It’s December 24th, and there’s no sign of Apple’s annual iTunes 12 Days Of Gifts. We’re calling it: it’s not happening this year. But why not?

Last year, Apple celebrated the holidays with a fantastic app called 12 Days of Gifts. Like a digital advent calendar, the 12 Days of Gift apps handed out free music, TV shows, movies, books, and apps over the holiday period.

But this year, we haven’t seen the 12 Days of Gifts app, at least so far. Is Apple canceling it? What’s the hold up?

One of the nicer things Apple does every year is its “12 Days Of Gift” promotion, in which iTunes account holders in the Europe (and most recently, the United States) are given twelve digital gifts in the days following Christmas for the considerate price of nothing.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and Apple has just released its last free offering as part of this year’s “12 Days Of Gift” promotion. Luckily, it’s a good one: a free mini-album by the Rolling Stones themselves!

Here’s a reason to download Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts app if you haven’t already: the latest gift — freely downloadable using the app — is Martin Scorsese’s critically-acclaimed 2011 film Hugo.

The movie, based on Brian Selznick’s New York Times best-seller, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, tells the story of a 12-year-old boy living in the walls of a Parisian train station, who meets a down-on-his-luck toymaker, who turns out to be silent movie special effects maestro Georges Méliès (the guy that famously made this iconic short, entitled A Trip to the Moon).

This is the first year Apple has made its 12 Days of Gifts app available for U.S customers, and to kick things off the company is giving away a free EP of Justin Timberlake’s performance at the 2013 iTunes Festival.

The iOS app will be giving away a free gift (music, iBooks, apps, movies, etc.) once a day until January 6th. A new single from popular artist Lorde was released as a separate, bonus giveaway through the app last week.

Four exclusive tracks and two accompanying videos from Justin Timberlake’s concert are available for download. Once you tap the album cover in the app, you’ll be taken to the iTunes Store where you can get the album.

Source: App Store

Why do you confuse us like this, Apple?

Renaming the 12 Days of Christmas app “12 Days of Gifts” one moment (just to underline that this is, after all, the holiday of shopping), and then producing what is genuinely one of this winter’s most heartfelt and touching Christmas ads the next — Apple has now further befuddled (and angered) a large group of people by banishing the giant Christmas tree in shopping area De Passage of Netherlands city The Hague.

When you’re the most-watched tech company in existence, there’s nothing quite like taking people by surprise.

And although Apple’s “12 Days of Gifts” app — this year available to U.S. customers for the first time — was due to kick off on December 26, Apple has decided to give downloaders a taste of what it is to come by offering Lorde’s new single “No Better” as a pre-Christmas gift.

Apple has been doing its “12 Days of Christmas” promotion for a few years now — offering iOS users a bit of Yuletide cheer in the form of free videos, songs, games, books and apps.

Strangely, while this promotion has spread Cupertino Christmas wishes to those as far away as those in Europe, Canada and Japan, it has never before been available to U.S. customers.