The huge-ass Christmas tree in front of the City-County building. Every year, the city of Pittsburgh solicits a tree donation from a resident. This year's tree, a 45-foot blue spruce, came from someone's vacant piece of property. It's also doubly green: The lights are all LED.
A Softer World. This Internet comic, with morbid text placed on top of otherwise average photographs, is often sad, depressing and, duh, hilarious. Especially at the holidays. www.asofterworld.com
A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. The 1965 holiday TV special itself is a treasure, and Vince Guaraldi's jazz-trio soundtrack is a desert-island pick, if the desert island happens to be Christmas Island.
MaeveMade ornaments. These handmade Polish-star paper ornaments offer a unique take on holiday decorating, and they're locally made. www.etsy.com/shop/maevemadeshop
A Claymation Christmas Celebration. Claymation shorts fill this 1987 CBS special that ran for a few years before fading into obscurity. Fortunately, it's available on DVD, replete with ice-skating hippos, waffle-eating dinosaurs and the California Raisins.
Baking Christmas cookies. Nothing brings a more intense warm, fuzzy feeling than listening to music and baking and decorating fancy cookies for the string of upcoming holiday parties.
