Christmas was good! Long and tiring, but good! I feel like I haven't stopped moving for two days, and I'm very much looking forward to a few days of absolute nothingness as I lay all slug-like on the couch, covered in new blankets, new books and new toys.
Wait, shit -- I still have to finish the Advent Calendar. Don't worry, I will. 
We spent Christmas Eve at my sister's, and the basic goal was to polish off the 457 bottles of cheap sake I picked up on the way there. Mission accomplished. Thank God sake isn't really a "hangover" alcohol. Christmas Day was spent here with the woman's family, and all went swell. Since I privately loathe turkey, we made two whole chickens instead. They came pre-seasoned in Jiffy Pop-style bags, which expanded into big balloons while in the oven. This visual didn't make for the classiest Christmas, but it got the job done.
Two signs of a successful holiday: One, I managed to watch A Christmas Story at least three full times during the TBS marathon. Two, I avoided that depressing moment when all of the temporarily-yuletide radio stations switched back to normal pop songs at the stroke of midnight on 12/26.
Before I dive back into the land of Lipton and coconut crabs (admittedly, this won't occur until I accomplish the aforementioned couch-slug playtime), it's time for X-E's annual Christmas Fallout Thread!
You know the drill: It's time to compare our loot! In the comments, tell everyone what you got for Christmas. It's the only time of year that we can be shameless in our materialism, and don't let the few lousy krauts who cry against excess tell you otherwise. If Christmas is a chance for everyone to be seven-years-old, take joy in knowing that few seven-year-olds care about anything other than what's in their lap.
This year's haul was fantastic. If I had to hole up in a fallout shelter for a few months with nothing but this year's Christmas gifts, I'd starve to death, but I definitely wouldn't be bored. Here are some of the highlights:
Okay, how amazing are these? Your eyes don't deceive you: They are X-E Advent Calendar coffee mugs. Holy shit. These are from my sister, and since I'm quite sure that she hasn't been secretly reading the Advent Calendar every morning, this gift took some serious thought. I now have a new favorite coffee mug. (Actually, I have two.) My Archie McPhee and nWo Wolfpac mugs will now be retired. They had a good run.
DVDs! I guess I don't need to list them since they're all perfectly visible in the photo, but suffice to say, if nobody hears from me for the next week, don't buy it if I cite "the flu" or some other such bullshit. The truth is, I'll be watching Unsolved Mysteries or Friday the 13th: The Series. (PS: That Area 51 Alien Interview thing is so incredibly awesome/horrible that I may need to devote an actual full-length article to its awesomeness/horribleness. Stay tuned.)
I love that watch. I only ever wear jeans and black shirts (any forcible deviation to this makes me bitch like an infant), so color-by-accessories is important. I just like simple, dark clothes -- I'm not trying to tell the world that I'm moody. Nobody will think I'm moody (or worse, attempting to look moody) when I've got this time-telling acid trip strapped around my wrist. The fact that the watch is officially titled "SHARK" just makes it all the more awesome.
Pictured right: A plush Alien Chestburster. What more needs to be said? The neat thing is, I got a plushie Facehugger last year, so now I have all the tools necessary to make both ends of my couch appear deadly.
For the past few years, my family has included an "elephant swap" as part of our Christmas Eve festivities. Is that the right term? "Elephant swap?"
Basically, everyone buys a gift valued between $25-$40, and we all draw numbers out of a hat to determine the order by which the gifts will be chosen. As the game continues, players can choose to open one of the still-wrapped gifts, or they can steal one of the presents someone else already picked.
I feel like I'm not explaining this correctly, but the bottom line is that I went home with some kind of fucked up straw porcupine doll by way of this game. YES. (The Corona gift set came with him, but who cares about beer when you have straw porcupines?)
I love straw porcupines!
Vodka, tequila and a four-pack of dirty martini mix. Longtime readers know of my love for the dirty martini, and I've even tried to get a few of you to try them out individually. Though the original dirty martinis were made with brine straight out of the olive jar, the mixes are infinitely better. If you're ever going to try one, you *have* to get an actual mix first. Trust me. (And I've tried lots of mixes -- "Dirty Sue" is my runaway favorite.)
For some unknown reason, I've only ever bought myself one bottle of dirty mix at a time. This meant that I could never be as liberal with my pours as I wanted to be. Now that I have four full bottles, I'm free to make the saltiest martini in the history of civilization. And I will, soon enough.
Books! I got a ton of 'em. Ten are pictured above, and there's at least another ten that I didn't bother to take photos of. Pretty much all of my primary interests are covered, from sea monsters to ancient Romans to retired pro-wrestlers and beyond. If you're curious about what any of the books shown above actually are, feel free to ask in the comments. If you're not, you are a big stupid head. They're great books.
Some of the books I didn't include in the photo spread are just as great. I may edit this post later with additional pictures, for posterity's sake. I don't want to thumb through a dinosaur book two years from now and have no way of knowing exactly where it came from.
Wii stuff! Got Wii Fit and Endless Ocean. I really don't know much about Wii Fit, but from reading blog posts across the web, it seemed like it was worth having. I'm not sure if I can see myself standing on one leg in the middle of my living room just because some virtual yoga instructor tells me to, but I guess stranger things have happened.
And Endless Ocean? Come on, that's amazing. I can't believe it's taken me so long to get it. (If any of you own or have played either of these games, I'd love to hear your thoughts before I crack 'em open.)
Also pictured: A nice little Megatron bust, a four-pack of hot sauces (not hot like Tabasco -- hot like fire) and a weird sack marked "Mystery Grab Bag." I have not opened this "Mystery Grab Bag" and I have absolutely no idea what's in there. It seems like it'll make for a good blog entry on a rainy day.
Okay, so every year, my brother gets me wild Tiki-related items. If I had it my way, our entire apartment would look like the Bamboo Lounge from Goodfellas. You may remember a certain 60" Tiki god statue in the background of several photos over the past few months. That was his gift to me last year. This time, it's a pair of ridiculous Tiki lamps, which arrived in boxes that were four times larger than they needed to be, kept in place with loose hay. It was just like the leg lamp "fragile" crate, only not really.
Also pictured: A Tiki tissue dispenser and a lava lamp. Everyone needs a Tiki tissue dispenser. The lava lamp is about five times more awesome than I was anticipating, as it's one of those older style huge ones -- not the medium-sized lamps that you'd find at any old department store. Love it.
Ugh -- I'm just now realizing that a few of my other gifts really deserve photo-archiving, so I'm definitely going to be editing this post in a little while. For now, let's get the ball rolling: What did you get this year? (And feel free to talk about how you spent Christmas in general, too!)
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Posted by Matt on 12/26/2008. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
Elephant swap is the worst God damn invention in mankind’s history. It’s not an easy thing to make a gift exchange unpleasant, but elephant swap manages to do it. Who wants to go to a gift exchange where you spend the whole time worrying that somebody is going to steal a gift you really want?
Maybe I’m biased. My first experience with elephant swap, there weren’t any restrictions on what gifts were acceptable. Long story short, someone walked away with a DVD player (this was in 2000 when they were expensive), another walked away with a barbecue tool set, I went home with a power strip. I never had anything great stolen from me, but certainly better things were almost mine than a power strip. I was so pissed off.