Christmas 2014

Happy 209th anniversary to the Treaty of Pressburg! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you had great Chinese food. Mine was the usual two-day marathon of TOO MUCH EVERYTHING. The holiday season was a little rough around the edges, but it ended

It’s almost Christmas Eve, and I have so much left to do. None of the presents are wrapped. Half of them haven’t even been purchased. There are mushrooms to stuff, clothes to wash, cookies to bake and hair to cut. So, like a big dumb idiot, I made one more Wish Book review the first

Oof. Christmas caught me by surprise this year, and I didn’t write nearly as often as I would’ve liked to. Can’t do anything about that now, so I’ll just try to make this an extra good one! Today we’re gonna look at some highlights from the 1985 JCPenney catalog, which was basica

Every Christmas, various department stores dedicate whole aisles to those super cheap “generic” toys. You know the kind. They always come in the same-style boxes, whether they’re sets of dominoes or princess baby dolls. Shown above is one example. The “Dinosaurs Play Set,” a 21-p

Welcome to what could be this year’s last batch of Classic Christmas Commercials, donated by our pal Larry. Tonight, you’ll see everything from a super capitalistic Santa to a giant apple pitching cheap underwear. Are you excited? Call Santa’s Hotline! (1987) I’ve seen at least

I know everyone’s giddy over the return of French Toast Crunch, but don’t forget about this one! Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch is the second of General Mills’s two new holiday-themed cereals. I covered Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp a few weeks ago, and as great as it was, I think this s

I’ve never been happier, and it’s all because of Santa Robot. I don’t know who was responsible for Santa Robot, nor do I have any hard evidence of when he’s from. (Though given the similarities to Tomy’s old battery-operated robots, it’s a safe bet that Santa Robot is from the

This holiday season is going way too fast. Before you know it, it’ll be big boring depressing January. Don’t waste what little time we have left! Do things! Do stupid things that are only okay to do at this time of year! I’m here to help. Tonight I’m gonna teach you how to make you

I scanned several pages from the December 1983 issue of Woman’s Day, and now I’m gonna write about them. I bet you didn’t see that one coming. Eh, you probably did. When I was tiny, my mother had many magazines just like this, filled with holiday recipes and gift guides and craft ide

The little-updated Features section has now been… uh, updated. So go read about Twelve Treasures from the 1989 Sears Wish Book! See everything from old Ghostbusters toys to a giant gaudy stereo system! Make a cup of coffee before you do, because this one is LONG. I was going to disal

Here are twelve treasures pulled from the pages of the 1989 Sears Wish Book, from Ghostbusters toys to Nintendo clothes and beyond! Relive your childhood with grainy scans and lots of words!

I’m back with another edition of Classic Christmas Commercials, once again donated by our friend Larry. This is a particularly great batch, featuring everything from Ghostbusters toys to wacky Chicken McNuggets, and if you’re lucky, extra cheap cologne. Hills “Christmas Toys Laya

(NOTE: Available in the United States only!) Okay folks, I’m ready to plug the hell out of Dino Drac’s Funpacks again! For those who don’t know, for 25 bucks each month, you’ll get a new box of random junk sent straight to your door, every month! (And yes, you can cancel at any tim

Just when you thought Dino Drac couldn’t get more obscure, here I am with a tribute to those old 7UP posters that let us glue cotton balls over Santa Claus’s face. During various holiday seasons of the ‘80s and ‘90s, people who bought enough 7UP soda scored free “Countdown to Ch

Perhaps inspired by their success during the Halloween season, General Mills is finally trying to muscle in on Christmas. And I’m totally good with that. The first of two super seasonal cereals (I’ll cover the second in a future post) is Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp. This is huge ne

Judging by what I’ve seen so far, the 2014 holiday season is going to be a great one for junk food lovers. Here’s some early proof! I rarely buy Triscuits anymore, but it’s only because I can’t be trusted around them. Like Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, they were one of my childhood com

Yeah, I’m really doing this. It’s too late to stop me. A Garfield Christmas is one of my favorite holiday specials. During its run on CBS, I watched it every year. To me, it was every bit as important as Charlie Brown’s thing, and for a time, I liked it even more. The bulk of

Every holiday season, I’m inspired to dig through my ancient recipe books, searching for meals and appetizers that haven’t been in fashion since before I was born. Why? I DON’T KNOW. No matter how this odd passion took form, it’s been a part of my holiday celebrations for as long