Christmas 2012

Christmas Eve was the usual unbridled insanity, but for once, we didn’t need to be anywhere on Christmas Day. I’m going to spend the afternoon taped to the couch, subsisting on cold leftovers and endless airings of A Christmas Story. Just the way it ought to be. I hope you’re having

I have to imagine that this will be my last big purchase of the Christmas season. I’m going out with a pink bang: It’s a light-up flamingo in a Santa hat, and it pairs oh so nicely with that stupid dinosaur. This is its story, in around five minutes: The people behind this flamingo app

This morning, I dived deep into my collection of ancient recipe books, looking for the kind of snack ideas that no book published after 1975 would dare include. After choosing my “subjects,” it was time to gather the ingredients. Good God, I spent a fortune. I’m not sure what happene

Meet Kitten. She often tries to kill me, but when she likes me, she really likes me. Kitten has made good days better and horrible days livable. She’s a great cat. All cats are great. Even the terrible ones. They’re smart, they’re funny, and if you howl at just the right pitch, they�

I had no reason to buy this. I own lots of martini glasses and several cocktail shakers, so $9 was a lot to pay for stale crackers. Maybe I fell prey to the same thing I always fall prey to during the last week before Christmas: That sick feeling that the world will turn black

The Panettone Cake Monster.

I wouldn’t normally post two videos so close together, but I think the combination of the background music and my trademark five-minute pauses make this one especially suitable for late night weekend viewing. Behold, top-drawer thingamajigs from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation: P

Yes – more Christmas Crunch content! Don’t complain. I have a good reason: This is a sealed box of 1991 Christmas Crunch, with a SURPRISE GIFT BOX glued to the top. What treasures will we find inside? It will only take nine minutes to find out: After filming, I was left with a box

A post like this needs no introduction. You know what you’re in for. But I still feel compelled to write one. That wretched header image will seem excessive without a small army of paragraphs beneath it. So, I’ll use this space to share my feelings about pomegranates. In summary: I lov

You might think that I’ve exhausted the well of Christmas Crunch posts, but nuh uh. I may have written about that cereal fifty times, but I never told you about the time it came with cake frosting. This super special version of Christmas Crunch came out in 1995, and if not for Coolio, wo

Wow, what a handsome header image that is. “He worked really hard, Grandma.” If you read me back on X-E, you know all about this Christmas fair. The one with the “basket raffles.” I’ve gone to this church-hosted Christmas fair every year for as long as I can remember. It can be a

Cheap perfumes, beef logs and s’mores kits. Every December, the cavalcade of crappy gift sets comes back out of hiding, charming the great many of us who refuse to put real work into locating decent Christmas presents. They’re considered “bad” presents almost by default, no matter

I made this. I made this using nothing but glue, a hunk of Styrofoam and a $5 “craft value pack” from Michaels. What should I name him?

Christmas Crunch may be the most known “holiday edition cereal,” but friends, there are OTHERS. Or at least, there were others. While Cap’n Crunch surfed the red-and-green wave to obscene heights of glory, other cereals tried to do the same. Post’s Pebbles cereals and General M

Thank you, Home Depot. Thank you for selling an animated holiday Tyrannosaur. One devil medallion and a cut-up t-shirt later, and I’m now the proud owner of a 42” Dinosaur Dracula, Christmas edition. Life is weird, and good. Mad, hysterical love to the few of you who tipped me off. And

It was Christmas Day, 1986. Maybe ’87. Let’s say ’87. Thank God for my friend across the street. As mentioned before, my family celebrates on Christmas Eve and celebrates it hard. Christmas Day was never much of anything in our house, and in some ways, it was actually dep

Along with one or two returning holiday flavors, Kellogg’s has blessed us with all-new Frosted Marshmallow Hot Chocolate Pop-Tarts, thereby increasing their streak of Pop-Tarts flavors with extremely long names to an impressive 267. Okay, so they’re not as “showy” as Kellogg’s pr

One nice thing about my current workload is the chance to see Times Square at its Christmassy finest. There are lights, trees and blaring Christmas music at every turn, and I’m always reminding myself to stop, look around and soak it all in. And then, when I do, someone bumps into me and

Longtime readers know that I’m a huge fan of the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special, from 1985. (Officially titled He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special, but that shit’s clunky.) I watched it on that long ago December night with my older brother, and to this day, we still quo

When you hear “Fruity Pebbles” and “Christmas” mentioned together, it’s usually in reference to that classic commercial – the one where no less than Santa himself persuaded Fred to give Barney cereal. But Post’s Pebbles brands did more Christmasing than that! Look no further

HEY: There’s a new feature up, highlighting fifteen treasures from the 1998 Sears Wish Book! Another busy week lies ahead, but if the rumors are true, Dino Drac should be kicking the holidays into high gear by the end of it. I hope so, bruddah. You complete me. Here’s another attem

It’s 10:55. If I don’t want to be a raving lunatic tomorrow, I have exactly one hour to get this post written, edited and published. Gonna have to rush. I’ll do my breast to avoid mistakes. In tonight’s Holiday Hodgepodge: Five Christmassy things, just in time for Thanksgiving! #1:

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 Dec

Pringles. A brand of ultrathin potato crisps, sold in canisters that convert nicely into coin banks. All of you already knew this. According to the ad slogan, “once you pop, the fun don’t stop.” Until recently, that was probably true. Even the worst Pringles flavor was still pretty

There’s a big new feature up, covering fifteen treasures from the 1992 Sears Wish Book! Golden Ninja Turtles! Crayon-shaped fish tanks! Clarinets! And more! GO READ IT NOW! This post only exists to draw attention to the Wish Book feature, but you know how I hate to waste space. So, take