NEW YORK -- It has been a lump-of-coal kind of year for most of New York's sports teams, but one came through in the end.
So rest easy, holiday shoppers with Yankees fans in your lives. This is going to be easy.
The Big Sell started immediately, of course, with the donning of championship hats and shirts by the Yankees, followed within seconds by their appearance in stores and on the Internet.
But three weeks later, the rollout continues, with stuff available at a variety of price points.
The big event was Monday night's unveiling of the official World Series DVD, at $19.99 a relative bargain that can fit into most stockings and is flat and thus easy to wrap.
Is it any good, though?
Judging by the emotional reaction of fans who joined Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman at the premiere in Manhattan, it surely works as a overview/celebration of title No. 27.
The primary focus is the World Series, and it covers all the important bases -- most memorably the two that Johnny Damon stole on the same play in Game 4.
The highlight is interviews with people on and around the team, using a technique pioneered by the NFL for its "America's Game" series in which the subject looks directly into the camera.
"It's a much more intimate feel," said David Gavant, the executive who oversaw the video for MLB Productions. "You feel like when Jeter's talking, he's talking to you."
Alas, there are journalistic holes in the account. Alex Rodriguez's preseason hip injury is referenced, but not his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Chase Utley's pivotal double-play groundout in Game 2 comes up, but not the fact that replays showed he appeared to be safe.
The biggest disappointment is the lack of behind-the-scenes access that MLB Productions gets compared to what we are used to from NFL Films.
The video from the Giants' 2007 championship season is full of fascinating sideline audio we never got on live TV. But there is little on the Yankees' DVD other than the interviews you didn't see and hear on Fox.
Of course, what MLB offers now is vastly more extensive than what it could when the World Series film debuted in 1943, commissioned to show soldiers overseas what they had missed.
Speaking of which, the coolest available baseball DVD for the holidays is a 20-disc set including every Series highlight film from '43 through last year, selling for $179.99 on MLB.com.
It's not a Yankees-specific item, but obviously they appear on it more than any other team. (The same set signed by 12 Hall of Famers can be had for a mere $2,229.)
Still to come in mid-December for last-minute Yankees shopping: An eight-DVD set that includes the complete Fox telecasts of every 2009 Series game.
It's not all about DVDs, of course. MLB offers various Yankees-related clothing items featuring a "27" logo to commemorates you-know-what.
The Yankees' post-World Series merchandise has been selling at a pace unseen since the Red Sox won in 2004, releasing 86 years of pent-up demand. Yankees fans had to wait nine years, but to them it seemed like 86.
Elsewhere in the Internet buy-osphere, Steiner Sports continues to sell off bits of old Yankee Stadium, and it's not too late to splurge on a fan who has been nicer than he or she was naughty in 2009.
Pairs of old Stadium seats can be had at $1,500 per, plus $70 shipping and handling. Order now and have a place to sit and watch the first free-agent signing news conference of winter!
What if you know or love a Mets fan? Umm. Can Roy Halladay be wrapped?
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