HAVING MADE JUST two playoff appearances in the last 15 years, the Washington Redskins are about as familiar with meaningful December games as Miss South Carolina is with the issues surrounding our country’s map-literacy rate.

Sure, the Redskins made the playoffs in 2005 by reeling off five straight wins. And yes, Washington clinched a division title in 1999 with a critical December win in San Francisco.

But otherwise, the Redskins haven’t played meaningful games this close to the holidays since Joe Gibbs’ first tenure.

You remember that go-around, don’t you? Gibbs wore those old-school sweater vests and that mesh red hat with the yellow cursive “R” on the front. Those were the days, back when the Hall of Fame coach made making Super Bowl appearances look easy.

Gibbs will have a different wardrobe tonight in Minnesota when his Redskins visit the Vikings in a paramount late-December game with major playoff implications.

The Vikings and Redskins are near clones of each other. Both have above-average defenses and suspect passing games. Their rushing attacks must carry the bulk of the offensive workload.

And that’s just the beginning of the parallels.

If Washington’s still being alive at 7-7 isn’t the NFC’s biggest surprise, Minnesota’s surprising turnaround is. The Redskins have lost six games by eight points or fewer and four by five points or fewer. The team has also had to overcome the death of one of its best players, Sean Taylor.

The Vikings are quarterbacked by someone that 11 people outside of Minnesota have heard of. And maybe that’s for good reason, because said quarterback, Tarvaris Jackson, has thrown four more interceptions than touchdown passes.

Despite Jackson’s struggles, the Vikings have ridden a home-run hitting running game all the way into the playoff mix. Led by rookie Adrian Peterson, the Vikings rush for a league-best 170 yards per game. That’s 30 yards more a game than the second-best team in the NFL (Jacksonville).

Peterson, the NFC rushing leader, and veteran backup Chester Taylor have put Band-Aids over Jackson’s boo-boos, carrying the Vikings to an 8-6 mark.

Washington relies as much on Clinton Portis as Minnesota does on Peterson. Portis, ranked third in the NFC, can relate to Peterson’s fast start, because he was once the world-beating, rookie rusher (1,508 yards as a rookie in 2002) that Peterson is today.

With quarterback Jason Campbell sidelined with a knee injury and career-backup Todd Collins now starting, Portis’ role with the Redskins has become more significant than ever before.

With Portis and Peterson on the same field tonight, don’t expect many deep passes. This is the kind of game Forrest Gump would have loved.

Regardless of who wins the individual duel, Peterson or Portis, or the game, Redskins fans must be giddy about an important game during the holidays. It isn’t something they get very often.