Christmas Crunch is back!

Before I gush about cereal, a quick note.

I’m on a gig right now, which started small but has grown into something unfathomably huge. In many ways, that is good, but it hasn’t left me with much time to write about nonsense on the Internet. I originally thought we’d be wrapping in December, and we still might, but it may turn out to be December 2018.

So, this will likely be a “lite” Christmas season on Dino Drac. We’ll see how it goes. If push comes to shove, I can just start wearing old Ben Cooper costumes to work until someone fires me.

PS: Yes, I heard about Hostess. We’ll talk about that another day. I already promised this one to Cap’n Crunch.

Christmas Crunch is back! It’s amazing that Quaker still hasn’t succumbed to social pressure and renamed it “Holiday Crunch,” and I’m certain that the only thing keeping them from it is the incredible alliteration in the original title. “Christmas Crunch.” Two c-words that can be spoken aloud as dramatic k-words. If you have a brain, you don’t mess with that.

This year’s box design isn’t a knockout, but it ain’t half bad, either.

Some people believe that “Christmas red” is an umbrella title for several different shades of red, BUT NO, “Christmas red” really refers to one specific type of red. And this box is THAT RED. A sweet spot between brick, vermillion and cranberry. Kudos, mon capitan. You did chicken right.

Love Cap’n Crunch’s casual “yup yup me again” pose at the top of the box, too.

Regrettably, I’m not as fond of the artist’s decision to draw the innards of Cap’n Crunch’s mouth. In this case, I’d prefer that Cap’n Crunch adhere to the standard cartoon rule of having nothing in there but a big black hole.

Ending on a positive, there’s also a gift box filled with nothing but cereal, addressed to someone named “Holiday Shapes.” Truly the start-point for a great novel. Don’t any of you NaNoWriMo fuckers take my idea.

Cap’n Crunch alleges that his Crunchberries come in “four shapes.” True, there may be four shapes, but you can only decipher two of them. The trees and the stars look as they should, but to call the other shapes “snowmen” and “winter hats” goes straight past “a stretch” and into “untruth punishable by law” territory.

But I forgive Cap’n Crunch, because I never got so many Crunchberries in a single box of cereal before. Good God, if judging by sheer mass, the Crunch-to-Crunchberries ratio is pretty close to 1:1. A Christmas miracle, right in my severely chipped cereal bowl.

The back of the box lists several Christmas Crunch crafts projects. (A burgeoning market of intrigue.) The best of them tells us to make a not-really-gingerbread house out of cereal and graham crackers.

My time is short, but only a fool wouldn’t make that Priority 1.

Granted, mine is less of a “house” and more of a “bunker.”  Look a bit like Fred Flintstone’s pad, assuming it rains cupcake frosting and giant cereal in Bedrock.

I decided that this would be Krang’s secret holiday hideaway. Strong emphasis on the “secret,” because Krang definitely wouldn’t want his troops to learn that he’s gaga for Christmas. “Ruling by fear” is much harder when everyone knows that you listen to Wham.

Psst, I found my Christmas Crunch in Walmart. No pressure, but if you consider yourself a “holiday guy” or a “holiday girl,” you kind of have to buy this cereal. To skip it is a sacrilege. Drop the three bucks, people. It’s Christmas.

(Well, no. It’s barely Thanksgiving. But still.)