If you haven’t been watching this season, you may not believe this, but SNL is pretty damn funny right now — funnier than it has been for a few years. A great example is last night’s video short, a Christmas slow jam performed by Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg (co-writer of last season’s excellent “Lazy Sunday”). I don’t want to give away the name of the song because the it’ll spoil the surprise when you hear it the first time.

It’s up on YouTube right now, but NBC will certainly pull it. NBC does have the video on their own site for free — although you’ll have to sit through an annoying 15 second toilet paper commercial to see it. Believe me, it is absolutely worth it. The whole episode (except for maybe one skit) was damn funny, but this video is going to be a classic. Watch it now so you’ll know what all the cool kids are singing about — and what they’ll be giving this Christmas.

[EDIT: The imbedded YouTube video is here — at least until NBC Universal removes it. It’s uncensored, so you’ve been warned…]

I’m heading to the Midwest Clinic in Chicago on Tuesday morning. It’s going to be fun, I’m sure, but also busy. When I land on Tuesday afternoon, I’m taking a cab to Wheeling for a rehearsal of “Turbine” with the Permian High School Symphonic Band. That goes from 4-5, and then a cab will take me to the Hilton so I can change for dinner. Dinner the first night is with John Corigliano, Jerry and Stephanie Junkin, and some of Jerry’s posse. I guarantee a bunch of pictures, as we’re going to what sounds like a spectacular place.

The next day (Wednesday), I have another rehearsal with Permian, followed by their performance at 1:00. After that, I’m free until I sneak into the Circus Maximus rehearsal later that afternoon. Then it’s the Musashino Academy concert at 6:30 for the premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s new work, “Kelly’s Field.” From there, it’s dinner number 2 — somewhere tasty with Newman and Rick Clary. After dinner, we’ll go (presumably tipsy) back to the Hilton for the Dallas Wind Symphony performance of Circus Maximus.

Thursday morning is a rehearsal with the Friendswood High School Wind Ensemble on “Strange Humors.” At 12:30, I’ll go to hear Cheryl Floyd’s band from Hill Country Middle School (for whom I’m writing a piece in 2008). From there, I’ll squeeze in a lunch before the Dallas Wind Symphony’s rehearsals of “Redline Tango.” Their performances of the piece are at 6:15 and 8:15, and then after that — more drinks.

Friendswood High School rehearses again at 9:30 on Friday morning (oh, I’ll be feeling great at 9:30), but their performance of “Strange Humors” isn’t until 9:00 that night, so I’ll actually have almost all of Friday free. My flight home is at something like 6:30am on Saturday. (If I thought 9:30 would feel early on Friday, 6:30 on Saturday will be damn near fatal.)

Here’s my Midwest concert schedule. If you’re coming to the convention, I hope you can make it to one (or all!), and will find me to say hi!

• Wednesday, December 20, 1PM: Permian High School Symphonic Band performs “Turbine,” conducted by Michael Watts
• Thursday, December 21, 6:15PM and 8:15PM : Dallas Wind Symphony performs “Redline Tango,” conducted by Jerry Junkin
• Friday, December 22, 9PM : Friendswood High School Wind Ensemble performs “Strange Humors,” conducted by Gregory Dick

I know I posted this last year, but here again, because it’s just that good, is the MP3 of the Sugar Plum Fairy, courtesy of John Corigliano.A sincere thank you to Mr. Corigliano for sharing this with us — wherever it originally came from.

I’ve complained about bad Christmas music, and raved about the awesome Nintendo Wii, but now it’s time for plain ol’, straight-up Christmas cheer.

We had a real tree last year, and the year before in New York, but this year, we opted for not just artificial — but unabashedly artificial. This year, we went white.

Because of all of my travel this fall — gone until the day before Thanksgiving, plus I’ll be at Midwest from this coming Tuesday until the day before Christmas Eve — we got the tree kind of early for maximum cheeriness. It arrived on November 27, just a few days after Thanksgiving. The box for this 7.5′ pre-lit tree was huge. Loki, true to form, was pretty psyched about the box.

The stand, on its own, was not particularly cheery.

And the bottom half of the tree, pre-shaping, was downright sad.

But once the parts were assembled and the tree was plugged in, it started to cheer up.

Once the tree was unboxed, we took the box to the storage space to drop it off, and picked up the boxes of Christmas decorations. Loki enjoyed these boxes, too.

Prior to decorating, I took this picture of the tree, and I accidentally had the flash on. The result is that the tree looks insane — and the exposure allows us to see the somewhat foreboding clouds outside. It seems that Jesus doesn’t approve of white Christmas trees.

Ah, that’s better. Much less scary.

Now it’s time to hang the ornaments! We got a few new fun ones this year. Here’s Fat Santa.

And here’s Mr. Snowman in his dapper purple scarf. Ned Rorem would be proud.

Here’s a bear of some sort.

And the bear’s friend, AEJ’s recurring favorite, the squirrel.

My favorite, for three consecutive years, is this snowman.

Loki just likes the protective tissue paper.

Who’s hungry? This damn deer kept trying to eat the tree.

I call this one “Self Portrait with Reindeer.”

Again, the flash is not a good thing. Loki really isn’t quite this scary.

See? He can be quite cute.

I know there are a lot of shots of the cat, but come on — the cat is damn cute. Here he is posing next to his own image in wrapping paper. (Yes, AEJ had wrapping paper made last year with pictures of Loki.)

See, I was serious about that wrapping paper.

And here’s the tree, fully decorated, with AEJ enjoying its warm, cheerful glow.

Happy holidays!