Loveable mascot of Yule-time, Santa Claus, will soon be appearing in PlayStation Home; Claus' longtime companions, elves, will be accompanying Saint Nick too. While elves are no strangers to video games -- they are featured in nearly 88% of  commercially available tiles -- Santa is a different story. The jolly man-in-red rarely appears in games, so this is cause for celebration -- if you're under, say, ten.

There will be holiday-themed mini-games to check out in Santa's "Winter Wonderland" space, as well as snow, presents, a visit to "Santa's Grotto"(!) and a feeling of non-denominational-winter-holiday warmth. It all starts on December 10th, so mark your Advent calendar. More details here.

I bring all this to your attention for two reasons: 1) I realized that today is the unofficial beginning of the Holiday Season, and that means the return of a beloved tradition: dumb arguments in our comment section about retailers' and marketers' decision to eschew the word "Christmas" in favor of "Holidays." So have at it. 2) Santa looks creepy in computer form, but, honestly, even at my advanced age, I'm still a Santa super-fan -- that guy gave me an NES!