CNATI: Cincinnati OH Sports Journalism

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, I know I will.

While the DLP went home to Georgia, I'm here so I can stick around for Bengals stuff again. While I hate not being with her because she really enjoys Christmas, I gotta be honest, I just don't.

Christmas has turned crass to me, it's not my thing. I'm fine with other people enjoying it (as long as they keep their crappy Christmas music to themselves, I can't stand Christmas music -- with one exception).

So, instead, I enjoy my own Christmas tradition -- A Very Jewish Christmas. Josh Katzowitz and I are on a AVJC 6.

This will be the sixth, and likely final, AVJC. AVJC always starts at the same bad Chinese place. Every year we talk about how not good the buffet is and every year we go back, not because we forget how bad it is,but because it's tradition and tradition isn't supposed to make sense.

After that, it's usually movie time. I'm not sure what we're going to see this year. I've already seen Up In the Air, neither of us is interested in Avatar and there's not much else out there. We're thinking Invictus -- anyone have a suggestion?

And then, it's on to the boats. We've skipped the boats some years because of money concerns, and that may be the same this year. We'll see.

Anyway, it's a tradition like no other and something I look forward to all year. I hope you enjoy your Christmas traditions just as I enjoy mine.

* Speaking of Josh, he's got a great story here. It was a great story before he found out it was Leon Washington's wedding he crashed, now, it's legen-wait-for-it-dary. Except he told us he was shirtless when he ruined crashed Washington's wedding.

* Two Three Bengals make Football Outsiders All-Rookie team.

* If you want to feel better about the Reds, just read up on the Royals.

* Forbes says Ohio State is the 8th-most valuable college football program in the country, and the only one in the Top 10 in both football and basketball. The SEC has eight of the Top 20, the Big 11 had four and the Pac-10 only one.

* The pictures of the rink at Fenway Park are really cool. The Bruins sent a Fenway-themed Christmas card out this year as well.

* The evolution of the Hartford Whalers' logo.

* I give Jeff Pearlman credit again -- this time for admitting a column sucked and taking criticism as it was intended. Hopefully more of us can be this gracious and understanding -- myself included.

* We're No. 9! Cincinnati comes into the Top Ten of the most literate cities in the U.S.

* Will computer tablets be the next big thing?

* Kids these days...

* Some holiday viewing if you so choose. Somehow I never sit down and watch A Christmas Story , but I manage to see all of it, if in a weird, (500) Days of Summer kind of way.

* The best newspaper movies.

* I don't know which part of the Karate Kid remake to hate on first, so I'll just go without comment...
 
* A Colorado brewery pokes fun at the state's big boy.

* Maybe if I've been good, the DLP will bring some of this back from Georgia. Well, hopefully she'll bring it back even if I haven't been good, which I probably haven't.