Dino Drac’s Countdown to Xmas!
Welcome to Dino Drac’s Countdown to Christmas! This feature will be updated daily (or close to daily) through December 25th, with some kind of holiday-related thingamajig. You never know what might turn up!
This one’s really for the old schoolers who prefer blogs to algorithmic timelines full of ads for dicey hair products. I won’t be plugging it often off-site. If this is up your alley, remember to check back often! (And visit After Dark and the Xmas Jukebox, too!)
11/22: Consumers Catalog Page! (1991)
‘Tis the season for old department store catalogs! From the Sears Wish Book to JCPenney’s equally-thick slabs, they’ve been a part of my holiday tradition for as long as I’ve been alive.
As a child, some of my favorite Christmassy catalogs came from Consumers Distributing, a high-concept chain that worked more like a restaurant than, say, a Target. You’d go in, fill out order forms, and then wait twenty minutes for someone to tell you that nothing you wanted was in stock. But that’s neither here nor there. Their catalogs were fantastic.
This page from their 1991 catalog seemed particularly share-worthy. I haven’t mentioned Bucky O’Hare often, but I collected the hell out of those action figures, in part because they were scaled to seamlessly mingle with all of my Ninja Turtles.
Swamp Thing was another big one… not so much out of any special reverence for the character, but because Kay-Bee Toys almost always had the toys on clearance. Often enough, getting two figures from something you kinda liked was better than getting one from something you loved.
And wait, what’s that? OOZERS?! Well, I’ll be! That means this catalog was actually from Canada, where Consumers had a much bigger presence. The Oozers collection was never available in the States, and the figures now fetch insanely high prices. (You may remember one turning up during the Mausoleum of Madness.)
This won’t be the last time a Christmas catalog turns up here, so if you’re into that sort of thing, hang tight. For now, I hope this helped you remember the era when circling toys in 500-page retail tomes was our quickest avenue to pure bliss.
11/21: Rice Krispies Merry Treats! (1970s)
This magazine ad from the ‘70s just makes me happy, and I hope it does the same for you. It might not, of course, given that I posted it on Facebook earlier, and it performed so badly that I quietly deleted it. That’s why it’s good to have my own site, where I’m free to be Martha Stewart without shame.
Doing Christmassy stuff with Rice Krispies Treats is still a thing today, even if some of these ideas are uniquely ‘70s. I’m particularly drawn to that weird nest filled with an obscene amount of green pudding. It looks like something out of Troll 2.
I appreciate how they didn’t get too pro-looking with the decorative touches. I feel like I could actually make these, you know? Hell, I bet I could do an even better job frosting that duck wing. Tbh, most people could.
11/20: McD’s Reindeer Ornaments! (1985)
McDonald’s ran many great holiday promos in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and while most have been covered to death in the online nostalgia circuit, I feel like nobody ever talks about these adorable reindeer!
Back in 1985, you could get a plush reindeer ornament based on Santa Claus: The Movie, free with a book of McDonald’s gift certificates. That was the chain’s usual “catch” with their various plushie ornaments, which were really too good to shove in Happy Meal boxes… but totally worth the expense if McD’s got you to blow money on coupons that most people never redeemed, anyway.
Nobody should be surprised by this team-up, since Santa Claus: The Movie featured some of the most egregious McD’s product placement this side of Mac & Me. Hell, this wasn’t even their only promotion tied to the film. McDonald’s also did a traditional Happy Meal, with little storybooks as the prizes.
The reindeer ornaments are ridiculously cute, and on the collectors’ market, they’re no more expensive than what you’d pay for a similar doll made in 2025. (Faint praise, I know.) And it’s not like you have to be some big fan of the movie to want one. They’re just reindeer! Nobody’s gonna tie them to Dudley Moore if you don’t tell them! Read More…