Email friends of party photographer Patrick McMullan have an opportunity to give their loved ones some truly meaningful trinkets this holiday season. "Dear Friends of Patrick McMullan, Do you need some great holiday gifts? Get a copy of Patrick's latest book, GLAMOUR GIRLS for the favorite glamour girl in your life. As well as past books, KISS KISS, INTENTS, SO8OS and SECRETS OF THE RIVIERA.. All in stock but not for long. A gift set for the photography lovers you know at a special price. SO8OS, INTENTS, KISS KISS and SECRETS OF THE RIVIERA together in a SO8OS Le Sport Sac bag for $195.00 plus tax and shipping. For smaller gifts, have prints made. Prints of you and your friends always makes [sic] a great present. Please place your orders early."

As Page Six noted this week, the 36th-floor midtown lobby of Sirius Radio had a disastrous Christmas tree—until Martha Stewart came in herself and fixed it all up. And here it is!

In interfaith households, the Times informs us, holiday traditions are fraught with tension and discomfort. Because, well, Jews will be Jews: "When her sons were toddlers, Amy Manata, a Jewish woman with a Catholic husband, began conducting a silent war. In the months leading up to Hanukkah, she would ask the boys, now 4 and 6, which toys they wanted most, then bestow them at Hanukkah to ensure that it was a better holiday than Christmas." Also, gays will be gays: "Scott was like, 'Would you please turn that off?' I was like, 'It's not "Jingle Bells." It's Diana Krall.'"

Are you married to a New York Times staffer? Or are you Simon Rich, spawn of Frank Rich? Thanks to an in-house Times email, we know exactly what you're getting this Christmas: "Fleece pullovers." Or maybe pens! "Avoid the holiday crowds by doing your gift shopping inside The New York Times Building," they entice. Everything's under $80!

Hey, do you want to "get down" with Perez Hilton? That celebrated blogger—one of the 100 most influential gays of the year!—will be toasting the festive season with "his ad team" at Stereo (512 W. 29th!) on Thursday the 13th from 8-10 p.m. Bring a white-out pen for IRL face-scribbles!

"Christmas party hangovers will cost UK businesses £790m this year in lost productivity, it was claimed today." [Guardian]

Earlier today we explored the BYOB shysteriness of one company's yuletide party and we asked for your disgruntled corporate christmas stories. You obliged in spades, you bitter battle worker bees. Here's a selection. Keep them coming at tips@gawker.com

Every year around Christmas, companies throw holiday parties they clearly don't want to throw. Employees of these companies go to the parties looking to get wasted and hook up with a co-worker. The clash of breathless expectations and corporate penuriousness is like a crashing wave upon a rocky cliff, except instead of salt water the wave is fashioned out of a year's worth of accumulated workplace bile. Send tales of your company's trangressions to tips@gawker.com.
Today's shitty corporate christmas party comes to us from the Fillmore East, the concert venue that used to be Irving Plaza. It is pretty shitty.

Ayelet "Michael Chabon's wife" Waldman, the most happily married woman in America ("our sex life - always vital, even torrid - is more exciting and imaginative now than it was when we first met") is at it again, this time oversharing in the pages of Harper's Bazaar. Unusually, she's venturing out of the marital bed and into the rest of her bliss-filled household, talking about how she and her brood celebrate the holidays. Once upon a time, she says, she coveted her gentile friends' pine-scented rituals, but that all ended when she met Her Husband. "Inclusion in any culture other than the one we were making together no longer mattered to me."

"Two rainy summers followed by drought have produced a shortage of some Christmas tree varieties in New York, especially Fraser firs, one of the most popular choices, according to growers. 'We've had it three years in a row now. Two with excess rain and now a drought. Mother Nature can't seem to get it right,' said Robert Norris, a tree farmer and executive secretary of the Christmas Tree Farmers Association of New York." Silly old Mother Nature! Also, last week's UN conference on global warming in Valencia concluded that "global warming is "unequivocal" and carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere commits the world to an eventual rise in sea levels of up to 4.6 feet." [AP]

Though we'd feared that the writers strike would make the Yuletide TV schedule a mirthless, depressing affair, new hope has arrived in the form of a joyous press release from our friends at VH1. Christmas will be saved—we're sure of it—by the appearance of a sleeveless-vested Santa Claus on our television sets, who'll fill us with the spirit of the season by devouring the snacks of beef jerky and frosty cans of Miller Hi-Life some rosy-necked tykes have left upon their mantelshelf, belching out a rendition of "O Holy Night," and then disappearing up the chimney as a bellowed "GIT R DONE" reverberates through the house:

This weekend prior a team of seasoned workers ascended a wooden ladder into the stuffy, cramped Attic at The Grove™, deftly maneuvered around a few dozen leftover boxes from Forever XXI (How did those get up here?), navigated the gloom to a particularly dusty, cobweb-laden corner and eventually returned - multiple times - with some hundred-dozen of boxes of Christmas decorations in their arms. Yon decorations are an essential part of what has become the single greatest commercialized Baby Jesus experience afforded Los Angeles shoppers in the last decade, if not century: CHRISTMAS AT THE GROVE! After the jump, read General Manager Jackie Levy's friendly missive on the preparation of the Vegas-sized spectacle, then sing along to a photo gallery of the stunning Yuletide transformation that will eventually result in the mall fountain's dancing waters being replaced by streams of liquid gold, frankincense, and myrrh ejaculated skyward in perfect time to "O Little Town Of Bethlehem":

There's a site for making post-its and a site for buying other people's drinks; there are over 50 sites to share videos in a safe place where no one will watch. But there aren't sites for the little things I really need, day to day.

SCOTT KIDDER — Buying holiday gifts on Amazon.com? For anywhere from $2.99 to $5.99, depending on the item, you can have your item gift wrapped. How convenient!

SCOTT KIDDER — Randy Falco's right-hand man and human "computer" — newly-appointed President and COO Ron Grant — referred to by new AOL chief Randy Falco as "my computer" — has a holiday message for AOL's tens of thousands of employees: Have a good holiday weekend, and stay the fuck away from your email!

Say what you will about Harvey Weinstein - he's a big fat Heeb with a bad temper and a gruff, uncouth manner - but the man knows his marketing. Consider the forthcoming Black X-Mas, a Santa-slasher pic from the Weinstein Company being released on Christmas Day! The holiest day of the year! Predictably, the outrage police have already had their hackles raised: Matt Drudge links to this Nikki Finke cri de couer:

As everyone knows, Gawker readers are classy, affluent individuals whose extreme productivity allows them plenty of time to stay up to speed on the important goings-on of the internet. And, like many refined, tasteful people, they're incredibly hard to shop for. As the Holidays approach, we thought we'd make like every other reputable news and entertainment outlet and provide you with a few gift suggestion that are tailored to the unique needs of the hip, savvy Gawker demographic. They're after the jump, conveniently broken down by reader stereotype.

With the holiday season now officially upon us, Variety reports on this year's expected entertainment industry gift-giving climate, and for a second straight year, things don't look good. Bosses can expect their desks to soon become cluttered by cards reading, "A donation has been made in your name to the William Morris Agency Association for the Advancment Of Agent Peoples," while those who've endured a year of blunt objects crashing off their skulls as they attempt to roll calls have another season of Chinatown-back-alley-quality electronics and edible lottery tickets. The disappointment from the downwardly-trending Hollywood gifting culture is enough to make one teary-eyed for the relatively heady days of freely exchanged baked goods:

Best Week Ever directs us to the Amazon page for Ali Lohan's Christmas album, Lohan Holiday. Besides the requisite jokes about Lindsay's late-night habits, there's also this verse from their version of "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas":

• The future is in analyzing social networks, through the totally reliable data from MySpace. Ten points for anyone titling their doctoral study "Thanks for the add, holla at mah peeps." [NY Times]