I was really proud of the Christmas Crunch cereal tribute I wrote back in 2002, mainly because of the enormous lengths it took to procure a sealed, ancient box of the heavenly holiday cereal. At the time, I was convinced that my cereal box was among the last remaining of its kind. Of course, no more than an hour after the article went up did my inbox fill with letters from people crying foul. Evidently, owning a box of Christmas Crunch was no big deal. As it turned out, Cap'n Crunch never stopped donning the Santa cap...he just stopped doing it around where I live.

It wasn't the first time that something I'd claimed to be extinct was actually alive and well, but it was definitely one of the few times that I was happy to be wrong. Indeed, Christmas Crunch lives. It's really tough to find in NY, but I finally stumbled upon the all new 2007 edition late this evening.

Only thing is...it's not really "all new." In fact, it was just a year and a day ago that I wrote about the 2006 edition, which was nearly identical to this year's version in every way save for the box design. I guess there's no sense in tweaking once you've reached perfection.

Still, this year's box design is way different from last year's, and let's face it: Cereal box design accounts for at least 50% of the appeal. I think this year's might be the best ever. Forgoing the usual green with red trim, Cap'n Crunch has instead opted for a high class gold color. I'm having trouble deciding on which barometer would be best for rating its beauty: Stars? Thumbs up? Some number out of ten? Perhaps the proof of the prettiness lies in something more tangible: The box looked so good, I couldn't stop myself from buying two of them.

The cereal is, as usual, an amazing force that makes me believe in God. With regular Cap'n Crunch cereal bits mixed in with various red and green holiday-shaped goodies, there's been a slight modification to last year's shapes. The green "snowman" pieces have been replaced with green "ornament" pieces. Sounds like a step down, but it really isn't. The new pieces look less like ornaments and more like the traditional Crunchberries of yesteryear, which were the standard in the Christmas Crunch cereals that I grew up on more than fifteen years ago.

Quick note: Am I like 400 times bigger than I was as a child? I don't remember the yellow, barrel-shaped Cap'n Crunch pieces being so tiny. They're practically tooth-sized now.

As I've written about before, cereal mascots have taken a real hit in light of the scarily nicknamed "obesity epidemic" currently panicking our fair nation. Since Cap'n Crunch is so synonymous with the cereal he promotes, I can't help but worry that both he and his cereal-of-choice are on borrowed time. That's so fucked. This is a guy who has given the world a Christmas-themed cereal annually for nearly twenty years. If there are villains in this world in need of annihilation, I just can't believe that they include someone who did something as wonderful as that.

Cereal boxbacks are really important pieces of reading material, as they are the generally the focus of any cereal-eater's attention while he or she is...well, eating cereal. And boy, this boxback is freakin' fantastic. It's just a big, jumbled, joyous mess of holiday insanity, with everything from a maze to a matching game to a find-and-seek activity and beyond. There's even a cut-out ornament, and a damned coupon for Christmas cartoon DVDs. I didn't set an egg timer to see how long it took me to soak it all in, but I'll tell you this: I definitely could've eaten a bowl of cereal faster, and that's all that counts.

A+ for 2007's Christmas Crunch. I've been almost too busy to just kick back and enjoy my favorite time of year, but stuff like this helps. Heck, just having the box in my line of sight makes me feel like I'm celebrating something or another.

And now, a few quick and totally unrelated notes!

1) Did you know that the X-E Blog has an RSS feed? Neither did I, but it does! Use it if you're into that sort of thing.

2) Shameless reminder: If you're buying anything from Amazon this season, please do so through this link, so I can swipe a little referral fee. This helps me buy and write about stupid shit without having to feel guilty.

3) I kind of want to do another one of those big "party threads," like we did for Friday the 13th a while back. Maybe this Saturday night? Any interest? Anyone willing to scour the TV listings for a good background show/movie/special we can all watch and comment on together? I know this sounds incredibly lame, but I figure, if you're going to be a shut-in, you may as well put it to good use, y'know?

Posted by Matt on 12/04/2007. E-mail me!