I'm coming up on some vacation time, which is good, because I've stockpiled enough special holiday edition pieces of crap to keep me writing until Independence Day. It's been a pretty good year for that sort of thing. When I go buy coffee, it's holiday-themed. When the mail comes, the stamps have pictures of Santa Claus on them. When I want a box of Triscuits, I try to peel a big red bow off the box only to realize that it's actually just a graphic imprint. So, so awesome. I love Christmas and I'm really looking forward to having some time to enjoy it.

I was surprised to find these new Celestial Seasonings holiday teas, not because it's so hard to imagine holiday-themed tea, but because I found them at the bottom of a soda freezer in the drug store. The new flavors, "Candy Cane Lane" and "Gingerbread Spice," come in ridiculously festive boxes that have me pining for Christmas dinner at Grandma's even though she's dead and we never actually had Christmas dinner there. It's just that kind of packaging, and that's a good thing, because the teas themselves aren't exactly getting me amped to doodle little award certificates for them.

"Candy Cane Lane" is the leader of the batch. It's decaf green tea, but they somehow managed to give it an unmistakable candy cane scent that just about totally dies as soon as it hits hot water. Pity. "Gingerbread Spice," well, I don't know. I like the idea of gingerbread, but I've never actually eaten a gingerbread cookie under anything less than at-gunpoint duress. I could just be a biased motherfucker, but this stuff smells and tastes like what one would imagine a scratch 'n sniff sticker based on a mushroom to smell and taste like.

But hey, it's not like I bought them to drink. They're for me to set out on the table along with a pot of coffee when friends drop over. Nobody will go for the tea, but they'll appreciate its presence and remember that when it's time to make a decision about jumping from a $40 level to a $50 level on my Christmas present.

The Advent Calendar has been updated for December 6th.

HOLIDAY EDIT! My friend Tummi, of behind-the-scenes fix this fix that magic, has once again lent credence to his claim that I should call him DJ Tummi by revising, revamping and revitalizing X-E's Christmas Jukebox! It's the biggest one yet -- over 100 songs! Tummi chose the tracks meticulously and refused to let me add random crap from party CDs bought at K-Mart; for every bad rendition of "Silver Bells" he vetoed, another weird ass awesome cut went in. This year's a great mix of classics, pop favorites, cartoony wonders and totally bizarre but nonetheless hummable tunes. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend the next hour rocking out and wasting my own bandwidth. Thanks, Tummi!

Posted by Matt on 12/06/2006. E-mail me!