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.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!