No holiday album moves me like the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas. Vince Guaraldi's rich, playful piano playing welcomes a warm rush of nostalgia every time I hear it. No matter how hectic the holiday season gets, it will ease you back to a place of youthful cheer. A few cocktails always help, too.

I'm pretty certain Theodore "Dr. Seuss" Geisel's poetry is every bit as important as that banker T.S. Eliot's, oven-lover Sylvia Plath's or anyone in the latest edition of the New Yorker. Check out the wonderfully inventive, smile-inducing lines to this Dr. Suess gem:  

You're the king of sinful sots / Your heart's a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots / Mr. Grinch / You're a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!

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Christmas Vacation easily ranks as one of my all-time favorite films. My family lives in Florida and this year will mark the first year in more than a decade I haven't watched the 1989 classic with my younger siblings and parents. Here's my favorite scene. Chevy Chase's character watching old home movies while we hear Ray Charles' heart-warming "The Spirit of Christmas."