I wanted to post this earlier, but today's Advent Calendar entry took forever to finish. Still, it's never too late for a...

We got a custom logo for it and everything. You know the shit's on. It occurs to me that it's already December 8th, leaving just over two weeks before the decorations become passe and Target stops mixing snowflake graphics in with their typical bullseye montages. People say that time seems to move more quickly as we grow older. I'd like to find these people, shake their hands and congratulate them on being absolutely correct even though there's no logical explanation for it. (Of course, there probably is, and I'm sure someone will point me to the scientific study that shows why. I won't shake their hand, though. You don't give handshakes to people who tell you you're wrong.)

Too often, we're too caught up in our own bullshit to stop and smell the temporary scents that make this season so special. I am guilty of this. I'm surrounded by disarray: Boxes of decorations I've yet to put up, bags of Christmas presents I haven't wrapped or even just stored away in a closet so I can avoid tripping over them...heck, I haven't even snagged a single Coke in one of those fancy glass bottles this year, despite knowing that the Christmas season cannot officially begin until I do. This is a reminder, to me and to you: January sucks, so don't waste December.

Tonight's Super Christmas SNT is a chance for everyone to make a little something of a nothing night. Next week, let's challenge ourselves to live the season, not by typing about it or reading about it or watching it on television, but by...

...well, I'm not sure what we should all do. I'd tell everyone to go find their nearest live manger, but really, can watching a goat chew hay around a Jesus statue kill a whole night? If we consider it a case study, perhaps it won't seem so arduous.

On with the show! First up for the Super Christmas SNT, I've got two really lousy and boring old Christmas commercials for your viewing pleasure. The videos you're about to download have much in common. They both aired in 1991, they both share a Christmas thematic, and both videos are almost too grainy to tell what is happening in them.

First up, Crystal Eggnog! I would've found this ad repulsive in '91, as I didn't develop my taste for eggnog until...I don't know...like two weeks ago. According to the commercial, Crystal Eggnog is infinitely superior to its competing brands, which are represented in the commercial by a lone, white carton marked with "BRAND X" text. They exaggerate, but as they've now gone and reminded me of that awesome scene in Batman where the Joker cut into every channel's TV broadcast, I'll give them a pass.

Next, a fifteen-second spot for York Peppermint Patties, which were made available in red and green to celebrate the holiday season. I'm not sure if they were referring to the packaging or the cool, minty stuff inside the chocolate candy shells. Had Mr. York already developed red and green minty stuff by 1991? My memory fails, but that seems more like a 21st century-level achievement.

I've kind of hit a point where I don't need to shop for new Christmas decorations. We have enough of them. According to most, we have too many of them. Still, there's no conceivable way for any sane human being to turn down a Christmas decoration as sense-assaulting as this.

Remember that awesome "Vader building a Death Star" snowglobe I wrote about last year? Well, Darth has returned for the 2007 season with an all-new sphere of godliness, and it's almost as cool as last year's! Disregarding the almighty sight of Darth Vader in a Santa hat, the real treat in this new version is Santa Vader's "naughty or nice" list. Composed of various characters from Star Wars lore, Vader has successfully marked all of the hero characters as "naughty," leaving only Emperor Palpatine, Governor Tarkin and other villains behind to reap the rewards of Christmas.

Most impressive (I didn't mean the pun, really) is how thorough the list is. Palpatine and Tarkin...that's one thing, but this list has characters as vague as Zuckuss and General Veers! That I own a Christmas decoration with even a tiny connection to General Veers is something I will remind myself of the next time life deals me a shitty hand. I mean, this is just incredible.

There's more!

From Fisher-Price, here's another stocking stuffer meant for small children that I found no shame in buying for myself. The tiny-sized, Christmas-colored "Doodle Pro" packs the same wallop as the larger, non-Christmassy versions. If you've never played with a Doodle Pro, it's like an Etch-A-Sketch minus the sense of accomplishment.

With a pen and a clear canvas, it's pretty easy to forge art with this thing. Perhaps too easy. Whenever I was able to churn out even a single recognizable object with an Etch-A-Sketch, it was cause for celebration. I practically felt like I could fly. That aspect is missing here, but on the other hand, it's nice to knock out a square or a rectangle in less than four hours.

Finally, we have Reese's Peanut Butter Trees, which replace the standard cups with you-know-whats, all in the name of Santa. I'm not digging through the blog archives to figure out when I first mentioned this, but fun-shaped Reese's cups are a good idea in theory alone. Without the glorious feeling of jagged, corrugated cardboard striking your gums as you munch along the edges, something doesn't feel right. I think Mr. Reese knew this; why else would he be trying to compensate with double-sized Peanut Butter Trees?

Indeed, it's a massive beast. Here's a photo of one of them, along with a battery for scale. That battery died when I was halfway done taking pictures for this entry. As I'm quite late in posting this, I'm sure you could imagine what my reaction to this development was. It seems silly to take the Lord's name in vain over something as trivial as a dead battery, but Jesus Christ, I'd been through enough.

Tonight's Super Christmas SNT is on, and it's got a survey attached! In the comments, talk about your random Christmas/holiday memories. We've done this one before. I'm not talking about the time someone saved your life on Christmas Eve, or anything that epic or life-changing. I'm talking about little things. Random, special little things that didn't seem like much at the time, but have nonetheless remained with through the years. Stuff that happened both up to and on Christmas is applicable. I've got a few, but I'll save them for the thread.

Posted by Matt on 12/08/2007. E-mail me!