Why is it asking for form 8863 when it never did last year or the year before. And now I have to wait until the 6th until I can turn the form in?

Form 8863 is used to claim the American opportunity credit or lifetime learning credit for college tuition expenses, did you include such expenses this year?

Dont be in a rush to file.  The IRS won’t be open for e-filing until the end of January at the earliest.  Even if TurboTax is prepared to file your return earlier, it will just sit in a data warehouse until the IRS opens.  If you rush and later find you skipped something or need to make a change, it will take up to a year to make corrections.  The IRS is badly backlogged and amended returns that used to take 5 months are taking up to a year to process.