, thus allowing you to regain your sanity and make it through the rest of the day without poisoning your Uncle Jerry's egg nog.

Speaking of egg nog, that's another difference between the U.S. and England.  No egg nog over here.  If there is, it's hidden somewhere, because I sure as hell can't find it.  I'm a Turkey Day and Christmas egg nog junkie, so I've looked far and wide for a fix, but have come up empty at every turn.  A little egg nog, a little cinnamon, a little nutmeg, and a lot of bourbon - the perfect holiday concoction.  Can you taste it?  I sure can.  Well, I can't, since I'm in f&*^% England, but I sure wish I could.  Have a couple for me.

I considered going "home-made" on the eggnog front, but then I studied the recipe and realized that home-made eggnog calls for a large quantity of raw eggs.  I decided against it for two reasons: 1) drinking unpasteurized eggnog rated very high on The SportDork risk meter and 2) I kept having visions of Rocky slurping down a bunch of raw eggs before going on a run, and nothing about that felt like Christmas. 

I'm actually considering giving up egg nog altogether.  Have you seen how it's made?

The Brits may not have any eggnog in their grocery stores, but they've got something else that more than makes up for a lack of eggnog.  It's also what I consider to be the single greatest aspect of living in England.  I'm talking about liquor in the grocery stores!!!  If I've got to choose between egg nog and bourbon on aisle 12, I'll take bourbon every time.  Hey - it's 90% of the eggnog equation anyway, right? 

They also have something else in the grocery stores that has captivated my attention since early December: 

This is Christmas pudding.  From the very first time that I saw it sitting in an end-cap at our local Tesco, I have been fascinated by Christmas pudding.  It looks like it's made of chocolate, but it's not.  It looks like it should be refrigerated, but it's not.  What is it?  My research reveals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding) that it's basically a whole bunch of baked fruit and spices.  This immediately explained why it has never taken off in the U.S., since most Americans would prefer dental work to a fruit dessert, but another question still remained: why is this stuff so popular over here?  How could a mound of fruit and spices hold the attention of an entire nation during Christmas?  I did a little more digging, and discovered the answer right there in the recipe.  On http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/richchristmaspudding_8935.shtml, the mystery is solved:

"Make this pudding a couple of months before Christmas day.  Feed it with alcohol regularly and allow the flavours to fully develop."

Aha!!!!  At the end of the day, I discovered that the Brits love Christmas pudding for the same reason I love egg nog - it's loaded with alcohol!!  You know, the longer we stay here, the more I realize that while it seems like we're very different, we're really all the same.  A beautiful Christmas revelation, isn't it?

One area where we aren't the same is England's approach to Christmas dinner.  This became clear when Mrs. SportDork received an e-mail from a co-worker last week that read, "I'll be in a bit late. I'm going to order the Christmas meat."  She decided she had to dig a little deeper on that one, and discovered that in England it is common practice for people to put in an order with a local butcher for Christmas Day, an order which is commonly referred to as "the Christmas meat."  This was confirmed on Sunday, when we walked by a line of about 40 people standing outside our local butcher's shop waiting to pick up their Christmas meat.  I'll be honest - I've come up with about 30 different jokes about the term "Christmas meat," but in the spirit of Christmas, I'm going to refrain from sharing any of them.  I'll just let you use your imagination.  And ladies - enjoy your Christmas meat.

Mrs. SportDork and I prepared for Christmas this year the same way that we do every year - by going in search of a real tree for our apartment.  We don't have anywhere near the room here that we have at home, but we're sticklers for a real tree, no matter where we are living.  I'm pretty sure we'd sell furniture to make room for a real tree.

Here's our catch, loaded up and ready to go:

Notice the angle of the tree.  I purposely put it in at that angle so that if the top of the tree extended into the front seat, it would interfere with the passenger, not the driver.  I was very proud of myself for thinking of that.  Then I closed the trunk, got behind the wheel, and was reminded by the needles sticking in my ear that the steering wheel is on the right-hand side over here. 

Here's a shot of the car in front of us on the way back home:

I had no idea the Fiesta was popular at all.  Popular Plus?  Plus what - crappy?

I take great pride in a Christmas tree that is perfectly aligned.  I work long and hard to make sure that there is no lean in my tree (I think there's a joke in there somewhere).  Here I am, after hauling the tree in through the window, indicating that the tree has been secured and is standing perfectly upright:

Moments later, the tree fell on my back. 

One of the downsides to being so totally committed to a real Christmas tree, no matter the size of your living quarters, is that you have to be willing to compromise when it comes to the issue of furniture re-location.  In this case, compromise meant that I agreed to move our dining table out of our bay window and against the wall.  It also means that since The SportDork Writing Desk was against the wall where the dining table is now located, I am writing this entry from the window-less corner of our second bedroom.  It may be time to re-think my passion for a real tree.

Before The SportDork Writing Desk and Chair were relegated to the second bedroom, I was able to strike a deal with Mrs. SportDork that would ensure that The SportDork spirit would live on in the living room.  Here is the result of our agreement:

It's obvious that my Gator ornaments drew great strength from their positioning in our Christmas tree and were able to channel their tremendous powers to perform good and virtuous deeds this holiday season.  How else do you explain 36 FSU players being held out of their bowl game against Kentucky, with the vast majority suspended for their involvement in an academic cheating scandal?  As one of my SportDork readers said upon learning of the suspensions, "Why do you need to cheat if you're going to FSU?" 

The Gator ornaments weren't able to work their magic to keep The SportDork's NFL Pick Of The Week winning streak alive.  That’s probably because they're just powerful - not miracle workers.  Tony Romo did his best to ignore the Carolina fans in Charlotte that were holding up Jessica Simpson cut-out faces and played pretty well, but the Cowboys failed to cover the 10.5 point spread, winning 20 -13.  The masks didn’t seem to bother Tony, but they may have screwed up T.O.'s mojo.  He went down with an ankle injury early in the game and didn't return.  By the way - since it's Christmas and I'm in a giving spirit, I have an offer for you.  If there are any high profile NFL players that you would like to see go down with a season-ending injury, just send in a comment with that player's name, and I will bet on their team in their next game.  It doesn't matter who they are, what position they play or what team they're on, as long as they are high profile and critical to their team's success.  Once I put a few quid on their team, they're pretty much guaranteed to leave the game with a concussion, broken bone, or serious knee injury before the end of the first quarter.  Don't ask me how I do it.  I don't know.  I only know it’s a gift, and I'm willing to share it with you.  Happy Christmas!
 

Apparently the Tony Romo masks are catching on and may make another appearance when the Cowboys play the Redskins this weekend.  Check out this link to ruinromo.com for all the details: http://www.ruinromo.com/#memo.

Christmas is all about giving, which is why I'm about to give you a pick that could pay for all this year's presents.  Are you ready?  It's The SportDork's NFL Pick Of The Week!

Tennessee - 4 @ Indianapolis:  I won't waste your time with a whole lot of analysis on this one.  If Tennessee wins, they are in the playoffs.  If they lose, they're out.  Indianapolis has secured a first round bye and a second seed in the playoffs.  Half their team is injured, so they have one objective - get guys healthy before their first playoff game.  If Tennessee, with a playoff spot on the line, can't beat Indianapolis, a team that would prefer to not play a single starter in this game, by more than four points, Jeff Fisher, Vince Young, and the rest of the Titans should be fired immediately following the game and forced to walk back to Tennessee.  One caveat - I felt the same way last Sunday about Cleveland when they were a couple point favorite over Cincinnati and needed the game to secure a playoff spot, while the Bengals had nothing to play for, and now Cleveland is out of the playoffs unless Tennessee loses to Indy.  Operating under the theory that you typically don't see two teams blow "win and you're in" playoff opportunities two weeks in a row, The SportDork's NFL Pick Of The Week is Tennessee - 4 @ Indianapolis!!!!!!!  (Don't worry, I promise I won't bet on Tennessee, ensuring that Vince Young will finish the game healthy.)

On a serious note, have a great holiday season, and thanks for your support over the last year.  I will do my best to continue to provide you with barely-readable material.  

I will leave you with a link to one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits of all-time, starring a much younger Alec Baldwin.  Enjoy!!!  http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=148999&fr

And since I have trouble saying goodbye, here's a cartoon I thought was post-worthy:

You may also remember that a couple weeks ago, I complained about the blatant display of nude, male-ass displayed in a Lacoste commercial during an NFL broadcast.  Well, I have discovered that there's an up-side to nudity in commercials.  About a week after that 'incident', I was delighted to come across this commercial:




If I've got to suffer through a naked guy kicking a throw pillow around in exchange for Charlize Theron naked, and in high heels, so be it.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!