Another Christmas has come and gone, and from reading and hearing and spying on everyone else, I think it's safe to say that the 2005 holiday season was a strange one for most, for all sorts of reasons.  Much of my past few days has been spent trying to heal one of our cats who got clawed in the eye by another cat, which then led to the worst experience I've ever had at a veterinarian, which then led to feeling guilty all throughout the Christmas celebrations as I had four cats locked in a room at home so the injured cat could have as much room and as much safety as possible while we were out.  For the cats in my life, it hasn't been a particularly merry Christmas.

The big family shindigs were fun, full of liquor and seafood and red sweaters.  Now I'm in that post-Christmas lull — I wouldn't really classify it as the typical post-Christmas depression or anything; I just want to stop the clock for a few weeks so I don't have to rush right back to reality.  It's too early to focus on real stuff.  Just wanna look at all the pretty lights till people stop bothering to plug 'em in at night.  Speaking of which, a few nights back we stopped by a nearby house's insane Christmas village…

And it was just what the doctor ordered.  I'd spent the season too busy to enjoy it, but ten minutes at this place put me right back into the spirit proper.  A couple of houses all owned by the same guy were dolled up in every which way, with some of the strangest decorations I've ever seen.  I have no idea where one could actually purchase most of the stuff on display — some of it was obviously made at home, but other elements seem to have been bought from old traveling carnivals and whatnot.  Consisting of three big front lawns and a few side nooks, the junk was just piled left and right without rhyme or reason.  It was just so gloriously screwball.  Example: They had this huge Disney train full of animatronic characters, and one of the cars had a gigantic, soaking wet stuffed shark on top of it.  It wasn't thematic.  The shark was just "there."  Everything was just so random that I'm not even sure how to write anything cohesive about it (I'm trying now and failing), so just check out the gallery below if you want that last minute bit of Christmas cheer before you start making your New Year's plans.

About to complete the Calendars — come back in a little bit.  You won't see Mare again for heelevahn months, sniff.  As is customary in our yearly Christmas Fallout thread, it's time to see the goods.  It's been a strange Christmas as mentioned, but on the gift side, Santa did not let me down.  Check it out…

The Complete Calvin & Hobbes.  Oh God yes.  And unlike The Far Side's version, this one is split across three books, meaning they're a bit slimmer, meaning they can actually be read without the aid of heavy machinery.
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Merry Christmas to all.  I've gotta go stuff mushrooms and drizzle liquid death over rapidly heating Chex Mix.  Thanks for being a part of X-E's nearly-finished 2005 Christmas celebration.  May Santa bring you all the best.

It's Christmastime.  Actually, it's just about Christmas as I write this, and man, the holiday sure was sneaky this year, creeping right up on me from out of nowhere as I scramble through my gift checklist and my dirty clothes and my Advent and Advert Calendars and wonder how the entire season seemed to fly by without much noise.  Oh well — at least I'll have my Christmas Story marathon and my stupid presents and that big wheel of sushi my sister buys every year.

As I've mentioned a thousand times, we're in the long process of moving to a different apartment, which is an amazingly difficult task for such packrats.  Finally got up to grouping and boxing together my insanely vast collection of cereal prizes, and while it on one hand reminds me that I really want to start that subsection up again, it also presented a dilemma, as there's no way I could let the Christmas season slip by without covering the beauty shown above — a sealed CANISTER of Holiday Lucky Charms cereal, from 1994.  If I used forums and forum administrators told me to pick an avatar that best describes my soul as a whole, I'm pretty sure this big log of Christmas cereal would get nod.  The cylindrical containers popped up every so often, with the crayon tip-shaped top making them double nicely as coin banks when you were done plowing through breakfast.

While Lucky couldn't go through with actually calling this a "Christmas" cereal even back then, there can be no doubt that that's what it is.  Look at those pretty lights — there's only one "holiday" that gets those pretty lights.  What served only as a month-long promotion could've been a bit more than that, because if I had seen this particular package of Lucky Charms cereal under the tree on Christmas morning, I wouldn't have felt at all ripped off.  I'm not saying it could take the place of a new bicycle or a video game system, but had my parents placed this particular package of Lucky Charms next to the "big gift," I'm honestly not sure which of the two I'd have paid more attention to.  On one hand, I wouldn't have gone back to school the following week and brag about the cereal I got, but on the flip, I probably would've let it slip and get punched in the gut over it anyway.

As is customary for any Lucky Charms cereal meant to celebrate a specific event, the marshmallows have been updated to reflect the holiday at hand.  Check out the six hot entries, including candy canes, snowmen, presents, bells, stocking and Christmas trees.  Oh you damn right — Christmas trees.  Because the cereal baggie was sealed, inside a heavystock cylinder that was also sealed, it all looks and smells so fresh that I'm tempted to go find some ten-year-old milk and have myself a bowl of merry.  But I won't.  Because I'm chicken.

The arguable best part of the deal?  This particular package of Holiday Lucky Charms came with not one, but two cereal prizes, tucked neatly away in the special plastic topper.  And they weren't junky prizes either, no sir.  First up was a small tub of Sparkling Play-Doh, which is quite literally regular Play-Doh rolled around in sparkles.  Just to make it all tie together, the Play-Doh was Christmas green.  While the second prize didn't associate with Christmas by color, it's tough to look at a sealed package of Life Savers "Gummi Savers" and not think it's the 25th of December.  I'm in love with this cereal.  It's nice to have a little romance going during the holidays.

For posterity only:

Aside from today's entries that will be posted TODAY, the Advent and Advert Calendars are finally up to date!  On the Advent side, we've got some sticky Santa situations mucking up what should've been a righteous celebration after Waiterbot's defeat, and no, I have absolutely no idea how it's going to end up.  On the Advert side, old commercials from Radio Shack, Burger King, Little Debbie and beyond all conspire to make your holiday season just a weeeee bit more Christmassy.  Hope you're digging it.

What's probably going to end up being the highlight of my 2005 Christmas season is up above.  The He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special is out now on DVD!  Holy shit, I'd repeat it but you just read it and whatever but just know that it bears repeating.  I'm glad I finally gave up on trying to be a VHS guy for no other reason than the fact that I had such a big VHS collection, because I just can't believe the amount of awesome shit coming out on DVD.  This one just takes the cake.  It's really cheap, too — so cheap that I was expecting a bare bones affair.  This is anything but a bare bones affair.  First off, the box has that weird 3D etching that makes He-Man and friends seem ever so slightly like they're going to jump off and eat me, and secondly and thirdly and fourthly are the insane amount of special features, ranging from commentaries to a music video.  This one's a keeper, a beautiful, beautiful keeper.  Click here to read my old shoddy review of the only cartoon in history featuring a goody-version of Skeletor, or better yet, buy the damn DVD!

I'm a sucker for candy canes, nyuk nyuk nyuk.  While I actually do prefer the original minty canes above all else, I can't resist trying out the many thousand new candy canes on the market meant to taste like specific, popular candies.  I've had everything from Spree candy canes to Hershey's Chocolate candy canes, but if I had to make my bid and spend the rest of my life with one and only one brand, I think I'd have to go with Starburst.  Jesus Mary are these things goooood.

EDIT: Tummi's 2005 Christmas Jukebox is now active!

It's Saturday!  One week till Christmas Eve!

It's been a weird holiday season.  Actually, it's kind of not been a holiday season.  I've never been so busy in my life, and I really didn't notice just how busy I was until December rolled around and I didn't even have time to decorate — we still haven't.  Sure, we probably wouldn't have anyway as we're moving into a new apartment soon, but man, I'm so not used to not tripping over stands of Christmas lights as I head over to a table full of ceramic wind-ups.  The woman is just as much of a Christmas nut as I am — it's something I take credit for — and we've just kinda consigned ourselves to having a crappy Christmas season knowing that our new place will afford us the chance to go absolutely batshit with the decorations next year.

2005 Stocking Stuffer: Pound Puppies!  Pound Puppies are back.  They look a little different and their intestines are now full of machine parts that let them do tricks, but they're back, dammit.  It's with some shame that I admit to have long ago adopted a Pound Puppy and treated it as all the icky girls at school treated their Cabbage Patch Kids.  These new Christmasized Pound Puppy stocking stuffers, complete with loopy strings that enable you to turn 'em into tree decorations, look more like the Pound Puppies of old than anything else currently on the market.

And now!  The big list of what I'm getting everyone in my huge family for Christmas…

Niece #1: Artsy clay kit stuff.  Not purchased yet.
Nephew #1: Zoo Tycoon, or whatever it's called, for Nintendo DS.
Nephew #2: One of those Playstation 2 gift packs that features six obsolete games in a big nice box for twenty bucks.  He won't shit himself over the games, but he'll shit himself over getting six at once, assuming he doesn't own 'em all already.
Nephew #3: Some LEGO junk.  Not purchased yet.
Niece #2: Shit, just realized that I totally glossed over this niece.  Nothing yet.
Niece #3: Anchorman and Hairspray on DVD.  Don't ask.
Nephew #4: Animal Crossing, whatever the new one is called, for Nintendo DS.
Niece #4: Pegasus Barbie doll and a set of miniature Pegasus Barbie horse figures.
Nephew #5: He's my godson, so he gets the big one — one of those remote controlled Hummers that's basically the size of a real Hummer.
Niece #5: My Little Pony Butterfly Island playset.
Niece #6: Pound Puppies electronic dog.  I dunno, it spins and walks and stuff.
Niece #7: Furby!

Because I have so many nieces and nephews, my siblings made the rule years ago that we should only get their kids presents.  One of my brothers doesn't have any, so he wins his own — an Atari Flashback 2 system, which I also own and strongly recommend, not because the Atari games have aged well, but because the thing just looks so damn cool.  Still have a few more to go, and I can't mention certain other gifts here because of PRYING MANTIS EYES, but it's a typically expensive holiday season.  This list doesn't factor in the other dozen gifts we have to get for the woman's side.

2005 Stocking Stuffer: Coal Cars! From Matchbox comes the year's coolest stocking stuffer — a package containing two lumps of plastic coal that split apart to reveal hidden Matchbox cars!  Too few companies have brought the mythology of stocking coal into the limelight.  We've had to spend the past decade living off the fumes from "Santa's Coal" bubble gum sacks, which were adequate but not nearly as able to make people love coal as these babies are.  Love 'em to death.  The split-apart coal pieces are more fun than the cars, and will double nicely as change purses for all who aren't afraid to try new things.  Best of all are all the graphics of a tricky Santa Claus on the package, winking and shushing his way into our hearts like only he can.  Good going, Matchbox.  You've learned how to rock.

This space doubles as your Saturday Night Christmas Thread.

REMINDING EDIT: Tummi's 2005 Christmas Jukebox is now active!

As a rule, I never resist holiday-themed junk food.  Even if I have no intention of ever eating it, it doesn't take more than a few crude snowflake graphics to make me a part of a foodstuff conglomerate's bottom line.  When I saw a bag of Cheetos fashioned in an uncharacteristic snowy white, it went into my wagon without hesitation or a second glance.  Actually, I did glance again, and noticed Chester Cheetah skiing like a motherfucker, which only confirmed that this was in fact some kind of special holiday release that needed to be bought, bronzed and blessed.

I continued shopping, and it wasn't until I started putting all of my crud on one of those funky conveyor belts at the checkout line did I realize just how far Chester planned to take his Christmas cheer.  Normally, holiday-themed junk food goes as far as the packaging only.  I fully expected these to be regular Cheetos in a different bag.  Then I saw it: The tongue.  That disheartening image of Chester Cheetah sticking out a green tongue.  It would be an odd graphic to include without any good reason, so I inspected further.  My findings: These were not "regular" Cheetos at all.  Nmm nmm.  These Cheetos were drenched in magic and capable of turning the tongues of all who eat them "Holiday Green!"  Hell yes.  If there weren't so many mean sweaty people waiting on line behind me, I would've gaily skipped back to Aisle 6 and picked up an extra bag.

It's not a new gimmick, unfortunately.  Cheetos came with the green-tongue powers back when people still held out hope that Revenge of the Sith was going to justify the Star Wars prequels.  It probably didn't, but at least we got Cheetos capable of turning our tongues "Yoda Green."  Better yet, other bags let kids and me turn our tongues "Vader Dark."  Going back even further, Cheetos did the same promotion for Shrek 2.  So, the Christmas version isn't exactly big news, but we're going to pretend it is for the sake of the story.

I can only guess how the magic works, but I think my guess is as good as any.  Grain-sized pebbles of hard food coloring specks are ceremoniously mixed into the big bad vats of whatever Cheetos are made with, and when moisture is added — like, from your tongue — the tiny pebbles explode into wild wet wonder, turning everything they touch a bluish green.  By dropping a few Cheetos in water and letting it sit for a bit, you're left with a terrible sight, but one that proves just how powerful Christmas wizardry can be.  The stuff makes your entire mouth area look absolutely wretched.  Kids who eat these as their post-sandwich dessert at school aren't going to win many dates or scene points.