· We didn't need a scientific study to confirm for us that romcoms are detrimental to your health. Now infect us, impossibly handsome and emotionally available Patrick Dempsey, with your deadly McDreamy rays!

Perhaps looking to shore up her gay bona fides after the "No, I voted Yes on 8" debacle, Courtney Love has broken her vow of blogging silence to report a Kardashian-fueled gay bashing.

Unless you spend Christmas drinking boxed wine alone in your apartment like we do, you'll need some background noise at your family celebration. Here's a guide to get you through the next two joyous days.

That's it from us today. We're taking tomorrow off and will be back up and running on Friday. Have a wonderful Christmas/Fourth Fifth Day of Hannukah/Thursday.

Amid 2008's many sex scandals, it was a miracle there was any time left to monitor an epochal presidential election. There were many genuine, dirty affairs — and some duds inevitably got overhyped.

We trust our generous gifts of various awful things have succeeded in coaxing the last holdouts among you out from your Grinch lairs, and towards the CRT glow of the Defamer hearth.

President George W. Bush has pardoned Charles Winters for the anachronistic sin of selling arms to Israel. Winters died in 1984. Why did Bush bother?

Holiday cards seem to be a little less popular now that being eco-friendly is so trendy, you can just as easily email your seasonal greetings, and these days there aren't quite as many people interested in spending $2,000 engraving their names on cards that will be tossed into the trash precisely 30 seconds after they're removed from their envelopes. But the practice lives on, especially with certain couples who'd like to maintain some semblance of a healthy marriage, and disgraced public figures who'd really like everyone to know they're still alive and well and keeping a stiff upper lip. After the jump, a random collection of cards sent out this year by a bunch of celebrities, politicians, and the odd porn magnate.

As creative partnerships go, the one teaming Tim Burton with Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov and a half-dozen or so animated post-apocalyptic rag dolls isn't one we had on our 2009 wish list.

A Christmas gift for lovers of political intrigue: Was the death in a plane crash of Mitch Connell, Karl Rove's technology guru, really an accident? And why aren't all the Rove-hating newspapers writing about it?

It can't be fun to have your birthday fall on Christmas, although if you're Jewish—like youthful financier/media mogul Bruce Wasserstein who will be celebrating his 61st birthday tomorrow—we're not sure it matters much. Others who can proudly proclaim they were born the same day as Jesus: Republican sorcerer Karl Rove is turning 58. Helena Christensen will be 40. Annie Lennox is turning 54. Dido is turning 37. Jimmy Buffett will be 62. Literary agent Esther Newberg will be 67. And artist Louise Bourgeois will be celebrating her 97th birthday.

Disney announced today that it will not continue filming the Chronicles of Narnia series, prematurely snuffing an enormous franchise that the studio had clearly positioned as its Harry Potter. Here's why we're not surprised.

Every year on Christmas Eve, traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange stop their trading to sing "Wait 'Till the Sun Shines, Nellie." It's extra poignant this year, see?

It seems we weren't the only ones to call Monica Noel! When the Times of London dialed her up, she mistakenly thought she was talking to a friend and described her plans to attend a wedding in Mexico. Nice to hear the implosion of her husband's business, class-action lawsuits, and tawdry rumors about her daughters isn't impacting her social calendar! [Business Sheet]

When you get laid off, you have to give people a new way to get in touch with you. Now we're regretting that, unlike Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici, we never became an "accidental Facebook slut."

Throwing a litigious lump of coal in its friend's stocking, Warner Bros. TV leveled a breach-of-contract lawsuit against CBS seeking $49 million in unpaid license fees and production costs for Two and a Half Men.

The children of the world will be deprived of knowledge unless you shell out money soon, says Jimmy Wales, the sleaze-drenched cofounder of Wikipedia. Is this what Wikipedia has come to — an online telethon?

• This will be the bleakest holiday shopping season for retailers in years, but it's not too late to make a bad situation a little bit better. There's still have time to get out there and shop. Do your part and help keep America the consumerist paradise it was designed to be! [AP, WSJ]
• One spot that doesn't appear to be suffering: The Ugg store in Soho. [Racked]
• Kate Moss will appear in an ad campaign for the jewelry brand Fred. [WWD]
• Rock & Republic is planning to launch a new (and cheaper) denim line. [NYM]
• David Chu is parting ways with Tumi. [WWD]
• More job cuts are expected at Liz Claiborne. [WWD]

The gifts keep on coming: Go head. Unwrap it. That's right! George Lucas's Howard the Duck, in its gloriously awful, crimped-headed-Lea Thompson entirety.

• A list of spots where you can save on stress and dine out on Christmas. [NYM]
• Tips on how to avoid food poisoning at Grandma's house this year. [NYDN]
• Frank Bruni checks in on Tom Colicchio's Tuesday Dinner and Brian Bistrong's Braeburn in today's Times. [NYT, NYT]
• Is champagne too ostentatious given current events? Try punch. [NYT, NYT]
• Just in case you feel like skipping ahead to New Year's Eve, here's a complete rundown of events planned for the big night. [Citysearch]