I have but one goal: To keep posting entries until all of the Halloween-related articles are pushed off the blog's main page. I'm all for dichotomy because it's just such a fun word to type, but I cannot resonate Christmas decorations up north and Candy Corn Corn Pops down south. This has to change, so I will try to post once a day until the blog looks like a Macy's window. Then, I will retire.
If you haven't noticed, the holiday season is here. No, it really is. November and December have merged into a festive, singular entity, largely on account of fashionably early retailers and the fact that scratch-off games are already being sold under such banners as "Father Christmas Fortunes" and "Reindeer Win Money." I don't completely understand "Reindeer Win Money," but I've never been much use in spotting puns.
It's been extremely busy at work this month, so I haven't had a chance to really feel the season just yet. I'm not complaining: This has kept me from blowing my wad early by pretending that Santa visits on November 25th. The good news is, I've almost completely cleared my schedule for the entire month of December, which will leave plenty of time for Advent Calendars, tributes to nut-crusted holiday cheese balls, and of course, scribblings about all of the wacky shit I pick up from department stores on Friday nights. It's how all hot-blooded males spend their weekends. Here's the first of many finds:
Okay, one thing: This isn't what I want the site's holiday coverage to be about. Not exclusively. I may need all the help I can get to survive Halloween for two months, but Christmas? I can think of plenty more to say than, "I went to the store and this is what I found." Christmas deserves more than that. I'm going to be totally hypocritical and write about my store pillages a thousand times between now and New Year's, but if you catch me doing nothing but that, please e-mail me and tell me to stop. Use "no more being a cocksucker" as the subject header.
Regardless, there's no way to avoid covering a bunch of Star Wars figures in Santa caps. From Hasbro's Galactic Heroes series (which I've championed many times), it's the Galactic Heroes Stocking Stuffers collection! Four four-packs of kiddified Star Wars figures, dressed for the holidays!
Vertically-inclined plastic tube packages are a real nightmare to take good pictures of, but these look great in person, seamlessly blending a Death Star motif with tree ornament icons. As Star Wars toys have grown so numerous and broad in scope that there's no real way to argue what is and isn't true to the brand, I take no issue with a two-inch Yoda who wields a giant candy cane lightsaber. If you land someplace awesome, it doesn't matter if you jump the shark.
With characters from both the original and prequel trilogies, you're privy to everyone from Santa Vader to Wreathy Han to Candy Cane Anakin. Smartly, Hasbro has configured things so that each of the four-packs includes at least one figure that no Star Wars fan can live without. I wasn't gunning to purchase all of the sets, but since this was the only way to get the Boba Fett with the lights stranded around his blaster and the Chewbacca holding the miniature Christmas tree, I ran short on choice.
I wish that a capable, trustworthy research company would conduct a national poll as to whether people still use Christmas stockings for more than simple decorative purposes. Are people still finding little presents in them on Christmas morning? It drives me crazy to think that some people aren't. Stocking stuffers aren't intended to be the "big" gifts, but the thought of finding cool shit tucked inside wall-tacked socks is one of the many surreal glories that people tend to take for granted during the holidays. Hasbro went through a world of trouble to create toy packaging that would look soooo perfect protruding ever so slightly beyond the white trim of a Christmas stocking, and it'd be a real shame to waste that. Wasting that should be penable by imprisonment.
As for the figures, you might be concerned that Star Wars characters dressed in wreaths and gift boxes have a limited appeal. Like sex with a regrettable partner, once Christmas is over, you really don't want to look at it anymore. No fear, my friends...
All of the figures' holiday touches are totally removable! They're mere accessories! Not only did this help Hasbro avoid the cost of creating entirely new figure molds, but it's also given us carte blanche to make the toys serve as perennial cubicle adornments. The candy cane lightsabers, for example, are revealed as mere candy cane lightsaber sheaths. I'd say that there's far more play value involved with candy cane lightsaber sheaths than the idea of Luke and Vader trying to cut each other's hands off with giant candy canes. But if you ask me in an hour, I might take that back.
For my first red-and-green purchase of the 2008 season, I could've done a lot worse. Thank god the cashier at Target rang up the Hickory Farms Summer Sausage last.
There is so, so, so much more to come during X-E's '08 Christmas season. Turkey fans will be pleased to know that there will be some Thanksgiving-related chicanery going on as well. Going to spend the weekend eating grapes and doing the full design conversion, so enjoy your SNT.
Posted by Matt on 11/15/2008. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
Terrifying yet exciting! 
Does anyone else find the snowman on the RSS feed image on the Updates page just…well, freakin’ creepy?! That thing is seriously going to come alive, smash a head open and toothlessly gum-gnaw on brains.