Christmas 2013

Hooray, I can finally dust off one of my favorite topics: Classic Christmas Commercials! If you missed Volume 1 and Volume 2, this series of posts includes ancient holiday-themed TV ads. Christmas commercials were such a big part of the festivities back then, and if you’ve ever felt tha

If you’re smart, you’ll watch Jingle All the Way at least once before Christmas. Arnold Schwarzenegger battling Sinbad for 1996’s hottest toy, all so he could make little Anakin Skywalker think he was a good dad? Uh, YES. The ludicrous but lovable film was stupid in all the

Christmas Eve was spent with my family; Christmas with Ms. X’s. When we got home last night, I professed my desire to continue partying, just moments before falling unconscious for a literal half-day. When I woke up this morning, it was with the knowledge that Campari, eggnog and Patron

Today was nuts. We made a hundred stuffed mushrooms, and when I say “a hundred,” I don’t mean “a pile that looked like a hundred but was actually thirty.” I mean a literal HUNDRED stuffed mushrooms. I haven't chopped that much parsley since I needed hair for my life-sized edible

The 2013 Christmas season hasn’t been especially hot for weird food, but if you look hard enough, there are a few big time players. Like this one, for example. Post’s Pebbles cereal with a limited edition SUGAR COOKIE flavor. It looks good, it tastes good, and the box features Dino wea

Freezy Freakies. The one time I had any opinion at all about gloves. Made by Swany, they were decorated with everything ‘80s kids cared about, like robots and jets, and cute little animals. On that merit alone, they were destined for big things. 99% of gloves were boring, and if a child

Christmas Eve, 1988. I was nine years old. Our whole giant family spent most of the day in the dining room, like we always did on Christmas Eve. Actually, it wasn’t just the dining room. That dining room wouldn’t have fit even half of us. Instead, our regular table was joined by two fo

I’ve been absent for a few days, because, as it turns out, December just isn’t my month! Still, nothing can pull me out of a forced funk faster than a Friday the 13th happening during Christmastime. Thank you, Jason and Santa. Now my world is rosy again. Here’s another batch of Class

Take this house, for example. The lights were obviously handled by Professional Light People. This is the kind of family that makes you take your shoes off first. I imagine it being co-run by an aggressive power couple. I don’t think they have children, nor do I believe them to be hardco

Party like it's 1999 with Darth Maul, Bill Goldberg and Pikachu! From the pages of the 1999 Sears Wishbook, here are fifteen toys and gadgets that used to make the world go round.

I’d never tried one before, but I’ve been hearing about them for years. Apparently, Holiday Pies were discontinued at one point, or at least released in fewer states. Google searches will reveal a LOT of hysteria surrounding these pies.

Uh oh – it looks like a new CRANBERRY SODA has entertered the arena! I’m leaving “entered” misspelled because this was already a shitty opener. There it is. Sprite Cranberry. Joining mainstays like Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash and Cranberry Canada Dry, Sprite Cranberry’s arrival

Hot damn, I finally found it. Photographic evidence of that weird thing I did back in junior high. For several years, I used our family’s Christmas Eve party as an excuse to throw my own. Guests were encouraged away from the dinner table and into my bedroom, for a look at what I called T

I should be more excited about Christmas Crunch’s glorious return, but… Ho ho hum. They didn’t redesign the box. It’s exactly the same as last year’s. And last year’s was exactly the same as 2011’s. I’d buy Christmas Crunch even if they released it in plain paper bags, but

Remember when I went to Goodwill to find Halloween goodies? I thought it would be interesting to do the same for Christmas, so on Sunday, I went to that very same Goodwill store – the one with the stupid address that always makes my GPS explode. The results were… mixed.

It’s already December? How did that happen? Thanks to an unusually late Thanksgiving, it completely caught me by surprise. Now I’m panicking. It’s the month that flies by in a week! I’m two power naps away from January! Screw that. Renewing Dino Drac’s celebration of all things r

I bought a big pile of edible stocking stuffers. Most of you would probably avoid these, whether because they’re made of dried meat or because they’re actually meant for cats. Me? I don’t discriminate. I love all stocking stuffers. Here are 70-100 words about each.

Well, Thanksgiving kicked off with huge news. I’m sitting there watching a giant Kool-Aid Man roll by, and what does Matt Lauer announce? THE PENDING RETURN OF SHARKLEBERRY FIN. Oh my GOD. YESSSS! I’ll have more to say about this fantastic news later. This post is just meant to be

…that’s the short version. I won a giant gingerbread house. It’s huge, it’s delicate, and it smells so sincere. Good God, the smell! Glade might try to make it into an aerosol mist, but only the genuine articles smell like this. I won it from that Christmas fair. The one I’ve bee

No Christmas season is complete without THAT CHEESE. I don’t know if there’s an official term for it. They’re essentially hockey pucks made of cheese, rimmed with crushed almonds. I cannot remember a Christmas Eve without them. They sometimes appeared during Thanksgiving or even the

Right, like I was going to pass this up. “Capture the Kraang” is a clever spin on the old game where you use a little rod to yank fake fish out of a plastic pool. As the title suggests, they’ve replaced the fish with eight goddamned snapping Kraang.

If “Christmas” and “Pepperidge Farm Goldfish” both rank high on the list of things you adore, you are so unbelievably covered. We’ve seen Christmassy Goldfish before, but never this many at the same time. The only reasonable inference is that Pepperidge Farm Goldfish is the offic

I’m on a big project this week, which is eating my time and making me crazy, but at least temporarily funding my passion for cranberry-infused alcoholic beverages. SPEAKING OF WHICH… Today’s video is my review of Bud Light Lime’s “Cran-Brrr-Rita.” The margarita with a twist! Th

This year’s run of holiday junk food looks to be pretty fantastic. I’ve already spotted many great things, and not just repeats from last year, either. I’m talking about all NEW things. Leading the way is a special box of Christmassy Capri Sun! Capri Sun’s “Limited Time Holiday P

I took a few days to lose the post-Halloween doldrums, but now I’m back, and ready to talk about candy canes. Almost. Dino Drac’s 2013 Holiday Season has arrived, and with it, another swank logo courtesy of Jason Week. We’ll come up with something else for December, but a “Thanksgi