Welcome back, everyone. Before I get started, I’d like to share a joke from Chad the Post-Election Thanksgiving Turkey.

Chad: Gobble gobble-gobble gobble, gobble disqualified overseas military ballots, gobble gobble Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris gobble? (Pause.) Gobble gobble, gobble plook-plook!!

Hee hee, that’s a good one. Sadly, Chad’s post-election humor got old over Thanksgiving break and I ended up backing over him with my car. My mom roasted him for dinner. The meat was tender as always, but Chad’s skin was curiously dimpled.

Anyway, now that Thanksgiving is over, we can throw away our pilgrim hats and cranberry sauce and get psyched up for the grandest holiday of the year: Kwanzaa/Christmas/ Hanukah / Santa Lucia or “winter break” to be PC. It’s called a lot of different things by different people.

The actual term isn’t important because it’d still be a warm, fuzzy, uber-marketed consumer feeding frenzy of astronomical proportions by any other name.

The holiday season brings out the most interesting combination of commercialism and social consciousness. For example, Dr. Seuss’s timeless “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” a story of the true meaning of Christmas, was remade into a Jim Carrey movie that hauled in $55.8 million on opening weekend.

All the coolest toys come out this time of year, like the LEGO Studios Steven Spielberg Moviemaker Set for $179.99 that lets you design sets with LEGOs and shoot movies with them using the included PC movie camera. Spielberg’s proceeds are donated to non-profit foundations.

Then there’s the Hasbro Bop It Extreme, a worthy successor to the original Bop It. They added “Spin It” and “Flick It” this time, and made the toy in the shape of an “S.” I’m waiting for next year’s model, which I’m promised will levitate, understand conversational English and possess self-awareness.

The only thing really missing in this whole Yuletide joygasm is a Rage Against the Machine Christmas album, although I guess it wouldn’t be the same without Zack de la Rocha.

If he hadn’t quit, I would have loved to hear a few tunes modified for the holiday season, like “Killing in the Name of Santa” or “Settle for Eggnog.”

Instead, we have Christmas albums by Christina Aguilera, Charlotte Church, Ally McBeal’s singing voice, Rockapella, Arthur (the aardvark), Linda Ronstadt, the Three Tenors and “Another Rosie Christmas.” I’m not sure about the other albums, but Rosie scored a $1 million advance plus proceeds from the album to the For All Kids foundation.

As incredible as it sounds, this time of year is really a celebration of the ultimate fusion of tried-and-true materialism and, oddly enough, philanthropy.

As Americans, we’re immersed in a culture of shallow materialism and boundless excess. It has become so ingrained as part of our culture that it’s not even a big deal anymore.

During Christmas, that’s a good thing.

It’s much better for our holiday spirit to know that even if we are responsible for emitting 6.6 tons of greenhouse gasses per person, according to the EPA, we can still make a difference by buying a LEGO action set or a Rosie O’Donnell album.

This isn’t sarcasm either. We can’t afford to be cynical about this, because every little bit of giving counts, and $1 million to the For All Kids foundation from any benefactor is exactly that. We need to know we can help, even if it’s in our own shallow materialistic way.

So that’s Kwanzaa/Christmas/Hanukah/Santa Lucia for you. There’s nothing wrong with seeing the “Grinch” or going to the mall and buying clothes, sun-ripened raspberry lotion or even the Backstreet Boy’s “Black and Blue” for $18.99.

There’s nothing wrong with assaulting fellow customers in Wal-Mart for the last Manley Toy Quest’s Tekno the Robot Puppy or a Playstation 2, if anyone’s ever actually seen one of those things.

To stop doing those things would be to deny what it means to be American in December.

Just remember to give back a little bit in some way, shape or form like donating your clothes to Goodwill or dropping loose change in the Salvation Army pail.

If nothing else, just buy a toy or album whose proceeds go to a good cause. Giving anything is better than nothing.