You've heard the word before, you may have even sung the famous (and outdated) Christmas song ... but do you have any idea what it means to go a-wassailing? For all we know, "wassailing" could be some kind of super-offensive Old English cuss word. Well, now we're finally going to figure out what this word means.

For anyone who's pulling for the cuss word theory ... sorry to break it to you. Wassailing is the practice of door-to-door singing, very similar to what we now refer to as "caroling." The main difference between caroling and wassailing is the demand for an alcoholic beverage (wassail) under the threat of vandalism -- kinda like trick or treating for adults.

In my humble opinion, the free beer aspect is what made wassailing so much cooler than caroling and likewise is probably why very few people still go caroling at random. As you may have guessed by now, wassail is an adult beverage similar to a mulled beer with roots in the Middle Ages.

Apparently, wassailing has not historically been a harmless tradition. In early New England, rowdy groups of singing young men would barge into a house, demanding food and drink. If the involuntary hosts refused, they would be bombarded with curses and sometimes their house would be vandalized.

Buddy the Elf would not have shared his cookies with William Caldwell III. The Georgia man has been accused of dressing up as an elf, then threatening to blow up a suburban Atlanta mall.

The Daily News reports Caldwell joined the line of kids waiting for their pictures with Santa this week, decked out in elfin garb including a pair of tights and a red and green jacket decorated with jingle bells. Standing there, Caldwell allegedly began mumbling that he had dynamite.

Holiday shoppers were evacuated from the Southlake Mall while a bomb squad poured in to check out the elf's duffel bags. Nothing turned up, and police are pointing to a possible mental illness as a cause of Caldwell's erratic behavior. He's been jailed on charges of creating false public alarm, reckless conduct and terrorist threats and acts.

Bomb threats also thwarted holiday shoppers in East Massapequa, NY recently. Online shopping is looking better and better these days.

Choosing a tree can be a daunting task. How do you know what size to get? Do you know how to tell if your chosen tree is healthy? What are the warning signs of a bad tree?

The video above offers all the advice you need on choosing a real, live Christmas tree. Got some tips of your own? Be sure to tell us in the comments!

If you don't have a fireplace and miss the woodsy smell of burning logs, you will love the incense cones made by Paine's of Maine. This seventy year old company sells cones in scents ranging from cedar to piñon pine.

The incense is packaged in adorable retro boxes which makes them the perfect last minute gift. I stock up during the holidays especially because this website offers bulk $7 shipping.

This season, money is tight for many of us, and the lure of anything free is hard to pass up. But be warned: If an offer seems too good to be true, well, it probably is. For example, the free Best Buy gift card prank that's making the rounds of cell phones and social networking sites right now.

Basically, the gag works like this : One of your trusted friends (personal or virtual) will send you a message -- via text or Twitter or Facebook -- that says something like this:

"Call Best Buy. They are giving away $250 giftcards to the first 1000 callers 4 the holidays. The # is 401-285-0696. I called and got 1."

Why would Best Buy do such a thing during one of the worst holiday shopping years in recent memory? It doesn't matter, because most of us are so blinded by the words "free gift card" that we don't even stop to ponder that before we dial the phone ... or do the math to realize that this offer entails Best Buy giving away $250,000 worth of gift cards to people who are lucky enough to win stupid enough to fall for the prank (who shall remain nameless).

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For many of us, one of the most charming parts of Christmas is the singing of carols, particularly cheerful, celebratory hymns like "O Come All Ye Faithful." Because how can you not feel the spirit of the season when you're belting out these happy words?

Oh, come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant!
Oh, come ye, oh, come ye to Bethlehem!

Not everyone finds joy in caroling, though. Church of England religious leader Bishop Nick Baines is not a fan of carols; in fact, Baines has some get-tough words for the singers of "O Come, All Ye Faithful," making the literally true, but spiritually grim, suggestion that it be called "O Come All Ye Faithless." After all, Baines says, it was't the faithful who came out to greet the Baby Jesus, but, in his words, "the great unwashed" shepherds and the "pagan" Wise Men, who followed the star.

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If you are looking for a holiday gift that is both unique and eco-friendly, consider poo. Yes, this generally overlooked and discarded element is being recycled into clean and green products that can make great holiday gifts.

Companies like PooPaper (whose slogan is "We're Number One at Number Two!") have figured out how to recycle feces from animals like elephants and sheep into paper products like cards, stationary, and even ornaments. These odorless products have been collected, sterilized, and often combined with recycled paper before turned into products you can use. They don't smell like crap, in fact they often naturally smell of paper due to the animals' fibrous diet. And these products are completely safe and sustainable.

For the environmentally conscious (and open minded) love in your life, this recycled poo paper bouquet gives a new meaning to the saying "stop and smell the roses." If you know a friend who loves elephants, this elephant shaped ornament is made from their favorite animal's recycled feces. And for some high class crap, PooPaper makes everything from stationary sets to photo albums.

And like any gift idea, there are many ways to take it too far. Straight up poo, like this jar of Australian kangaroo poo, might not get the same response as the recycled kind.

You might want to hold onto your tot's carefully printed wish list this holiday. Send it to the post office and it might be shredded.

A U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman told Staten Island Live that's the official recommendation from the USPS for offices not participating in the revived Operation Santa program (which almost died entirely earlier this year). Postal officials have been responding to kids since 1912, getting help from local organizations since 1940 to keep up with the huge influx every holiday.

With enhanced privacy regulations for the volunteers, the list of participating offices on the USPS site is woefully short and missing dozens of states. The letters are being shredded to protect children's privacy and keep the letters "out of the wrong hands." It sounds like there will be a lot of paper to be recycled.

They'll have to manage the shredding between their other duties. The post office expects 97 million customers during the holidays plus 41 million shipping online via usps.com. Some 30 million pounds of mail will be sent overseas, including war zones.

Just because the Black Friday & Cyber Monday savings are over (and odds are, you haven't quite finished your holiday shopping), doesn't mean you can't save big at major retailers. Thanks to "Heroes" star Greg Grunberg, you can get exclusive deals at stores (Crate & Barrel, anyone?) with the click (or touch) of a button.

When he isn't playing the telepathic/mind-controlling cop Matt Parkman on NBC's "Heroes," Grunberg is busy at work on Yowza!!, the money saving mobile application he co-created. Yowzaa!! uses software in your phone to tell you what deals you can take advantage of based on your location.

Picture this: You walk into a mall, whip out your phone and get a list of exclusive bargains at partnering stores in your area. Coupons -- some not available anywhere else -- appear right on your phone's screen. At checkout, you present the clerk with your phone and score your deal. Wouldn't that be cool?

That's exactly what Yowza!! does.

"We've taken all of the work out of finding the best deals," says Grunberg, who understands that everyone is looking for ways to save. "I don't care if you have money or not. You want to hold onto it and you're looking for deals." Besides savings at local retailers, users can score bargains at chains like Sears, Toys R Us, Pier 1 and Domino's Pizza.

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The Fed's beige book is pointing to a modest recovery in the American economy, but there's at least one place where spending is brisk. Online retailers have seen a hike in spending from the 2008 holiday season according to a report released by market research firm ComScore this week.

Cyber Monday spending reached $887 million, putting it on par with the heaviest ever recorded online spending day. Ironically, the heaviest spending day up until this year was last year, Dec. 9, 2008. But the overall cyber shopping for the first thirty days of the shopping season has kept the numbers above 2008 by 3 percent.

A total of $12.86 billion has been spent by online shoppers in recent weeks, ComScore reports, and the season is far from over. But there is a caution in all this cheery talk. The inflated numbers don't mean people are spending more. In fact, the average dollars spent per shopper dipped 2 percent.

The sheer number of people opting for online shopping is making all the difference, up 6 percent to 8.7 million. That's because they're more comfortable shopping online, according to Consumer Reports. But the sales don't hurt either. On the list of budget shopping tips from the Federal Trade Commission this year? "Go online."

We'll have to wait for the end of the season to see what that means for brick and mortar stores. But what do you think? Have you shifted your shopping online?