Chestnuts roasting on the Panasonic

The air is crisp, the sidewalks are bustling with merry shoppers, everyone’s sipping their signature eggnog lattes….ahhhh, the holidays. Excuse me, won't you? I think I need to put another log on the TV.

Oh, but wait! I don’t even need to add a log! The festive and kind people at Channel 7 have done it for me. That’s right, for the umpteenth year in a row, Channel 7 “presents” (?) The Holiday Log, a festive fire that flickers non-stop for 3 days on your TV screen, playing nothing but holiday music.

Seriously.

I would (almost) pierce an unmentionable just to have been a fly on the wall of that marketing/sales meeting way back when, I’m guessing circa 1992, that someone threw out the Holiday Log as an alternative to programming, yet still an enticing hook for advertisers and potential sponsors. Naturally. Because nothing says “gather ‘round family and friends!” like a flickering log on your 27” screen.

Seriously, namer-guy, could you NOT come up with something better than “The Holiday Log” ? Does the word log make anybody else but me laugh? Am I the only 30-something person with 2nd grade humor left in me?

How does this happen, this Holiday Log? I imagine it was a specific item on someone in marketing’s “to-do” list, to name the log segment so they could create appropriate collateral and get the sales team all jacked up to sell it. I’d guess they had about 2 weeks to come up with a name and on the Thursday night before it was due, maybe they went on an 8-hour bender at a bar that allows you to self-serve meatballs from a crock pot, came to work late the next day, opened Microsoft Word and began typing options and settled for the first one they typed since the meeting where they’d present the name and concept to the sales team started 5 minutes prior to their typing.

“Fuck it. Holiday Log. Sounds good to me.”

But you know, cool, whatever. Give the people what they want. I, for one, can’t wait to get myself all Holiday-ed up by tuning in to that log, excuse me, THE log. The Holiday Log. Maybe they can get Dr. Extra Smiley Local Dentist Guy (his name escapes me…Dshaw? I know you know who I’m talking about) to sponsor it. After all, if you’re a friend of the log, you’re a friend of mine.

Happy Holidays, everyone.