The most wonderful time of the year

Wouldn't it be nice if America's Newspapers delivered rusty forks along with the post-Thanksgiving paper, the better to gouge your eyes out once you dig through the circulars and find the front page? Here's your yearly list of oops-too-late things not to do in headlines.

This year's tally seems a little low on "Ready, set, shop"; that's the Freep on the left, assisted by Columbus and Newark. The "gobble up" count is also down against last year (you'll have to forgive the Post; it was busy with the War On Snoopy), so we had to throw New London's "Let the bargains begin" in there with Miami and the Old Hometown Reflector:

 We do have a couple of new ones this year. Let's start with the turkey-plus-spending meme, which is harder to crack than it looks. You can't just flock to the mall after eating with your birds of a feather; you have to have the turkey in the hed, by name. Congratulations to (clockwise from upper left) Baltimore, Asbury Park, Tacoma, The State, Wichita, and Orlando.

I'm not sure why the "new tradition" started this year (maybe it was official and I just missed the memo), but there it is at Eugene and Albuquerque, with a variant from Buffalo:

Anyway, 'tisn't the season, so pay attention to those papers -- Philly and Austin, to name two -- that didn't seem to find it necessary to put a Thanksgiving shopping story on the front at all. Perhaps a few more brave souls will venture down those mean streets next year.