Stills from Unmade Movies: Night Before Christmas Meets It's a Wonderful Life

It was going to be the greatest Christmas blockbuster of all time, bringing together two powerful brands, The Night before Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life, with a special twist for modern times -- but the financial backers lost all their money in the Bernie Madoff scandal.

Shooting began with expensive sets at the North Pole, where it turns out all is not well at Santa's Workshop. It seems the workshop had been refinanced several times to buy toy supplies. The mortgage bubble has burst, and foreclosure is imminent. Santa is desperate. He yells at the elves and battles with his wife. Finally he storms out of the house, hitches up the reindeer and careens off into the night. He crashes the sleigh into a house on Drake Street in Madison, Wisconsin. Sadly he lurches off to throw himself into an ice fishing hole on nearby Lake Monona, to end his misery and Christmas as we know it.

Fortunately he's saved by an old ice fisherman named Clarence with a wry, angelic countenance who teaches him the true meaning of Christmas. When he returns to the North Pole, he finds benefactors from around the world have paid off the mortgage and his sleigh is loaded and ready to go. With his jolly spirit restored and a cheery wink at Rudolph, he sets off on his Christmas Eve journey.

The sleigh crash was as far as they got with filming. The screenplay is still making the rounds, but so far hasn't found new backing. Nobody seems interested in a nice, simple heartwarming Christmas story anymore.

At the end of the day, I got them all on the same page

I'm no rockstar and I have a lot on my plate, but I figured if I think outside the box, do whatever it takes and work smarter, I just might be able to pull it off. I was hoping to come up with something both impactful and robust. Perhaps a new best practice might emerge, or at least a win-win. Net-net, it was a no-brainer, but it would require flawless execution. The low-hanging fruit was already gone. "Let's take this offline," I told myself. I needed to take it to the next level. I needed to take a more holistic approach. I would have to plus-up my best game.

I needed some seriously proactive synergy to leverage the value-added of the 30,00-foot view. I had to circle back and touch base with my Inner Jabberwock. That's when I was finally able to get all 20 most-hated buzzwords on the same page -- or at least use them in one blog post.

At the end of the day, it is what it is.

The University Avenue Tree Lights are dancing again

A Madison holiday landmark is all aglow again -- the University Ave. Tree Lights are once again frolicking in a festive swirl of color, a wall of light stretching exuberantly as far as the eye can see. Even the straight, no-nonsense railroad tracks seem about to get up and start dancing.

My favorite upcoming holiday movie

"Total Recall," which stars a villainous protagonist who fronts for a bunch of bad guys who don't even live in his state, along with a supporting cast of assorted WI GOP state senators.