I did the worst-of-the-year thing a few weeks ago. In the interest of balance, then, here's a list of my favorite 2012 clips. They're presented in no particular order and with a gimmicky awards component designed to distract your attention from the repurposing of gently worn content. Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2013, y'all.

'Twas 52 nights before Chrismachanukwaanza, when at this one shop Creatures were stirring, ideas flung nonstop.

KFC. It has nutritional value in the way that ChiPs has educational value: In the most beside-the-point manner possible. Not that it needs to be spelled out, but KFC entrees have some small modicum of protein, just as ChiPs features characters saying words that can be found in many non-discredited dictionaries. Nonetheless, as chains are wont to do, KFC continues to attempt to lure new mouths, fast-food-simpatico and otherwise. Its most recent volley to that end is a trio of pointedly quirky holiday-themed videos hyping its super-tasty, violently caloric Festive Feast.

I got lucky when "L'Invitation au Voyage," the latest brand-burnishing endeavor from the well-accessorized kids at Louis Vuitton, arrived on my cyber-doorstep amid all this. Given that I'm still hopped up on the finest that Walgreen's has to offer, it's the only type of clip I'm capable of deconstructing at this moment: self-impressed, self-unaware, transparently symbolic and stuffed colon-deep with I-is-a-art-school-gradjoooit frippery. In that sense, "L'Invitation au Voyage" is the greatest gift I'll receive this Chrismuchanukwanzaa season.

Siding with small businesses is like siding with cupcakes, low humidity or Motown singles: you're siding with unassailable goodness, friend. If you support small businesses, you support the American ethos, or at least the historically overcelebrated, clich version of it. Nobody has a problem with small businesses, not even the I-see-threats-to-shark-tank-capitalism-everywhere-including-but-not-limited-to-in-my-utility-shed-and-on-Etsy crowd.

Fatherhood has enriched my life in so many ways that I can't begin to enumerate them, but it has hamstrung me as a writer/observer/whatever it is that I do. Any work conversation that includes the phrase "hey, how's the kid doing?" inevitably ends on a sunny note, even if it began with accusations of anti-Semitism and influence-peddling. I can't view marketing content as I once did, either. Take that infamous Infiniti ad from earlier this year: Where I once might've been intrigued by its focus on a single feature, it now prompts me to jump off the couch and scream, …

Of all the peripheral foodstuffs on the Thanksgiving table, cranberries get the least respect. They're both underserved and underrated -- the Bill Wyman to the turkey's Mick Jagger, the "Star Wars Episode VI" to stuffing's "Star Wars Episode V." Imagine their fate if they weren't so darn yummy, appealingly gelatinous and appropriately sized for purposes of dinner-plate tectonics.

Had I known it existed, I almost certainly would've reviewed "Random Acts of Fusion," Ford's pave-the-interstate-with-smiles road trip of a video series, in this space. I'm sure I would've had something to say about Joel McHale's aggressive deadpan and about our collective surrender to Ryan Seacrest's disarming okay-ness. I likely would've become the 3,600th Internet-writer-type person to fail miserably in an attempt to describe, encapsulate, characterize or otherwise qualify Kate Micucci's sublime adorability for the masses. The operative words there: Had I known it existed.

I dug the 1990s, unironically and without a trace of shame. I dug the music, the flash and especially the bombastic pastels. I dug all of this long after the decade expired. This goes a long way towards explaining why I was always single.

The athletic elite at my high school were an improbably evolved lot, especially by the standards of the day. They eschewed full-on brutishness for high-fives in the hall, "dude"-rich repartee and MGD-fueled Bon Jovi shout-alongs whenever the occasion presented itself (in the library, during memorial services, etc.). Many actually read at a 10th-grade level during 10th grade.