How is today Thursday? I'm being serious. I know it was Tuesday when I went to bed last night. I am completely and totally convinced that Wednesday was stolen from me. I really needed Wednesday this week, too.

The only possible explanation for this is the "missing time" phenomenon most closely associated with alien abduction, but I don't feel particularly uneasy or violated. I'm at a loss, but if it turns out that one of you is responsible, you will find out the hard way that I am a ninja.

After realizing that the ease of online Christmas shopping has robbed me of a single visit to a Toys "R" Us store this month, I decided to remedy that situation this morning. Christmas ain't Christmas without random toy store runs.

To accommodate the influx of holiday shoppers, they created a really weird, roped-off winding maze toward the registers. It was so ridiculous. They had eighty-seven registers open, and yet they still felt the need to create this foreign queue system where some girl in a Santa cap tells you when you're allowed to push your wagon closer. Meanwhile, the cashiers with empty lines were screaming for this Santa-capped girl to send people over to them, but she can't hear anything because she's too caught up in performing wagon traffic control.

The people waiting on line were nearing a riot, but honestly, that's pretty much why I went to the store to begin with. Navigating through packed aisles...pretending my wagon is the Spy Hunter car as I attempt to beat some slow sap to the stupid price check device...trying not to laugh when people accidentally knock over piles of boxed toys...ahhhh. It's nuts, but it's a staple of the season.

Picked up a couple of choice items while there, including this amazing candy-filled mesh stocking. I can't complain since it was almost the cheapest thing in the entire store, but I feel it's my duty to remind everyone that these cheapo candy stockings cannot pass as anyone's "real" Christmas stocking. If you've got a kid and your kid's counting on a stocking...this won't work. It's fine as a side dish, and it also works well for purely decorative purposes. Despite the generic, dollar store-esque appearance, the overall package is pretty festive.

Two bucks buys you a handful of name-brand gum and candy, along with a handful of not-so-name-brand Christmas taffy. Actually, there's way more Christmas taffy in the sock than anything else, which would be okay if the taffy wasn't so rock hard that only a mythical creature made entirely of stone could eat it safely.

It took me around twenty minutes to chew a single piece down, and I was surprised to find that different portions of the taffy seemed to have different flavors. Some parts were sour, some were sweet...others had no flavor at all. It's like Santa made a soup from the waste materials of more popular candies and capped it off with a bucket of red food dye. Which is pretty awesome when you think about it. If Santa was a vintage Indian, he totally would've figured out how to make use of the buffalo's tail.

Less generic and far more noteworthy is a new (?) collection of tree ornaments from Hasbro, fashioned after a number of the toy giant's most popular playthings. How did I never see these before? I must assume that they just debuted yesterday afternoon, and since Wednesday was stolen from me by aliens, I'm only hearing about them now.

The assortment is incredible, with ornaments based on everything from Mr. Potato Head to Play-Doh. Since I caught them so late in the season, all of the really good ones were already sold out. Fortunately, even the less-amazing kinds were still well worth whatever ridiculously bloated price Toys 'R' Us was hawking them for.

I picked up two, starting with this "Operation" ornament, featuring a pair of reindeer challenging each other to pluck rubber bands and plastic butterflies from their cardboard patient's doughy body without setting off the fire alarm. When you put it like that, Operation sounds really fucked up.

What's even more fucked up is how one of the reindeer is absolutely cracking up over his opponent's apparent lack of skill. It's hard enough to keep that nose from buzzing when you're silently concentrating, but when you've got a reindeer doing comedy tumblesaults three feet away, it just isn't possible. I wrote this paragraph because it is my personal belief that all Christmas ornaments should have little stories written about them. Did you hear the one about the red glass ball and the Mormon bishop?

Story time: One year, my sister bought me Operation for Christmas. It remained under the tree for weeks before the big day, and of course, I spent many nights inspecting the neatly wrapped box, hoping for a clue. Finally, I got frustrated and made what was intended to be a small slit in the wrapping paper, but turned out to be a giant rip. She spotted the rip, and as punishment, I didn't get Operation for Christmas. My sister sucks.

As much as reindeer playing board games warms my soul, I think I like this "Monopoly" ornament even better. The former coal train has been liberally stuffed with around 400 silver Monopoly player pieces, which is interesting when you consider that there's been no more than twenty Monopoly player pieces in the history of the game. Indeed, Christmas is a time for magic.

I thought I'd have more to say about a Monopoly-themed tree ornament, but I don't, and now that I look over this entry, it seems that I've written enough already anyway. I can't believe how many words are up there. So many WORDS! This is obviously due to my new keyboard. It's so much easier to type when every button isn't serving as a shelter for a year's worth of cigarette ashes and sunflower seed shells.

Quick note: If you were one of the very generous people who sent me something this year, could you please e-mail me? I've gotten a couple of things without names included. Don't you want your emoticon-riddled thank-you e-mails?

Survey: Describe your best Christmas decoration. I don't think we've done this one before. It could be something that just looks cool, or it could be something that has sentimental value. Since I'm not in a position to monetize your responses, I can be flexible.

Posted by Matt on 12/13/2007. E-mail me!