Strap on those novelty reindeer antlers and pour yourself a tall glass of Silk Nog, because the holiday season is officially upon us. How do we know? No, it's got nothing to do with the number of days until Thanksgiving or the first instance of white and fluffy precipitation accumulating on the garden gnomes; this year we know that the holidays are upon us because, as faithful viewer el jacko first pointed out, Apple has posted two new Switch ads featuring Will Ferrell as "S. Claus."

Yes indeedy, folks, rush right over and scope out "Santa and Lawyers," in which jolly ol' Saint Nick reveals that he "got his ass handed to him" in a lawsuit over the "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays" controversy. Then take a gander at "Santa's iPod," in which Santa confesses that the thousand songs in his pocket include 980 Christmas songs, 20 Doobie Brothers tunes, and a Sheryl Crow track. Which is, um, a thousand and one songs in his pocket. Whatever. It's all good.

Now, to tell you the truth, over here at the AtAT compound we've actually been awaiting these fabled Will-as-Santa Switch ads for over a month now with bated breath; faithful viewers may recall that we hinted at their existence a couple of weeks back. We'd originally heard tell that Apple shot several hours of raw footage of Mr. Ferrell in his holly-jolly red suit, and in most of it the man was practically foaming at the mouth and screaming. Consequently, there was reportedly a fair amount of concern that, even with multiple hours of footage at its disposal, Apple wouldn't be able to edit together thirty seconds of it that wouldn't be deemed "too disturbing" for public release. Pessimists! After all, Apple was actually able to slap together a full minute of Ferrell it deemed "not quite disturbing enough to generate actual lawsuits."

The only bummer? Apple has clearly labeled these two spots as "parodies" of the Switch ads instead of as ads themselves, which almost certainly means that they're destined never to ride the airwaves during "Will & Grace" or the like. Internet-only parodies? Man, what a senseless waste. Here's a thought: we happen to have noticed that Apple has the good taste to be running Switch ads during "Sports Night," despite the fact that the show comes on at 3:30 AM just before Comedy Central turns into the All-"Girls Gone Wild" Network. C'mon, Apple; surely these Santa ads are perfect for late nights on a comedy network, no?